Tag Archives: MLK

Letter to the American People

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Here is Jim Douglass’s “Letter to the American People,” which is good to read today on the 50th Anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He was one of only three journalists who attended the whole four week trial in 1999, which found that MLK was murdered as the result of a conspiracy that involved the U.S. government.

“What I experienced in that courtroom ranged from inspiration at the courage of the Kings, their lawyer-investigator William F. Pepper, and the witnesses, to amazement at the government’s carefully interwoven plot to kill Dr. King. The seriousness with which U.S. intelligence agencies planned the murder of Martin Luther King Jr. speaks eloquently of the threat Kingian nonviolence represented to the powers that be in the spring of 1968…Thirty-two years after Memphis, we know that the government that now honors Dr. King with a national holiday also killed him. As will once again become evident when the Justice Department releases the findings of its ‘limited re-investigation’ into King’s death, the government (as a footsoldier of corporate power) is continuing its cover-up – just as it continues to do in the closely related murders of John and Robert Kennedy and Malcolm X.”

JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters

Jim Douglass

 

 

Speech Given at MLK 25th Anniversary

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For the speech: click here Martin Luther King, Jr. Who is your God_-1

Friends,

I delivered at 6 P.M. at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, TN on April 4, 1993, the twenty-fifth anniversary of the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. at 6 P.M. at the Lorraine Motel on April 4, 1968. The talk was an attempt to reverse what had become a prominent trend when discussing Martin Luther King, Jr. over the previous decade, namely, the systematic minimizing, downplaying, ignoring and disparaging of the absolute centrality of nonviolence in his life and work. It was as if, even those devoted to him and his work, as well as those who desired him to be a patron saint of their peace and justice cause, wanted no part of the essential dimension that nonviolence held in all his programs and pursuits of peace and justice. In this amnesia inducing process, Dr. King’s historical memory was beginning to mirror the historical memory of Jesus, that is, he was becoming a person with a multitude of admirers and fans, most of whom wanted no part the nonviolent love of friends and enemies that was axial to his whole existence. However, Martin Luther King, Jr. without his total and unreserved commitment to nonviolence to the very end of his life is not Martin Luther King, Jr., any more than Jesus is Jesus without His total and unreserved commitment to nonviolence to the very end of His life.

My address at the Lorraine Motel on April 4, 1968, seemingly had no effect in stopping the systematic presentation of Dr. King with little or no reference to the all encompassing place nonviolence actually held in his life and in his social justice efforts. Yet, here are the words of Martin himself:

“In recent months several people have said to me: ‘Since violence is the new cry, isn’t there a danger you will lose touch with the people and be out of step with the times if you don’t change your views on nonviolence?’ My answer is always the same. Occasionally in life one develops a conviction so precious and meaningful that he will stand on it till the end. That is what I have found in nonviolence.  I’m committed to nonviolence absolutely. I am just not going to kill anybody, whether it’s in Vietnam or here…The  stage of history is replete with the chants and choruses of the conquerors who came killing in pursuit of peace.”

A violence endorsing Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. is as absurd as a violence endorsing Jesus. Fundamental human integrity, decency and honesty insist that a truth for which Martin and Jesus daily and ultimately laid down their lives should not be calculatingly bracketed out of the memory of their lives by those who are the institutional gatekeepers for preserving the remembrance of them. But if the gatekeepers of their memory are self-serving deceivers via deliberate omission, then the individual person must speak clearly the truth, that nonviolence was pivotal to and irremovable from each of their lives. He or she may not have the bull horns that an institution has at it disposal. But he or she has power. The power of saying that 1+1= 2  to those who are trying to double cross humanity by saying 1+1= 5. They have the power of truth.

Take a moment and consider the attached reflection on Martin Luther King, Jr. from twenty-five years ago on this day. It might be helpful in clarifying the place of nonviolence in some life and death matters that are universal to humanity—including you and me.

-Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

 

Jim Douglass on MLK Assassination

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“When I began to become acquainted with Dr. King’s assassination, which changed my life in many ways when it occurred, when I began to explore the details of his assassination and understood that he was killed by the United States government, then I began to ask questions, well, how does that relate to John Kennedy’s assassination or Robert Kennedy’s and then eventually Malcolm X as well, and I found the same patterns in all four of them but especially the same patterns in us, and I talk about myself personally and I’m talking about a collective reality, the way we see things in this country, and I began to realize there’s an extraordinary denial in us as a people when it come to dealing with a question of systemic evil within our system right here in much more profound ways than anybody on the Left, for example, is going to acknowledge any more than any of the rest of us are going to acknowledge. When it comes to the Central Intelligence Agency being engaged in assassinations abroad many people will acknowledge that. When it comes to them doing exactly the same thing in this country, that’s another thing. We don’t want to deal with that.” — Jim Douglass

“Thou, Dear God”

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“Thou, Dear God, Prayers That Open Hearts and Spirits,” by Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Thou, Dear God” is the first and only collection of sixty-eight prayers by Martin Luther King, Jr. Arranged thematically in six parts–with prayers for spiritual guidance, special occasions, times Thou Dear godof adversity, times of trial, uncertain times, and social justice–Baptist minister and King scholar Lewis Baldwin introduces the book and each section with short essays. Included are both personal and public prayers King recited as a seminarian, graduate student, preacher, pastor, and, finally, civil rights leader, along with a special section that reveals the biblical sources that most inspired King. Collectively they illustrate how King turned to private prayer for his own spiritual fulfillment and to public prayer as a way to move, inspire, and reaffirm a quest for peace and social justice. With a foreword by Rev. Dr. Julius R. Scruggs, it is the perfect gift for people and leaders of all faiths, and an invaluable resource for spiritual individuals and those who lead worship.