You’ve probably heard people make comparisons between the United States in
States in the 1960s... "Get out of that pool!"
and the U.S. today. "Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!" "Black lives matter!
There’ve been street protests, a spotlight on policing and a national discussion about race, equality and equity.
Today, more than ever, we see pundits and politicians using the legacy of the civil rights movement and
and its icons as fodder to criticize social movements ... like Black Lives Matter. "That's
the whole message that I think Dr. King had to present, and I think he would be
appalled that we are elevating some lives above others.”
Jeffrey Lord: “Think of President Trump as the Martin Luther King of healthcare.”
Symone Sanders: “Oh, Jeffrey, Jeffrey.” What happens when people neuter the
legacy of  the civil rights movement and then use
that sanitized version to critique
today's activism? . I’m Imaeyen. And today
AJ+ we’re exploring the true history of the civil rights era, and how
the people we lionize – like MLK, Rosa Parks and Muhammad Ali –
were much bolder, riskier and threatening to the power dynamic
than we’ve been taught.
We’ve basically been getting a PG version of the civil rights movement. “The
men who organized the rally walked with springing steps toward the speaker stand.”
“They moved with good humor, laughter and song.” So much of the civil rights movement
looked more this: tense, violent and life-threatening.
And the go-to face when we talk about this time is Martin Luther King Jr.’s.
The reverend is arguably the movement’s most well-known leader. But
But the truth is that he was just one person in a movement with differing ideologies for achieving
racial justice and equity – goals that relied heavily on the work and
and sacrifices of black women, whose contributions have been largely
overlooked. We’ll talk more about that a little later. For now, you should know
that Martin Luther King Jr. was much more than a symbol for nonviolence.
And his efforts weren’t warmly received or supported by the nation’s majority, as
as Professor John Powell explains: “Dr. King, when he was alive, was extremely
unpopular. People were against most of his marches. Even the church was against
him. So he was going into very strong headwinds.” While today the majority of
Americans say they believe the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a good thing, at
the time it didn’t have much support from the masses. A 1963 Gallup Poll
found 60% of Americans had an unfavorable view of Martin Luther King Jr.’s
March on Washington. That’s where he delivered his historic “I Have a Dream” speech.
You know, the one we so often honor today and use to emphasize the
the United States’ ideals. King’s speeches were way more radical than we choose to
remember. In fact, he was working on a sermon called
“Why America May Go to Hell” the day he died. And King’s low approval rating was
not only because he was so critical of the way society functions, but also that
he was part of a larger movement, registering black voters and organizing
sit-ins at segregated restaurants. None of which were the “right” way to advocate
for these causes, according to critics. If that criticism sounds familiar to you,
it’s because pundits have used the same critiques about the Black Lives
Matter movement. And sometimes they even invoke King’s memory to do the work.
For example, Alex Jones’ program posted a segment called “MLK Supports Trump from the Grave.”
King’s legacy is so closely tied with politics that an important point
often gets misplaced in our collective memory of him: his critique of capitalism.
In a letter to his wife, Coretta, he wrote,
This was not isolated to one letter, either. King often spoke about how alleviating poverty
was important to the fight for justice. For example, in 1965 at Ebenezer Baptist Church in
Atlanta he said,
But when we put his Washington “I Have a Dream” speech on repeat, it’s easy to
forget all the ways he fought against injustices on multiple fronts.
He was also against the Vietnam War and U.S. imperialism. He once said that the U.S. government
was the “greatest purveyor of violence in the world today” and compared the war in
Vietnam to the German concentration camps. “The Reverend Martin Luther King was a social
justice religious worker, a warrior for radical justice and inclusion. When people
say this is an extreme position, he would say it's OK to be extreme if you're extreme in favor
favor of love.” And let’s not forget the end to this story.
Because Martin Luther King did actually
die for what he believed in.
He threatened the status quo to the extent that he was assassinated.
Another important figure in the civil rights movement, and one of the few recognized women,
is Rosa Parks. She’s widely described in the media like this:  “Through her quiet elegance..."
“This quiet 42-year-old...” “Rosa Parks. An everyday American that changed the course of history.”
The Rosa Parks story is often told as if it were an … accident. That a coincidental chain of events –
her being tired after a long day of work, her fatigue leading unexpectedly to her arrest –
led to the desegregation of the bus system. This was no accident. She was not just a woman who was
simply weary and on her way home from work. She was not just a seamstress.
“There's sort of a false image of a woman. She's quiet, diminutive, you know, she's a little
bit timid. That's not who she was. She was a fighter. She was fierce.”And guess what?
That historic photo of her on the bus is staged.
Rumors were being spread of Parks being a Communist and a Mexican.
Depicting her as a fragile, everyday woman was a way for organizers to
get the public to sympathize with her experience, since an outspoken black
activist would have been a harder pill to swallow. That’s all-star PR. Parks was an activist.
She worked for the NAACP for years and investigated
investigated sexual assaults of black people by white men. Her bus protest was deliberate.
It was part of an ongoing effort to desegregate the bus system. Not only was
Parks not the only person to refuse to move from her seat, it was also not the
the first time she had done so. The very same driver that had her arrested had kicked her off his bus before.
off his bus before. And after that famous bus protest, she continued her political activism for decades.
We’ve talked about faces synonymous with the civil rights movement.
But there’s one man who some don’t recognize for his
dedication to equality and equity. Muhammad Ali literally gave up the best
best boxing years of his career, and what the nation remembers is a whitewashed
version of the world’s most influential athlete. “Muhammad Ali is remembered today,
I think, with his political teeth largely extracted. People speak about him in
terms of being this figure of reconciliation. Almost like a Buddha-type figure,
someone whose silent aura, people, particularly white people, feel
good about themselves. But the Ali that became revered in the latter years of his
life was a much different Ali than the one from his height.
The younger Ali spoke openly, boldly, loudly about the experience of being a
black man in a racist society, about being a Muslim and about his strong beliefs
on injustices throughout the country.
“Since we helped build America to be – 50 of the richest states in America,
fought all the American wars to help maintain and uphold the government, why not should
we have some of the land where we can build and construct?” Quite simply, he made
lots of people, especially white people, really uncomfortable.
He said he changed his name from Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali to denounce
the oppression white Christian culture has had on black people. Like Martin Luther
King, he vehemently opposed the Vietnam War. He was sentenced to five years in
prison for saying no to the draft – a sentence that was later overturned. But he
lost his boxing license because of it.  “My conscience don’t let me go shoot my brother, or some
darker people, or some poor hungry people in the mud. Shoot them
them for what them for what? They never called me n*gger, they never lynched me, they never
robbed me of my nationality, raped, killed my mother and father.” Ali retired in
in 1981, but he really wasn't embraced by mainstream America until he lit the torch
at the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympic Games. At that point, he was an older man –
with Parkinson's disease and showing 
 symptoms.
"The mainstream media and politicians like Bill Clinton and Orrin Hatch only embraced Muhammad Ali
lost the power of speech. And once he wasn't able to use the gift of gab to
decry U.S. empire, to speak out for Palestinian rights – which is something he
believed in very strongly – once he was unable to do that, then this incredibly
popular person was free for them to embrace. America found it easy to love Ali
once he was silenced. So what does that mean for the future of Colin Kaepernick?
So why is it important to remember King was critical of capitalism, Parks was no ordinary seamstress and Ali
wasn’t beloved by the majority in his prime? Because by uplifting them as
sanitized icons, we’re able to ignore the great racial disparities that continue
to exist today. Understanding what these icons stood for helps contextualize the
the commitment many of our generation's leaders and movements are making today.
“I think what the politicians and the elites actually figured out toward
the late '60s, early '70s, , is that we can coopt the civil rights movement. We can
embrace King but still maintain segregated schools, for example, segregated
neighborhoods. We can still maintain segregated boardrooms.”
