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Martin Luther King realized the validity of violence


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By the end of his life, Martin Luther King realized the validity of violence
The riots of 1967 changed how the great man saw the struggle

In the summer of 1967, Martin Luther King, Jr. was less than a year away from his death. It’s impossible to say if he knew this, but he must have felt something on the horizon. To be so black and so visible and so dangerous to the status quo for so long meant that the bullet was already on its way toward him. By then he had somewhat resigned himself to the idea of the riot as a necessary form of action.
Just a year earlier, in a tense 60 Minutes interview with Mike Wallace, he insisted that the vast majority of black people in America still honored nonviolent resistance as the best way forward, but acknowledged that a rising group in the black community was now advocating for violent resistance. This interview is where his famous “a riot is the language of the unheard” quote originated, citing the newfound urgency facing black people. Just a few sentences later, often left out of our retelling of the quote, King warned of violence in the coming summers while also holding fast to his hope for nonviolence. “I would say that every summer we’re going to have this kind of vigorous protest,” he told Wallace. “My hope is that it will be nonviolent. I would hope that we can avoid riots because riots are self-defeating and socially destructive. I would hope that we can avoid riots, but that we would be as militant and as determined next summer and through the winter as we have been this summer.”
The summer in question turned out to be the Long Hot Summer, and Martin Luther King found himself in an increasingly difficult position. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 felt to some like distant memories. Progress, especially when it is passed down by those in power to those who are not, can be blinding. The work of King’s civil rights movement was vital, but its successes may have obscured the fact that the root of the problem was impossible to pull up and dismantle: that the country was founded on the subjugation of the poor, the marginalized, the black.
King’s efforts towards moderation and a stern but willing hand to reach across the aisle to whites were increasingly at odds with the direction of the new resistance. He was right in 1966 about members of the black community turning to militant violence as a means of leveling the playing field, but he seemed then unwilling or unable to recognize their growing numbers and influence. Younger militants, buoyed by the earlier teachings of Malcolm X, assassinated just two years earlier, were moving themselves to the forefront of the national conversation around race and resistance.
There is something heartbreaking about watching one era bend itself as it begins to bow to another. King’s work was nowhere near finished in 1967, but the work he took on looked different. His eye was more globally tuned than it was before — vehemently speaking against the Vietnam War. He was focused on economic justice as well, laying the groundwork for what would become the Poor People’s Campaign. But in the urban areas that were being betrayed by the institutions that were supposed to uplift and protect them, urgency was high, and noise had to be made.

By the summer of that year, the country was on fire. Not all of it, of course — very specific pockets of it. Riots erupted in major cities: Detroit, Milwaukee, Buffalo, Cincinnati, Newark. It was the boiling over of a pot that had been simmering for the majority of the Sixties, first in the South and then rising upward and outward: a pushback against rampant police abuse and lack of affordable housing, a swelling resistance against urban renewal projects and economic inequality, and, most importantly, the rise of black militancy.
In September of 1967, Martin Luther King delivered a speech at the American Psychology Association’s annual convention in Washington, DC. Approaching his fortieth year, more than a decade removed from his most prominent battles and victories, this was King with the sun setting at his back. In the eyes of many he was the nominal leader of a movement that no longer followed him. And he was faced with the choice of whether to resist or submit to the growing momentum of a younger, more turbulent generation. It was his first speech since the bloody summer had come to a close, and he appeared to have evolved on the issue of rioting and looting. He now spoke of it as a necessary act, a stance which stood in contrast to his discussion of riots just a year earlier. He had been resigned to them as an inevitability, but now he was understanding them as a small measure of freedom.
“Urban riots must now be recognized as durable social phenomena,” he told the assembled crowd of mostly white doctors and academics. “They may be deplored, but they are there and should be understood. Urban riots are a special form of violence. They are not insurrections. The rioters are not seeking to seize territory or to attain control of institutions. They are mainly intended to shock the white community. They are a distorted form of social protest. The looting which is their principal feature serves many functions. It enables the most enraged and deprived Negro to take hold of consumer goods with the ease the white man does by using his purse. Often the Negro does not even want what he takes; he wants the experience of taking.”
...
6/22/2017, 1:53 am Link to this post PM Rigby5
 
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Re: Martin Luther King realized the validity of violence


Sorry, but I think nonviolence is a fantasy.
When the evil lose and have to give up power, they always pick the least violent or offensive to give it to, but that does not mean they are the ones who caused the evil to lose power.
Only violence ever causes any real change.
If the evil ones could be modified any other way, then they would not be evil in the first place.
What do you think Hitler or Kim Jong-un would do with nonviolent protesters?
6/22/2017, 1:56 am Link to this post PM Rigby5
 
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Re: Martin Luther King realized the validity of violence




Interesting animation on banking.
6/22/2017, 3:10 am Link to this post PM Rigby5
 
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Re: Martin Luther King realized the validity of violence


quote:

Rigby5 wrote:

Sorry, but I think nonviolence is a fantasy.
When the evil lose and have to give up power, they always pick the least violent or offensive to give it to, but that does not mean they are the ones who caused the evil to lose power.
Only violence ever causes any real change.
If the evil ones could be modified any other way, then they would not be evil in the first place.
What do you think Hitler or Kim Jong-un would do with nonviolent protesters?



I don't agree. In America violence may be needed but in more civilised societies they usually attain change by other means.
6/22/2017, 3:38 am Link to this post PM Yobbo
 
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Re: Martin Luther King realized the validity of violence


The peacemakers like king, Ghandi or Sadat often pay for it with their lives. Even Malcolm X who was becoming a man of peace was killed. Evil wins in part because the good are ineffectual and often indifferent. Their goals are noble but their flesh is weak. Evil will win in the short run but not in the long run. Where is Hitler, Paul Pot, Pablo Escobar, Al Capone, Caligula, and all the other demons of history. Defeated and dead!

---
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"libido sciendi"..... the passion to know.
6/22/2017, 10:50 am Link to this post PM Noserose
 
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Re: Martin Luther King realized the validity of violence


I think that Rigby (not for the first time) has been rather foolish with his source - "timeline" particularly when the quoted article was written by the "poetry editor" of a not very good source


Hanif Abdurraqib (born 1983) is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic. He is currently a columnist at MTV News, writing about music, culture, and identity.

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HAPPINESS, THE IGNOBLE LIFE GOAL OF THE ILLITERATE
6/22/2017, 11:40 am Link to this post PM mais oui Blog
 
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Re: Martin Luther King realized the validity of violence


Let's call this what it is; An excuse to kill, an excuse for Americans to arm themselves.

No doubt there are times when a peaceful protest will do absolutely nothing. The French were not going to drive out the Nazis by marching in the streets.

But many changes come about without violence. In fact, it it often the case that violence can interfere with reaching one's goal.

Those like MLK and Gandhi didn't advocate violence, but they knew violence would be used against them. Had King and Gandhi used violence, the response would have been more violence.


When it comes to MLK’s march on Washington, 60% [of white people ]had an unfavorable view of the march, stating that they felt it would cause violence and would not accomplish anything.
https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/public-opinion-on-civil-rights-reflections-on-the-civil-rights-act-of-1964/

In other words, just the thought that an act by MLK might cause violence provoked negative opinions. Imagine if MLK had called for and carried out acts of violence.

---
“I do not believe in the general promiscuous toting of guns. I think it should be sharply restricted and only under licenses.” - NRA president Karl T. Frederick, 1938
6/22/2017, 3:55 pm Link to this post PM John1959 Blog
 
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Re: Martin Luther King realized the validity of violence


quote:

Yobbo wrote:

quote:

Rigby5 wrote:

Sorry, but I think nonviolence is a fantasy.
When the evil lose and have to give up power, they always pick the least violent or offensive to give it to, but that does not mean they are the ones who caused the evil to lose power.
Only violence ever causes any real change.
If the evil ones could be modified any other way, then they would not be evil in the first place.
What do you think Hitler or Kim Jong-un would do with nonviolent protesters?



I don't agree. In America violence may be needed but in more civilised societies they usually attain change by other means.




The greed machine also bypasses the less civilized as well, because they only bother with where the most money can be made.
Places like New Zealand have not been left alone because they are more "civilized", but because they don't represent enough profits to bother about.
But rest assured that eventually they will get around to places like New Zealand eventually.
And violence is the only thing that can stop them.
6/22/2017, 4:48 pm Link to this post PM Rigby5
 
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Re: Martin Luther King realized the validity of violence


You are forgetting that just because the powers that be leave alone a smaller country does not mean they don't have the same issues or that it can't turn into a civil war. With NZ you can take the Maoris' not that there still isn't problems but they started solving them in the 1800's by social justice and when there were protests of past grievances in the 60's-70's by Maori's affirmative action was introduced. My white friends in NZ when they were growing up were taught Maori history in school and them being "people of the land." They also taught to speak Maori. Greed takes over many of those less civilized countries as well, Africa was raped by whites.
6/22/2017, 5:05 pm Link to this post PM katie5445 Blog
 
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Re: Martin Luther King realized the validity of violence


quote:

Noserose wrote:

The peacemakers like king, Ghandi or Sadat often pay for it with their lives. Even Malcolm X who was becoming a man of peace was killed. Evil wins in part because the good are ineffectual and often indifferent. Their goals are noble but their flesh is weak. Evil will win in the short run but not in the long run. Where is Hitler, Paul Pot, Pablo Escobar, Al Capone, Caligula, and all the other demons of history. Defeated and dead!




I think you have it backwards.
WWII was not caused by Hitler, but by the global internationalists who selected Hitler as their scapegoat. Pol Pot died of old age in 1998. Gangsters have increased, not decreased. Caligula is what not only Rome was for over 400 years, but what the US is today really.
Not a one of the demons of history has ever been defeated, because the real power was always in the background, and we just saw what they wanted us to see. They set up puppets like Saddam or Qaddafi, and then play them as evil when they want to look like heroes.
The reality is that it is those who killed people like Saddam and Qaddafi who are the real threat, and they are firmly entrenched because we are too stupid to even realize they are the evil ones.

Ever wonder why and how the US sneaked into Pakistan to assassinate Osama ben Laden?
Makes no sense at all, since we obviously knew where he was and he could not have been living there so long without the knowledge of the Pakistanis.
So clearly he could have been arrested at any time, and the SEAL team could easily have used gas, dart guns, tasers, etc.
The goal was to ensure he did not talk to the public or even have a body.
The whole thing is obviously a lie that is being told to us backwards from the truth.

When someone claims that nonviolence is so wonderful, that obviously is just a ploy.
Makes no sense at all.
It not only can't possibly ever work, but has no nobility in it at all, as it means tolerance of evil.
6/22/2017, 5:06 pm Link to this post PM Rigby5
 


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