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Somehow the legacy of MLK has been reduced to just that one quote, even though he wrote a a book ("Why We Can't Wait") that advocated for affirmative action pro
by tdeck 6y ago
Somehow the legacy of MLK has been reduced to just that one quote, even though he wrote a a book ("Why We Can't Wait") that advocated for affirmative action programs for black people. His legacy has effectively been sanitized and "abridged" to be less challenging to persistent and harmful power structures.
- wpietri 6y agoAgreed. He was very clear that solving the existing problems involved directly confronting them. "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" makes very clear that however uncomfortable white people are with being forced to look at what's going on, that discomfort is a necessary precondition to progress: "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 so to 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."