Direct Action Must Be Remembered As Part of Dr. King's Legacy

[BelgianMadCow]

FORD: Well, Dr. King was involved in a whole range of activities in the five years that separated the March on Washington and his assassination. And yet these years have been excised. It's kind of like an assassination, a stealing of his life, a putting a cap on it, ending, somehow, in 1963, very conveniently. Dr. King was part of the changes of the '60s, but he was also changed by them, not necessarily changed in terms of his internal makeup, his worldview, but in terms of the range of topics that he as a Baptist minister thought that he could address.

So everybody's familiar with the "I Have a Dream" speech. It's almost anodyne. But back in 1959--I'm going to read something to you that Dr. King wrote in a presentation. This is a dream that he had four years before his "I Have a Dream" speech. He says he has "a dream of equality of opportunity, of privilege and property widely distributed; a dream of a land where men will not take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few". Now, that's the kind of dream that has application in today's world and in today's politics.

from the transcript.

[Jack Rabbit]

1. This is very important

In his concluding remarks, Mr. Ford talks of how many people today do not understand what direct action means. We will have to learn it all over again as the ugly face of class privilege is seen again and the very wealthy seek to impoverish and oppress the teaming underclass of humanity though legislation assaulting the right of citizens to vote and trade agreements assaulting the right of workers to organize for better wages and safe workplaces or the right of communities to a clean, healthy environment.