Merv Griffin Show: Martin Luther King (1967)

Source:Merv Griffin Show– Dr. Martin L. King in 1967.

Source:The New Democrat

“Merv Griffin Interview with Martin Luther King, Jr.”

From St. Stephen Church

One of the things I respect most about Dr. Martin L. King is that even though he must have had a lot of at least inside anger because of all the racism and racial discrimination that he and the African-American community endured in this period, that because he had so much class, intelligence, and was such a peaceful man, that he generally did not show it. And instead used his intelligence based on the facts to bring so many people of multiple races behind his cause.

Instead of using his anger and dividing the country even further, Dr. King was a true leader and used whatever anger he must felt in a positive sense as a motivator to stay on course and move his movement in the right direction. And get the people behind him to accomplish his goals. And this was from people of multiple races and not just of African and European descent. But people of all races behind him.

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SPOT-TV: Stevie Wonder’s Happy Birthday to Martin Luther King

This post was originally posted at The New Democrat

I can’t think of someone more qualified to sing Happy Birthday to our most effective and greatest American. At least when it comes to equal rights in America and applying our United States Constitution and the constitutional rights that we all have as Americans and applying the principles of our Founding Fathers to all Americans equally than Stevie Wonder singing Happy Birthday to of course the late, but still great the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King.

There will be plenty of more posts on this blog in the future about what the rest of the life of Dr. Martin L. King could’ve looked like. Had he been able to live a normal life at least as far as years. But what we would’ve seen is phase two of his national campaign for equality and justice in America. The Poor People’s Campaign would’ve had a real agenda and policy initiatives behind it that was sort of dropped after he was assassinated that would’ve moved onto into the 1970s. Giving millions of Americans a very good idea of what Dr. King’s complete political brain would’ve looked like.

About MLK’s birthday today keep in mind he would’ve been eighty-five today had he lived. And not saying he would’ve still been alive today had he not have been assassinated, but a lot of men in his generation are not only still alive in their eighties, but a lot of them are still working as well. And it is very likely he still would’ve been a major political force at least into his seventies. Had he not have been assassinated in 1968, or not have been assassinated at all.

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The Young Turks: ‘Martin Luther King Was a Republican?’

Source:The Young Turks– Dr. Martin L. King was a Republican. Also in the news: Reverend’s Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, have both come out in favor of same-sex marriage. And have announced they’ve been in love with each other for years. LOL

Source:FreeState MD

“Many people talk about the “fact” that King was a Republican. It is asserted incessantly by conservatives on Twitter and elsewhere on the internet, especially in the lead up to today’s 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. The claim is most prominently advanced by King’s niece, Republican activist Alveda King. Over the years, conservative groups have purchased billboards making the claim. Second, Martin Luther King Jr. was not a Republican. Or a Democrat. King was not a partisan and never endorsed any political candidate…”.* Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian, John Iadarola (host of TYT University and Common Room), and Dave Rubin (host of The Rubin Report) break it down on The Young Turks.”

From The Young Turks

Pre-1964 or so I could see why Martin King was a Republican. Lets face it, the GOP was home to an overwhelming amount of African-Americans. Because of the Civil War, the freeing of the African slaves, Abraham Lincoln, etc. And then go up to the 1950s and 60s, which party is the civil rights party? The Republican Party and their Northern Progressives, especially in Congress. Who without the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the 1968 Fair Housing Law doesn’t pass. Those laws would’ve not of passed in the House and Senate without Northern and Midwestern Progressive and Conservative Republicans. Like Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen.

Ideologically except for civil rights, its hard to imagine how MLK would’ve fit into the Republican Party. They did have a progressive faction, but that was about civil rights, infrastructure, environmental protection and to a certain extent the safety net for people who truly needed it. But MLK was much more social democratic in nature, especially economically and when it came to civil rights and racial equality in general. And he was a dove and non-interventionist when it came to foreign policy and national security. And consistently spoke out against the size of the American defense budget and our involvement oversees. But without putting down American serviceman and women. Unlike the New Left of the late 1960s.

I can’t imagine Dr. King as a Republican or Democrat back then and perhaps not today. Today I could see him putting down Democrats as giving up on the poor and less-fortunate over things like Welfare to Work. And not doing enough to address the income gap and eliminate what he and others see as the Military Industrial Complex and Prison Industrial Complex. If Dr. King were a Democrat today, he would’ve been a member of the Progressive Caucus and perhaps one of the leaders of Occupy Wall Street, or creating his own social democratic movement. Or perhaps not a Democrat at all and a member of the Green Party or Democratic Socialists USA. He was very Left on economic policy and when it came to national security as well, for a lot of center-left Democrats.

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The Young Turks: Cenk Uygur- Bill O’Reilly: ‘The Truth About Martin Luther King Jr.’

Source:The Young Turks– Bill giving The O’Reilly Finger to Dr. Martin L. King.

Source:FreeState MD

“Bill O’Reilly used the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr’s I Have A Dream speech to attack African Americans and claim that MLK was pro-right wing. The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur breaks it down.”

From The Young Turks

So I guess you couldn’t have your own cable talk show, if you weren’t also a psychic and mindreader. Because apparently Bill O’Reilly has some super ability to go into dead people’s minds and read what they would think 45 years after their death. Which is apparently that Bill O’Reilly was doing about Dr. Martin Luther King. A man by the way, that Mr. O’Reilly never even met, let was able to ever talk too.

I don’t know where Bill O’Reilly gets the 75% of African-American babies being born out-of-wedlock. But he does have a point about the state of the current African-American community. And would have problems with it and disagreements with the community. And would want to see more done so this community doesn’t have more poverty, less education, fewer fathers in the households, more crime and murders and people in prison than the rest of the country as a whole.

But I guess it wouldn’t be The O’Reilly Finger, I mean Factor, if Billy wasn’t just stating the obvious and emphasizing the negative. Fifty-years after the I Have a Dream speech, fewer African-Americans now live in poverty, more go to school and finish school, graduate from college, live in the middle class. African-Americans. Still not doing as well as Caucasians, as well as Asians, regardless of ethnicity, and perhaps Latinos, again regardless of race or ethnicity. And that is still the challenge for this community to come to par with the rest of the country and not have negative statistics that are twice the average of the entire country.

To accomplish this, more African-Americans and Americans in general in poverty, need to go to good schools, finish school, further their education, not have kids until they’re personally and financially ready to take care of them and then actually raise their kids. And this get to men in the community that are man enough to create babies and life, but not man enough to raise their own kids. And leave that to the mother who isn’t doing very well herself, yet ready to raise kids all by herself.

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ABC News: Special Report- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Assassination- April 4th, 1968

Source:ABC News– ABC News Special Report, covering the assassination of Dr. Martin L. King.

Source:The Daily Journal

“Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., mortal shooting of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., the most prominent leader of the American civil rights movement, on April 4, 1968, as he stood on the second floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, where he had come to lead a march by striking sanitation workers. In response to King’s death, more than 100 American inner cities exploded in rioting, looting, and violence. James Earl Ray, a career small-time criminal who became the object of a more than two-month manhunt before he was captured in England, pled guilty to the shooting and received a 99-year prison sentence. He quickly recanted his plea and spent the rest of his life claiming that he had been framed by a conspiracy that was really responsible for King’s assassination.”

From Britannica

“April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King Jr. Assassinated”

From ABC News

The assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King the leader of the American civil rights movement, was tragic for so many reasons. But the biggest reason why it was so tragic because of the time he died and what left he had to contribute not just to the African-American community, but the American community in general. Because at 39 and with everything he had to accomplish he still had a lot more to accomplish. Which would’ve started with the upcoming poor peoples march and the poor people’s movement.

The Poor People’s Campaign, had an opportunity to be a real campaign against poverty that would seek to actually end poverty. And not just create new programs to help people live in poverty, but actually empower people to get themselves out of poverty. Through things like education and job training and really going past the New Deal and Great Society. Not saying that this movement would’ve developed like this had Dr. King survived. But had he and Senator Robert F. Kennedy survived, this movement would’ve had an opportunity to develop.

Unfortunately as it turned out, Dr. King, didn’t die from some illness he had picked up. Or from some crazy person out their mind who probably should’ve been in a mental hospital. But he was killed by an escaped convict, a lost soul who had absolutely nothing going right in his life. Who was a career criminal and a loner who was simply looking to be noticed.

To paraphrase Dan Rather from CBS News: “Dr. King, wasn’t even murdered by a professional assassin, or a mobster hit man. James Earl Ray, was at best professional thief. Who wasn’t even very good at that and had been in and out of prison most of his life.”

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NBC News: Meet The Press- Dr. Martin Luther King in (1965)

Source:NBC News– Dr. Reverend Martin L. King, on NBC News Meet The Press, in 1965.

Source:The Daily Journal

“On March 28, 1965, Martin Luther King, Jr. appeared on NBC’s Meet The Press to discuss his historic five-day march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama…

One week after leading, King said that the demonstration was necessary not just to help push the Voting Rights Bill through, but to draw attention to the humiliating conditions in Alabama such as police brutality and racially-motivated murder.”

From NBC News

Dr. Martin Luther King and his movement, wasn’t marching for the exercise, or the fresh air of it. But they were marching for freedom and to have the same constitutional rights and freedom as Americans who were born in America, as any other American that they already had under the U.S. Constitution. But weren’t getting their constitutional rights enforced equally under law as European-Americans and that is what they were marching for for equal rights and equal treatment under law and were very successful with their movement.

African-Americans, in the 1960s, were marching for their freedom that every other American had under the U.S. Constitution, but under law as well. That government discriminating against people based on race like forcing people to go to poor schools and sit in the back of the bus and not be able to eat at certain restaurants, being denied the right to vote and so-forth, was simply unconstitutional. And that they were mad as hell (to paraphrase a certain great actor and movie) and weren’t going to take it anymore and were going to fight back in a non-violent manner.

1964-65 was the Martin L. King’s wing of the civil rights movement’s peak, when they were at the top of their game (so to speak) and were pushing the ball and on the offensive with the anti-equal rights supporters on the defensive at every point in the courts, in the media, and even in Congress.

With the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act after those two laws were passed, the MLK movement sort of went off in different directions and talking about the Vietnam War and other issues. Instead of putting the full focus on equal rights and fighting poverty.

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Union Solidarity: Dr. Martin L. King- ‘On Labor, Wealth and Inequality’

Source:Union Solidarity– Dr. Martin L. King talking about what’s called economic justice in 1968.

Source:The Daily Journal

“Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on Labor, Wealth and Justice”

From Union Solidarity

Economic policy, is the part of Dr. Martin L. King’s message that I disagree with. And where he was lacking, because he sort of took this social democratic view that came out of the New Deal, or Great Society that judged what we were doing to help the middle class and low-income people based on how much we spent on them. The theory being: “That if we spend a lot of money to reduce poverty, that poverty will go away, because we’ll have all of these government programs to take care of people.”

I mean, if you listen to this video, you’ll see clip from one of his speeches where he says: “We now have the resources that we need to wipeout poverty”. You could spend a trillion dollars a year in America, or anywhere else to reduce poverty and right now the United States is not that far from that and you’ll still have poverty in this country, if that money is not being spent to empower people to get themselves out of poverty. Because government no mater what it spends, or any private organization for that matter, can’t get people out of poverty by themselves. The people in poverty have to do that for themselves. What government and the private sector can do is empower people to get themselves out of poverty.

I love both men (you know, platonically) but where I give Malcolm X an advantage over Dr. King is when it came to economics. Minister X’s message was about education and self-reliance when it came to economic policy. Economically, Minister X was closer to Barry Goldwater than Lyndon Johnson, or Franklin Roosevelt. He wanted to empower the African-American community to get themselves the tools that they needed to be economically independent, self-reliant in life, making it on their own.

I give Reverend King the edge when it came to the civil rights movement. Because without the message of non-violence, the civil rights movement would’ve never have gotten as far as it did, not even come close. Because this movement would’ve been seen as a bunch of thugs, criminals, terrorists by the so-called mainstream media. But taking it a next step forward post-civil rights laws of the 1960s, I give the edge to Malcolm X as far as what African-Americans should now do with the freedom they finally have under law.

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Divinity: Martin L. King- ‘I Have Been to the Mountaintop Full Speech’

Source:Divinity– Dr. Reverend Martin L. King giving the last speech that he ever gave, in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968.

Source:The Daily Journal

“I Have Been to the Mountaintop Full Speech”

From Divinity

I don’t believe there are many people perhaps in the history of the world, but certainly in the history of the United States who had better timing than Martin L. King. And I say that for a few reasons, but just take when Reverend King gave this speech and when he died which was the next day in 1968 and then look at, or listen to what Reverend King said in this speech and what was in it and what he had to say. Which I at least believe was vision for what the civil rights movement was all about.

Dr. King laid out in his last speech what it means to be an American no matter your race in a liberal democracy such as the United States. Where we all under the United States Constitution are to be treated equally under law with the same constitutional rights and freedoms as any other American. That we aren’t supposed to be treated better, or worse by law in this country. And that’s just one reason why the way African-Americans were treated in America prior to the civil rights laws of the 1960s was simply unconstitutional. Because African-Americans were treated worse than Caucasian-Americans under law in this country.

What Reverend King was saying in this speech was that he’s seen the mountaintop of where all Americans were being treated equally under law. That this vision is real where no American has to live in poverty without the basic necessities and skills to be able to live well in life. That we aren’t there yet and you might not see him there with you, but this vision is real and we can get there together as a people if we keep moving forward as a people and a country to build this society where no race of people is treated worse under law simply based on their race.

Dr. King said that we can accomplish this Utopia in America and get there together if we keep up the fight and struggle for equal and human rights in this country until we finally reach the mountaintop. And finally accomplish what we’ve struggled for all of these years.

Thats what this speech was about as far as I’m concern at least and what Reverend King was telling his supporters, that even if you don’t see him there with you, he’s already seen the vision of what we are fighting for. And know we can get there if we keep on moving the ball forward until we get there.

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Mr. Holt History: Martin Luther King Jr.- ‘On Love and Nonviolence’

Source:Mr Holt History– Dr. Martin L. King talking about love and nonviolence, probably in the 1960s.

Source:The Daily Journal

“In this clip, Dr. King describes the inter-relationship between love and nonviolence in his theology and practices.”

From Mr Holt History 

I can’t tell you where this interview is from and exactly when it did happen, but only because the person who uploaded this video from where this photo is from didn’t bother to lay that out. But Dr. King was talking about Birmingham and Montgomery, Alabama, so I’m thinking it was from the 1960s.

Source:Mr Holt History– Dr. Martin L. King talking about love and nonviolence, probably in the 1960s.

There were at least two reasons for Dr. King’s message of non-violence:

One, that he actually believed in it. And I’m not trying to suggest that he didn’t, but the other had a political component to it. He knew that for him and his movement to accomplish what it wanted which was equality and civil rights for all Americans, that he needed more than just African-Americans behind him, that he needed Americans of other races because he was facing a simple numbers game.

African-Americans at least to this point were a relatively small minority. And that they couldn’t go up against even just Anglo-Saxon Southerners who had most of the power down South, on their own. And that he also need positive media attention and not look like violent radicals, or anarchists. But serious intelligent people who had a message for the entire country and that they needed their support. Which is how he was able to bring in so many non-African Americans to his movement.

I’m not trying to say that Dr. King was a true pacifist and that if America was under attack from another country, that it shouldn’t fight back and that would be just one example. But he did have a pacifist approach when it came to the civil rights movement. He directed his people and marchers to simply just take it (for lack of a better phrase) put up with the violence which help get out the message of what his movement was facing from the Anglo-Saxon racist establishment in America. Especially from the South. That way to fight back was to show the opposition for what they really were. Which were radical violent racists and win legal and policy battles.

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Dr. Martin L. King: Cleveland, Ohio (1967)

Source:WEWS-TV News– Dr. Martin L. King in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1967.

Source:The Daily Journal 

“Dr Martin Luther King Jr. in Cleveland 1967 WEWS TV

The first sound bite is King speaking about what it will take to stop the rioting in America’s cities.

Carl Stokes was running for mayor of Cleveland and King was in town to get Clevelanders to register to vote.

Stokes would beat Mayor Ralph S. Locher in the primary and beat Republican Seth Taft in the November election to make Stokes the first African American mayor of a major U.S city.

King met with Taft as Taft spoke for opportunity and equality for all citizens.

King talks about Cleveland’s election following Carl Stokes primary victory. You’ll also hear him speak on racial problems in the U.S, as well as how the boycott of Sealtest dairy products in the city is progressing.

The boycott was part of Operation Breadbasket which was used to helped inner city African American residents use their buying/boycotting powers to change hiring and business practices.

Accompanying King at one speech is legendary Clevelander the Reverend E. T. Caviness of Greater Abyssinia Baptist Church.

5:49 King speaking in a discount store parking lot at East 105th Street and St. Clair Avenue, July 28, 1967: I want to say to everybody under the sound of my voice this afternoon that you are somebody. Don’t let anybody make you feel that you are nobody. You are somebody. You have dignity. You have worth. Don’t be ashamed of yourself and don’t be ashamed of your heritage. Don’t be ashamed of your color. Don’t be ashamed of your hair. I am black and beautiful and not ashamed to say it.”

“Every politician respects votes, and we have enough potential voting power here to change anything that needs to be changed. And so let us set out to do it and to do it in no uncertain terms. And finally, I want to say to you that if we will organize like this, we have a power that can change this city.”

King’s last appearance in Cleveland in our archives is from late November 1967. A few months later, King would be dead, killed by assassin James Earl Ray, April 4, 1968.”

From WEWS-TV News

“Cleveland and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were no strangers to each other, just from the number of film clips in our vault that’s easily said.

My description of the individual appearances and speeches can in no way match the man himself, so please take some time to listen to his powerful words.

Some of the non-speech clips are silent.

King in Cleveland 1963-1965

The earliest film I was able to find of King in Cleveland is dated May 14, 1963.”

Source:WEWS-TV News– Dr. Martin L. King in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1967.

From WEWS-TV News

I wanted to write a blog about Dr. Martin Luther King’s Poor People’s Campaign that he launched in 1967-68, a few years after the Civil and Voting Rights Acts of 1964 and 65 respectfully were passed by Congress and signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson. But I couldn’t find footage of that campaign that was more than a couple of minutes long. But the video I did find is still pretty good. Dr. King, understood as a freedom fighter, that he was someone who fights for freedom, not the other way around.

Dr. King understood that of course it was important that all Americans be treated equally under law for all of us to live in freedom, but for America to be a real liberal democracy, we had to do something about poverty in America.

At the time of the late 1960s, was around 25%, perhaps twice that much for African-Americans. And that these people no matter their race to truly to live in freedom, they had to have economic freedom as well, the ability to support themselves and not forced to live off of public assistance and be forced to live in rundown ghettos, or be forced to live in rundown shacks in rural America. But be able to have a quality of life-like the rest of the country and be able to live in security.

The Poor People’s Campaign, or as I would call it the Campaign Against Poverty, was the next phase of the civil rights movement. They already established the Civil Rights Act, that no American would be allowed to be discriminated against based on their race, ethnicity, or gender.

The Voting Rights Act, establishing that no American would be allowed to be denied the right to vote based on race, ethnicity, or gender. But after that was a movement to fight poverty in America. To first bring awareness to the problem: :”This what we face as a country” and then hopefully come up with steps to address the issues of poverty.

They didn’t get to this part, MLK died in April, 1968, but this would’ve been the next phase of the civil rights movement, to go along with furthering non-violence, taking on the Vietnam War and perhaps fighting for human rights worldwide.

This is just one example of why the assassination of Martin King was so tragic, especially at the age of 39. An early middle-age man if that. Because there was so much left for him to accomplish and work on and he simply just ran out of time because of an ignorant escaped prison inmate, who should’ve been rotting in a Missouri prison instead.

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