Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) planned a Poor People’s Campaign for May 1968 to demand jobs, unemployment insurance, a fair minimum wage, affordable housing, and education for poor adults and children, an Economic Bill of Rights. The effort was to involve poor people of all races from all parts of the country, urban and rural, but the historical roots of racial economic disparity could not be ignored:
Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) planned a Poor People’s Campaign for May 1968 to demand jobs, unemployment insurance, a fair minimum wage, affordable housing, and education for poor adults and children, an Economic Bill of Rights. The effort was to involve poor people of all races from all parts of the country, urban and rural, but the historical roots of racial economic disparity could not be ignored:
“Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.”
— Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Addressing the Medical Committee for Human Rights
Chicago, 1966
Image source: Library of Congress.
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August 28th will mark the 47th anniversary of Rev. Martin Luther King’s “March on Washington.” To commemorate this landmark of nonviolence and the martyred moral leader, media demagogue Glenn Beck and the National Rifle Association will throw a party. It will be in the same place as the 1963 march: the Lincoln Memorial, shrine to an American president who was shot to death.
Instead of Dr. King, the mob will hear consummate orator Sarah Palin; instead of singer Marian Anderson, the music of noted patriot and guitarist Ted Nugent. What could be more respectful or fitting?
On Monday, January 19th, from noon to 10 PM, musicians will celebrate the memory and dream of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as they have for several decades, with an annual jam session at Howard University. Blues and jazz musicians from the DC area and visitors on tour will stop by to perform, listen, remember, and share. This expression of energy and harmony is always one of the most profound musical experiences of this day.
This year’s historic inauguation means a change of venue from Blackburn Center to historic Rankin Chapel. The context and setting will both contribute meaning to this extraordinary, heart-felt event. Drop by this free event. Experience the living expression of Dr. King’s legacy and America’s cultural vitality.
King Holiday Jazz Jam Session
Monday, January 19, 2009, Noon to 10 PM
Andrew Rankin Memorial Chapel, Howard University
2400 6th St NW
Washington, DC 20059
Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
It’s pitchforks and torches outside the genteel U.S. Commission of Fine Arts; Revolution is in the air. That will teach federal agencies to attempt art history lessons for the masses.
The Washington, DC Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial project has entered a new phase of its troubled history. The Commission oversees art and architecture in much of the District of Columbia, and is the guardian of the Tidal Basin site reserved for the King statue. Michael E. Ruane’s front-page article in today’s Washington Post alerted the proletariat that the Commission’s April 17th meeting reviewed the latest statue design and found its “Socialist Realist” style and “colossal scale” to be “unfortunate and inappropriate.” On-line comments on the Post article indicate that many readers are unaware of the Stalinist and totalitarian origins and associations of the style.
There is some commotion because the sculptor executing Washington’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial is the Chinese artist Lei Yixin.
Lei Yixin is obviously a talented, world-renowned artist. Was his design vetted by peer review and found to be more moving and appropriate than that of other applicants? It appears so.
Questioning Lei Yixin’s fitness for this task due to his ethnic origin is beneath contempt and unworthy of further discussion. But it would be troubling if the under-funded Memorial organization is using a Chinese foundry to save a few dollars, with results not equal to those of a US art foundry.
There is a more fundamental issue. I remember a bronze statue of Gandhi that was planned for, as I recall, Mississippi. One of Gandhi’s descendants was asked what the Mahatma would have thought about it. His response: Gandhi would have hated it. He would have preferred investment in programs to help the poor become self-sufficient. I think Dr. King would have made the same choice.
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