Public Enemy Number One

It's 11:34 PM, Monday, January 16, 2006. It is the third Monday of the month. This is the commemoration of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday. I have been aware the entire day that it is King's Day. I'm just at loss as to what to say. All day I've had Run DMC's "King Holiday" lyrics in my head. I am pondering why we remember King as the man with a dream rather than America's number one threat as he was referred to during the late fifties and sixties. We remember King for his good works, not the work that culminated in his assassination. Why is it that all of the pictures I've seen today have been of King at the Lincoln Monument or King speaking, but not his mugshot?

Martin Luther King was a criminal. We forget that. He was observed, followed, and wire-tapped by the CIA and FBI. He was labeled a communist. We forget these things in our efforts to say that racism is dead. We omit these things from our collective cultural memories in order to forget the atrocities under which black people lived and continue to live. We give King laud in order to take away the power of current Black leaders to forget the racist schema that orders our social context, our thoughts, our institutions. We love to kindly remember King as a friend to Civil Rights not public enemy number one as he was considered during Civil Right Movement.


It seems as though while we remember King's birthday, we forget Emmett Till's murder.



While thinking of King's contributions, we do not have to confront the countless numbers of men and women, both black and white who suffered in the name of Civil Rights...



...who gave the ultimate sacrifice so that we could achieve some semblance of equality.



Those innocents upon which the Movement was built. The youngsters who gave King something to preach about.



So as this day comes to an end, I am plagued. Does this day serve as the remembrance of a man or the countless names and faces that help cast the man we remember today? In remembering King, we-all of us-must take time to remember that this day does not mark the end of racism, but the conscious acknowledgement of racism. We recognize the atrocities that black people have suffered since their involuntary introduction to the United States.



The memories that haunt us and force us to remember...



Today, I ask myself what does this day mean? How is it truly any different from any other day? We mourn the loss of King but seemingly forget the others who sacrificed, died, lost, suffered, fought, killed, cried, walked, marched, loved, sat-in, stood up, sang alongside, signed, voted, were beaten and spit upon, were raped, didn't get up, didn't give up, kept going, bought into, embraced non-violence, and believed in King, in their mission, in equality.

Humbly, thankfully, graciously, and deliberately I take their charge, wishing for and working toward peace and equality on this day and those to come. This is a daily struggle, a daily commitment. Lest we forget, any day is a good day to remember, every day is a good day to fight. This is King's legacy, this is his gift...in fact, his dream.