The extent of mafia money and influence within the corridors of American power in the middle of the past century is a familiar story, told in fictional form in iconic movies like The Godfather. Given the extent of these connections, it wouldn’t be surprising if the shadowy realms of the government now known to have been involved in illegal covert activities—such as COINTELPRO and the CIA’s Operation CHAOS—turned to the mafia to handle certain jobs; for one thing, they could offer the services of experienced hit men sworn to omertà. For his part, Hoover famously denied for decades that the mafia existed, whether because he owed any mob bosses favors—or simply because he preferred to stay focused on political subversives like King.
Seneca Scott, Did the FBI Kill MLK? | Compact Mag
Tag Archives: Martin Luther King
Podcasts on Building People up or Tearing them Down
A jest’s prosperity lies in the ear
– Love’s Labour’s Lost
Of him that hears it, never in the tongue
Of him that makes it.
I’ve talked about podcasts before, and I hope you don’t mind me recommending a few in the way of writing about what I’m listening to now. And I’d rather do that than play with the cat.
World News Group is releasing the third season of their podcast Effective Compassion, a set of features reporting on ministries to the homeless or other at-risk populations. This season, debuting in a few days, will focus on prison ministries. You can hear a preview today.
Dr. Anthony Bradley is posting a new set of episodes on a variety of topics, but his main focus has been manhood and the making of men. His first episode this season is a talk about the benefits of college fraternities with the president of Chi Psi fraternity at Clemson.
I recently learned of a podcast dedicated to reading books the two hosts will probably hate, called 372 Pages We’ll Never Get Back. The most recent show discusses at great length a marvelously atrocious fantasy that one could easily assume, they suggest, was written by an eight-year-old. There’s no way to overstate how bad this story is, even after hearing of the assault by sword-wielding octopuses and sharks with teeth and noses as sharp as swords. How could it be bad with all of that? I listened to about 90 minutes of it before giving up and trying another episode about a much older novel with very manly men who cried a lot. Yes, I laughed. I’ll probably listen more, but I can’t take too much mockery of really bad writing. It wears me out. (Maybe I’ve seen too much of bad writing; that’s not something I want to say out loud.)
Another new podcast focuses on the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. The MLK Tapes questions the official narrative of who killed Dr. King and points to the many strange details that also occurred that day. It’s significant that the King family do not believe James Earl Ray murdered Dr. King, and since he was not put on trial at the time, a jury was not presented with evidence either.
Let me end this post by noting an upcoming book from the three men behind the enjoyable, long-running podcast The Happy Rant. Releasing this August will be a book that purportedly reads much like the podcast listens (wait, much like listening to the podcast … reads–nevermind). Ted Kluck, Ronnie Martin, and Barnabas Piper chat about Christian cultural topics and generally poke fun at themselves. It should be a fun read.
Photo: Mother Goose Market, Hazard, Kentucky 1979. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
A Threat to Justice Everywhere
I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial “outside agitator” idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.
from King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”
Justin Taylor offers context and organization to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” which he wrote in the margins of the newspaper that published the open letter calling for “’an appeal for law and order and common sense,’ in dealing with racial problems in Alabama.”
Comparing King and Coates
Scott Allen compares what he sees of the diverging worldviews of Martin Luther King and Ta-Nehisi Coates. The former advocated for a biblical application of justice and neighborly love; the latter appears to see only power.
The civil rights movement that King led had a clear agenda: End Jim Crow and bring about a change in America whereby people would be judged not by skin color but by character. It succeeded overwhelmingly, garnering support from people of all ethnicities. It led to the passage of the famous Civil Rights Act of 1964 and to the greatest period of equality and harmony between races that the nation had ever known.
Coates is very muted about the positive changes that King brought about. He prefers to paint race relations in America circa 2018 as little changed from America in 1850 or 1950. He puts forward no real positive agenda for improved race relations. Rich Lowry comments that his writing “feels nihilistic because there is no positive program to leaven the despair.”
How Martin Luther King’s faith drove his activism
As [Dr. J. Kameron] Carter explains it, white churches that sprang up throughout American history did so in the pattern of the great European cathedrals and denominations from which they were transplanted. Black church, while it is related to those European frameworks, “is in excess of them,” says Carter, meaning they “were already doing work beyond what those traditional denominations were doing.”
“In the face of a modern condition that told Blacks they were only worthy of their labor power, black churches came along and affirmed that there was a mode of life far beyond the woundings that came along with black existence in America.”
This is the tradition that produced King. And it’s the same tradition that produced other civil rights leaders, like Rosa Parks and Ella Baker.
Brandon Ambrosino has written a lengthy interview with three scholars on Dr. King and the black experience in America.
Personally Acquainted with Martin Luther King, Jr.
The American Policy Roundtable has a podcast this week on Dr. Martin Luther King with a pastor who knew him personally, Dr. Sterling Glover. It’s remarkable what some of us do not know about certain important figures in our country or the truth of the biggest civil problem of 20th century America.
Martin Luther King, Jr. Writing From Birmingham
April 16, 1963–
You may well ask: “Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches and so forth? Isn’t negotiation a better path?” You are quite right in calling, for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks to so dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent-resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word “tension.” I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, we must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.
…
I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
The audio from King’s Letter From a Birmingham Jail is available for downloading until Thursday for free.
Blind Spots
Anthony Bradley talks about the rap song “Precious Puritans” by Propaganda. He explains how the song criticizes puritans for condone slavery (which frankly is news to me and troubling), but goes on to say he, the singer, is no better. We all have flaws and blind spots.
However, by singing about puritans in an unflattering way Propaganda has raised the ire of many reformed writers. Bradley suggests this may be typical tribal thinking.
Strachan considers the Puritans “forefathers” and in a tribalist way, some would argue, seeks to protect their legacy. Had Propaganda dropped a track critiquing Roman Catholics, Jeremiah Wright, Rob Bell, Brian McLaren, or preachers of the prosperity gospel, he’d be called a hero. During my seminary years I was rebuked once for mentioning Martin Luther King Jr. in a sermon because of his sins. Why? Because King, like the others, are outside the tribe and are fair game to be critiqued in any form. Since they are not “one of us” there is no expectation of extending grace. Grace is reserved for those with whom we agree.
Crossing the Lines by Richard Doster
Sports reporter Jack Hall didn’t see any problem with black athletes, especially if they were good, but he didn’t want his friends to think he was chummy with them or any Negro person. That would be crossing the line. His friends felt the same way. Playing baseball was fine. It’s not like those people were sitting in the same classroom or dancing with our children.
And Jack and Rose Marie Hall had a personal interest in avoiding desegregation issues. In the previous year, 1954, their home had been bombed by someone who didn’t like Jack’s public stand in favor of the Negro player on the local team. Now, the Halls have moved to Atlanta, and Jack’s new boss, Ralph McGill, wants to look into the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott inspired by Rosa Parks. Jack is the only reporter at a meeting of community leaders who choose then-unknown-preacher Martin L. King to lead the boycott. That frontline position gets King’s house bombed within a few months, and the Halls feel a new link to a family they would rather not befriend.
Crossing the Lines is loaded with historical detail, even some casual references from the characters which are not explained to the reader. It lead me to wonder if certain characters I took as wholly fictional creations were actually based on living people. Continue reading Crossing the Lines by Richard Doster