TEACHER’S GUIDE
Hidden in Plain Sight: Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Radical Vision Developed and piloted by Craig Gordon, Fremont High School in collaboration
with Urban Dreams and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project in January,
2001. Revised, January, 2003.
Last year, I was trying to get my U.S. History class to focus on a passage from Martin
Luther King, Jr.’s 1967 book, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?
Unfortunately, I was not surprised when a student protested, “We already know about
him. We’re tired of hearing about Martin Luther King.” So I asked, “Okay, what do you
know about him?” “He had a dream,” another student replied as others laughed. I
insisted that there was infinitely more to King and his ideas than one very famous
speech. “Well, that’s all they ever show us,” someone complained. “And that’s why I’m
trying to show you something new about him,” I responded, showing, I hope, only a
hint of my frustration.
The following unit attempts to help students penetrate the curtain of clichés and lies the
corporate media have erected around Martin Luther King, Jr., in order to make him
“safe” for public consumption. My objectives for students who participate in these
lessons are that they will:
1. Explicitly identify the ways in which Martin Luther King, Jr. is portrayed in the
mass media, and specifically, which of his ideas are communicated to the public.
2. Read and discuss a range of King’s ideas almost completely unknown to most of
the public today.
3. Reflect upon why many of King’s ideas introduced in this lesson are almost
never referenced in the mass media or in U.S. History textbooks.
ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS
•
•
What were the major ideas of Martin Luther King, Jr., and why aren’t they more
publicly known?
How do the media depict King and his ideas and why?
A VERY BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE UNIT (ROUGHLY FOUR HOURS):
Day One
•
Discussion of the ways the early civil rights movement influenced and inspired
others and of what would happen if nobody knew about these events or about
Martin Luther King and could it be that we really don’t know about Dr. King,
after all?
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 1 Introduction Day Two
•
•
Survey what we already know about King and analyze the broadcast and print
news stories on MLK Day. Does this news coverage add significant information
to our knowledge of King’s ideas?
Homework: Read excerpts of King’s speeches and writings. Identify lines that
stand out as interesting, deep, meaningful, moving or surprising.
Day Three
•
•
Form groups of students who have read different parts of the handout with King
quotes. (jig saw) Share lines that most impressed students in their respective
section of the reading and discuss what impressed them most.
Read a “class poem” by having each student read a line that impressed her/him
in quick succession, one student after the other, until the whole class has read a
line.
Day Four
•
Use student handout to guide students in writing an “article” about students
learning about King’s “unknown” ideas.
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 2 Introduction Day One: Detailed Instructions Materials needed:
• Teacher Materials #1 and #2
• Class sets of Student Handouts #1, #2 and #3
Point out to students that during the 1960s and ‘70s several political movements grew
increasingly popular, powerful and radical, including movements by African
Americans, Chicanos, Native Americans, opponents to the Vietnam War, women, gays
and lesbians, and environmentalists.
The reasons so many groups of people organized and so many issues came to the fore of
American politics in such a short time period are complex. But when I recently asked
students why the American Indian Movement formed around the same time as the
Black Power movement was on the rise, one student answered, “Native Americans
probably heard about African Americans protesting and demanding equality, so they
started doing it, too.” There’s more to it than that, of course, but she was partly right.
Can we imagine that Chicanos, Native Americans and other oppressed people would
fail to be inspired by the earlier upsurge and victories by African Americans? Of course
not.
This leads us to an interesting question, even if it seems a little ridiculous:
What if the government and media had been able to hide the black freedom struggle
from the rest of the country?
For example, what if they had been able to pull a heavy curtain over Martin Luther
King, Jr., and everything he said? What effect might that has had on the likelihood that
others would fight for change? Brainstorm this scenario in groups or as a whole class
and come up with ideas of what might or might not have happened if King’s words and
ideas had been hidden from public view.
After some discussion on that question, ask:
Have the media and others, in fact, tried to keep King hidden since his death?
It might not seem so, since his birthday is a national holiday. But point out that the
holiday wasn’t “given” to us by a benevolent government. Many people fought for
years to make it a holiday and were fiercely opposed by many who praise King today.
Now comes the key question:
Have those who might not want you to know about King succeeded in hiding
him? (Most students will probably say no.)
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 3 Day 1 -­‐ Instructions To begin answering this question, we’ll consider several TV news reports on Martin
Luther King’s birthday, January 15, 2001. Read from Teacher Material #1 the transcript
of several TV news reports. (Or, you could just use page 3 of Teacher Material #1, a
summary of the newscasts.)
As the students listen, ask them to write down any of King’s ideas they hear in two
columns:
King’s Ideas I ALREADY Knew About
King’s Ideas I did
NOT know before
Emphasize that students should write down only what they hear of King’s ideas, not
other facts about his life or his personal and leadership qualities.
When you have finished reading these excerpts to students and they have completed
listing the ideas in two columns, ask students to share what they came up with.
Homework:
Distribute Student Handout #1, “The Dream That Moved America,” an article on
Martin Luther King that appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle. Students will a read
the article and take notes in the two columns provided on the first page of the handout,
and will answer questions 1-3 after finishing reading and taking notes. The two
columns call for students to do the same thing they did when they heard the TV News
stories: sort out the ideas they already knew about and from ideas that are new to
them. (Remind them that they are looking at information about King’s ideas, which
doesn’t include other possibly interesting facts, such as how and when he wrote the
“Dream” speech.)
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 4 Day 1 -­‐ Instructions Teacher Material #1
Note: This material includes both a transcript of TV News Reports on M.L. King’s
Birthday and a summary of the same broadcasts. You could use either one of these in
the lesson, depending on what you think will work best with your students in your
time frame.
TRANSCRIPT OF TELEVISION NEWS REPORTS ON MARTIN LUTHER KING,
JR.’S, BIRTHDAY, 2001
PBS – The News Hour
This news report was about the frustration felt by many African Americans following
the election of George W. Bush, for whom only 1 out of 10 black voters cast a ballot. It
began with the outgoing and incoming Presidents praising Martin Luther King’s vision.
President Clinton: “Part of Martin Luther King’s dream was somehow that we would
learn to, quote, ‘work together, pray together, struggle together, go to jail together,
stand up for freedom together.’ ”
[Clinton continues] “If I could leave America with one wish as I depart office it would
be that we become more the one America that we know we ought to be.”
President-Elect Bush: “America does not always live up to our ideals. Many Americans
still face prejudice. The hopes of too many children are frustrated by deep poverty and
unequal schools. And when this happens our whole country feels the loss of their
gifts. Our work is not finished, but our goal is not uncertain. Dr. King defined that goal
as creating the blessed community, where all are valued and all are welcome. This is
the guiding goal of our country.
Channel 5 – KPIX Local News
This story focused on a young man doing time in Juvenile Hall who won a writing
contest for MLK Day.
News anchor: “John Sweeney wrote a poem that he wrote called ‘Disturbing the
Peace.’ Jail officials allowed him to enter the poem in a contest. The prize was to read it
to thousands of people at today’s King celebration in San Francisco.”
John Sweeney: “You know, I’ve heard his speeches on the radio, on TV and school, and
he’s just powerful. You know, he can -- it’s like the wind, it can almost knock you over.”
In fact it was Sweeney who knocked them over today, the crowd that is. He will be
released from Juvenile Hall in two months.
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 5 Day 1 – Teacher Material #1 Channel 7 – KGO Local News
News anchor: In the Bay Area and across the nation, of course, people paused to
remember Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., today. Today would have been the assassinated
civil rights leader’s seventy-second birthday. One Oakland student paid tribute by
reciting King’s most famous speech.
We see a Brookfield Elementary School student as he recites the speech in an
auditorium:
“When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet,
from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's
children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will
be able to join hands and sing in [the words of] the old spiritual, ‘Free at last, free at last.
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.’ ”
News anchor: “Great job! Joseph Bryant recited the speech at an Oakland union hall
today.”
Channel 7 News Anchor (continues): “Now in Atlanta, Georgia, Dr. King’s widow
Coretta Scott King was honored at a local church. She asked Americans to keep her
husband’s dream alive by working for peace, justice and economic equality.”
“And in Washington, President Clinton spoke before students at the University of the
District of Columbia. He said that, while progress towards racial harmony has been
made under his administration, more still needs to be done.”
Channel 4 – KRON Local News
News Anchor: “It’s Martin Luther King, Jr., Day. Here in the Bay Area and across the
country people honored his memory. Tonight we take a look at how people are
keeping his dream alive and reflecting on the words he made famous a generation
ago. It’s our ‘Sound of the Night.’ ”
An African American man around 40 years old says, “I think it’s really important for us
to remember our history and know our history.”
We see Martin Luther King at the Mall in Washington, D.C., August 28, 1963: “I have a
dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of
former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I
have a dream…”
George W. Bush: “ ‘Intelligence plus character,’ Dr. King said, that’s the true goal of
education.”
San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown: “I think George Bush will do his best to show that
he is a leader who understands the need to extend the King dream.”
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 6 Day 1 – Teacher Material #1 Martin Luther King: “So even though we face difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still
have a dream…”
Reverend Cecil Williams leading a King Day march through San Francisco. Someone
shouts, “What do you want?” Marchers’ respond: “Freedom!” The leader shouts,
“When do you want it?” Response: “Now!”
A white man around 50 years old: “It’s very important that the children know all about
Martin Luther King and they know it’s a holiday for his birthday and not just a
holiday.”
News Anchor: “Martin Luther King, Jr., would have been turning 72 years old this
week.”
[“Up next in sports, the Sharks and the Raiders and an upset in Bay Area high school
basketball. Gary’s got it all next.”]
Alternative to Transcript – Summary of Newscasts
•
President Clinton quoting King’s dream that one day all Americans would
“work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to
stand up for freedom together” and Clinton expressing his hope for “one
America.”
•
President-Elect Bush acknowledges that America still has a long way to go to
achieve equality. He says the nation’s goal is the “blessed community” in which
all Americans are welcomed and valued.
•
A shot of Coretta Scott King speaking at a memorial for Dr. King as the news
anchor says, “she asked people to continue the work for racial and economic
equality.”
•
A young man who won the Martin Luther King poetry contest in San Francisco
enthusiastically praising King for being such a powerful speaker.
•
A child giving the conclusion of the “I Have a Dream” speech at an elementary
school assembly: “When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every
village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to
speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews
and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in [the
words of] the old spiritual, "Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are
free at last."
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 7 Day 1 – Teacher Material #1 •
An excerpt of King delivering the best-known parts of the “I Have a Dream”
speech in Washington, D.C. “I have a dream that one day on the red hills of
Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be
able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream… So even
though we face difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream…”
•
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 8 Day 1 – Teacher Material #1 Teacher Material #2
MICHAEL ERIC DYSON ON MARTIN LUTHER KING
When you read this aloud, try to express the same passion and anger evident in the voice of
Dyson, a professor and ordained Baptist minister, when he gave this lecture/sermon.
Martin Luther King, Jr., kept getting up morning after morning, knowing they [the FBI
and other government agencies] were after him, knowing they were possessed of this
zealous intensity that was illegal and immoral! And so he was a danger to
America. Why? Because he loved democracy so much he wanted to see it become
real. He wanted to march democracy from parchment to pavement. He wanted to see
it become a reality in this nation. That’s why he had a dream.
But America has frozen him. Now they freeze King in this posture of dreaming before
the sunlit summit of expectation at the height of his national fame in Washington, D.C.,
where he said, “I have a dream.” He said more than that. We ought to have a
moratorium on that speech for the next ten years. I don’t want to hear it no more! And
if you’re gonna play the speech, play the other parts of the speech: “We have come to
the nation’s capital to cash a check marked ‘insufficient funds.’” [In other words,]
“Where’s my money?!” That’s the part we ought to play. Right? We ought to play the
part where King says, “The foundations of this nation will continue to shake.” He said,
“The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of this nation until the
Negro is granted his full citizenship rights.” Play that part, too!
Why is Dyson angry the media have reduced King’s memory to “I Have a Dream?”
What does he think Martin Luther King, Jr.’s real message was?
If you don’t have a lot to say in response to these two questions, write for five minutes
non-stop anything that comes to mind in response to Dyson’s words.
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 9 Day 1 – Teacher Material #2 Day Two
Detailed Instructions
1. Have students discuss which of King’s ideas they found in the article they read for
homework. See if any students found any information about King’s ideas that they
didn’t know already.
2. Distribute Student Handout #2, “Summing Up the Media’s Martin Luther King Day
Message,” and ask them to follow the instructions. This should help students to
categorize those of King’s ideas publicized by the major media. They should refer to
their two-column notes about the TV news coverage on MLK and to their notes on the
newspaper article. This activity also is meant prepare them to define the many areas of
King’s thinking they’re about to discover.
3. Students are about to get a look at many things King said that they probably never
heard before. Before we did this in my class, I played a short excerpt of
audiotape. Writer and professor Michael Eric Dyson (author of I May Not Get There
With You/The Real Martin Luther King, Jr.) gives a fiery speech about the truth behind the
official story on King.
His words are on Teacher Material #2. You may read Dyson’s words to the class or,
better yet, play an audio recording for the class.
Since Dyson delivered speech with such passion, it would be worth it to record the
audio and play it for the class. You will need RealPlayer, software, which can be
downloaded for free. Then you can find the program (Democracy Now, February 1,
2000) at:
http://www.webactive.com/rihurl.ram?file=webactive/demnow/dn20000201.ra&start
="1:00.4"
A box with RealPlayer will appear on the screen and load the program. Slide the
control near the top of the box to the right until the time displayed in the lower right
corner reads approximately 24:10. That’s where the words on Teacher Handout #2
begin. (If the nearest reading you can slide it to is slightly before that, you’ll hear a
violin playing “Wade in the Water,” as a musical pause in the Dyson speech.)
HOMEWORK
Give students Student Handout #3, nine pages called “Beyond ‘I Have a Dream,’ (What
the media don’t quote from Martin Luther King on his birthday).” Page nine of the handout is
the instruction sheet. I’d suggest assigning each student one of the first seven pages for
homework, so that they jigsaw their knowledge at the next class. (You could have them
count off by sevens.) Pages 1-7 are the ones packed with more “unexpected” ideas for
students. I included page 8, because it’s so moving and you might want to use it later.)
The instruction sheet gives students five questions to answer about the page of quotes
they read. Again, they will identify specific ideas and separate them into those they
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 10 Day 2 -­‐ Instructions knew already and those they didn’t know before. This time, they are likely to find far
more ideas they had not known before than stuff they did know. Students are also
asked to identify quotes that surprise them and something that is particularly striking
or moving.
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 11 Day 2 -­‐ Instructions
Day Three
Detailed Instructions
Materials Needed:
• Extra copies of Student Handout # 3 for those who were not in class earlier or
who forgot to bring theirs in
Students will break into groups. Each will join the other students in class who read the
same page of King quotes as s/he did. (For example, all students who read page one of
Handout #3 will be in one group, all who read page two will be together, and so on.)
Tell students to turn to page 9 of Handout #3 and to follow the instructions listed under
the heading, “Classwork.” You may need to guide them through these instructions at
the beginning of class. I recommend that you closely monitor groups as they work,
guiding students through the process and their effort to interpret King’s ideas within a
historical context.
Day Four
Detailed Instructions
Materials Needed:
• Class sets of Student handouts #4a and #4 MISSING: handouts #4a and #4
Review Student Handout #4a (Instruction Sheet for “Students Study ‘Missing Ideas of
Martin Luther King”) with your teacher. When you’re ready, complete Student
Handout #4 (“Students Study ‘Missing’ Ideas of Martin Luther King”).
If you want to write your own article without sticking strictly to the format in the
handout, you may. The main requirement is that you refer to several ideas and quotes
of King in the four-page handout and write about why they are (or aren’t) important for
us to learn about.
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 12 Day 3 and 4 -­‐ Instructions Student Handout #1
Your teacher will give you an article called “The Dream That Moved America.” Write
any information the article provides about Martin Luther King’s ideas. As you did
when viewing TV news stories on Dr. King, sort the ideas into the two columns
below. Remember to write down only what the article tells you about King’s ideas, not
other facts about his life or his personal and leadership qualities.
King’s Ideas I ALREADY Knew About
King’s Ideas I did NOT know before
When you finish the article answer the following three questions:
1. The article quotes people who say that much of King's message has been forgotten.
Does the article help to remedy the problem? Explain.
2. The Oakland Tribune printed this article, too, but cut out all of the text appearing after
the first paragraph in column three above. Do you think that changes the article's
point? Explain.
3. Should King's birthday be mainly an occasion for celebrating his life or should we
also learn about other people who fought (including many who died) in the freedom
struggle of the 1950s, 60s and 70s? Explain.
MISSING: 2 images that accompany this section
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 13 Student Handout #1 The Dream That Moved America
Some worry the message behind King's stirring speech is being blunted
John Rivera, Baltimore Sun
Monday, January 15, 2001
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback
URL: sfgate.com/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/01/15/MN186579.DTL
For many Americans, the life and legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. can be
summed up in four words.
When King stepped to the podium on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on a sweltering
August afternoon in 1963 as the final speaker of the March on Washington and
thundered "I Have a Dream!" he articulated for the country a vision of what America
was not, but could and should become.
In the nearly four decades since he delivered it, King's speech about a utopia of justice
and racial equality, where "little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands
with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers," has
been elevated to a cultural icon.
It is an indispensable part of social studies lessons and King Day assemblies of the
nation's schoolchildren. It is part of the standard repertoire for speech and rhetoric
professors, many of whom rank it as the greatest political address of the 20th century.
Preachers use it to exemplify the best of their art.
"It's probably the greatest civic sermon preached in American history, certainly in the
20th century," said the Rev. Richard Lischer, a Lutheran minister and professor at Duke
University in Durham, N.C., who in 1995 wrote "The Preacher King: Martin Luther
King Jr. and the Word That Moved America."
KING DISTILLED BY SOUND BITES
But some say that in achieving such universal acclaim, King and his piercing social
critique have been blunted.
"King has certainly been sanitized and domesticated and therefore distorted, " said the
Rev. Raphael G. Warnock, the pastor of Douglas Memorial Community Church in West
Baltimore. "Selected sound bites are played and become part of the public memory of
King. So people whose ideological orientation is clearly antithetical to that of King can
mouth pious platitudes in honor of King while arguing for policies King would never
have supported."
King delivered his famous speech at the March on Washington, a rally that mobilized
blacks and civil rights activists from across the country. The event is remembered as an
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 14 Student Handout #1 uplifting moment in the nation's history, but the atmosphere that day was tense because
many in Washington were convinced the gathering would result in a riot.
"In Washington, authorities from all sectors guarded against the possibility that
marauding Negroes might sack the capital like Moors or Visigoths reincarnate," wrote
Taylor Branch in "Parting the Waters," the first volume of his King trilogy.
SPEECH'S HUMBLE BEGINNINGS
King, who worked on the draft of the history-making speech the night before at the
Willard Hotel, had been limited to seven minutes by march organizers, as had all
speakers, and wrote what would become merely the first part of his address.
In it, he spoke of a promissory note by the nation's founding fathers guaranteeing life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness, a note that to the nation's blacks was "a bad check
that has come back marked 'insufficient funds. ' "
Coming to the end of his prepared text, overwhelmed by the moment and the response
of the crowd, King began to preach. He told the crowd, "Go back to Mississippi, go back
to Alabama, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos
of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can be changed."
And then, continuing his improvisation, he began the refrain that still echoes in the ears
of a nation: "I have a dream . . ."
By the end of the 16-minute address, King had moved the world.
"It was electrifying," recalled the Rev. Marion Bascom, a civil rights veteran, who was
among the crowd of 200,000 that day along with other Baltimore pastors. "He was
putting into intellectual focus the highest and the noblest of the American tradition.
And in that, he was also pulling together the accumulated hopes and dreams of every
civilized people."
King had previously used the "I Have a Dream" theme.
"It was a stump speech. He'd given it before," said Warnock, who wrote a thesis on
King. "But that day, it connected in an especially kind of visceral way."
"I Have a Dream" was rated the greatest political speech of the 20th century in a survey
of 137 speech and communications professors conducted a year ago. They ranked more
than 500 speeches on their historical impact and rhetorical artistry.
"I think it would be fair to say it was the runaway choice," said Stephen Lucas, a
University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of communication arts and co-author of the
study.
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 15 Student Handout #1 Many who admire "I Have a Dream" are inspired by its message of hope and optimism.
But some of those who most admire it, particularly blacks, worry that the message of
hope overshadows King's denunciation of social, racial and economic injustice, a charge
that they say still rings true.
"It was not just a speech. It was dreams unfulfilled and unmet to which he was
speaking," Bascom said. "He made it sound good enough to believe it could happen,
and many of us did believe it could happen. Unfortunately, the racism that runs
rampant in the world makes the dream almost appear nightmarish.
"I would say this," Bascom said. "I wish that I had the high optimism today that I had
then."
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 16 Student Handout #1 A MESSAGE THAT INSPIRES FIGHT
Warnock said he is tired of seeing the speech used by conservatives, as when it was part
of a video at the Republican National Convention last summer.
"People forget that in that speech he is very forthright and forthcoming in naming some
of his enemies and some of the enemies of justice," he said. In later years, King would
sharpen his attack on economic policies that he believed did harm to the poor.
These are lessons to keep in mind, Warnock plans to tell those gathered for the Senate
confirmation hearings for John Ashcroft, President-elect Bush's nominee for attorney
general, whose views on civil rights have come under question.
"There's this logic and conservative movement afoot that says, 'Well, we ought to just sit
down and let this nomination happen in name of bipartisanship,' " he said. "If King
teaches us anything, it's that creative noncooperation in the face of injustice is what is
required of freedom-loving people."
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback
Page A - 2
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 17 Student Handout #1 Student Handout #2
SUMMING UP THE MEDIA’S MARTIN LUTHER KING DAY MESSAGE
Reflect on the summaries of TV news stories on Martin Luther King and on the article
you read about him. In Part A below, rate the stories overall for specific ideas. Then, in
Part B, you will be asked to evaluate the overall media message on King.
Part A
Which of the following goals or beliefs stand out most in the coverage you heard and
read? On a scale of 1 to 5, rate how strongly the news media coverage of King shows
these values as being important to him.
1 = no coverage 2 = a little 3 = some
4 = a lot 5 = dominates the message
Goal or Belief
Rate how
strongly the
media
emphasize
this goal or
belief
Racial integration and harmony
Opposition to U.S. support for dictators around the world
A guaranteed annual income for all Americans
Support for labor unions
The need to challenge injustice with direct action and civil disobedience
Impatience with white “moderates”
Opposition to U.S. war in Vietnam
A revolution in values
The complete elimination of all poverty
Racial equality
A society where ordinary people’s needs have higher priority than
corporate profits
Non-violence
Part B
Now look over the scores you gave each goal/belief above and discuss and write
answers to the following questions on another paper:
1. What do you think the stories emphasize about Martin Luther King and his
message?
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 18 Student Handout #2 2. What do they tell us about his main goals?
3. Do you think the image we get of King and his views from these media reports is
accurate? Is it complete? Why or why not? Or do you have any way of
knowing? Have you learned enough about King in the past to say confidently whether
MLK Day news reports give us a fair picture?
4. We do know that the media spend a lot of time celebrating King as an individual, a
great leader and orator. Taking that into account, as well as which of King’s ideas are
reported, what do you think the major news media want us to think about on about on
King’s birthday?
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 19 Student Handout #2 Student Handout #3
BEYOND “I HAVE A DREAM…”
(WHAT THE MEDIA DON’T QUOTE FROM MARTIN LUTHER KING ON HIS
BIRTHDAY.)
On Nonviolent Direct Action
Letter from Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963:
The purpose of our direct-action program is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it
will inevitably open the door to negotiation…
…My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights
without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact
that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily…We know through
painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be
demanded by the oppressed.
On White “Moderates”
Letter from Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963:
(In this context, “moderates” were people who claimed to support the goals of the civil
rights movement, but who disapproved of its actions. Moderates objected to putting
“too much” pressure on whites to agree to end segregation “too quickly.” They
criticized civil rights activists for demonstrating and using civil disobedience to
demand their rights, and advised them to “be patient.”)
…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 Councilor 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.
A part of “I Have a Dream” that we don’t usually hear
Speech to the March on Washington for Jobs and Justice, August 28, 1963:
…There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the colored citizen is
granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the
foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 20 Student Handout #3 On the limits of nonviolence (In other words, what happens when nonviolence doesn’t
work?)
From I May Not Get There With You, by Michael Eric Dyson
“… riot is [at bottom] the language of the unheard. [T]he looting in Watts was a form of
social protest very common through the ages as a dramatic and destructive gesture of
the poor toward symbols of their needs.” In 1964 [King] had already pointed out the
hypocrisy of white leaders’ lecturing Negroes about nonviolence when it was “Negroes
[who] created the theory of nonviolence as it applies to American conditions.” King
rejected the distortion of nonviolence by duplicitous civic leaders who failed “to
perceive that nonviolence can exist only in a context of justice.” If unjust conditions for
Negroes prevail, the call for them to be nonviolent is a demand for them to submit to
injustice. “Nothing in the theory of nonviolence,” King argued, “counsels this suicidal
course.”
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 21 Student Handout #3 On economic justice and support for labor unions
Illinois AFL-CIO Convention, October 1965:
The labor movement was the principal force that transformed misery and despair into
hope and progress. Out of its bold struggles, economic and social reform gave birth to
unemployment insurance, old age pensions, government relief for the destitute, and
above all new wage levels that meant not mere survival, but a tolerable life.
2nd National Convention of the Medical Committee for Human Rights, Chicago, March 25,
1966:
Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and the most
inhuman.
Speech to Teamsters and Allied Trade Councils, New York City, May 2, 1967:
Today Negroes want above all else to abolish poverty in their lives, and in the lives of
the white poor. This is the heart of their program. To end humiliation was a start, but to
end poverty is a bigger task. It is natural for Negroes to turn to the Labor movement
because it was the first and pioneer anti-poverty program…
... I am now convinced that the simplest approach will prove to be the most
revolutionary. The solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely
discussed measure: the guaranteed annual income. We are likely to find that the
problems of housing and education, instead of preceding the elimination of poverty,
will themselves be affected if poverty is first abolished…
Opposing the War in Vietnam – The Obligation to Speak Out
"Beyond Vietnam," Address,” Riverside Church, New York, April 4, 1967:
A time comes when silence is betrayal. That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.
The truth of these words is beyond doubt, but the mission to which they call us is a
most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily
assume the task of opposing their government’s policy, especially in time of war. …But
we must move on.
…We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we
must speak. ... If America’s soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must
read Vietnam. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the
world over....
Opposing the War in Vietnam – Links Between War at Home and War Abroad
"Beyond Vietnam," Address,” Riverside Church, New York, April 4, 1967:
There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in
Vietnam and the struggle I and others have been waging in America. A few years ago
there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of
hope for the poor, both black and white, through the poverty program. There were
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 22 Student Handout #3 experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched
this program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a
society gone mad on war. And I knew that America would never invest the necessary
funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam
continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic, destructive suction
tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to
attack it as such.
The War in Vietnam – More Links Between War at Home and War Abroad
"Beyond Vietnam," Address,” Riverside Church, New York, April 4, 1967:
A tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was
doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their
sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high
proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men
who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to
guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia
and East Harlem. So we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching
Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has
been unable to seat them together in the same schools. So we watch them in brutal
solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would hardly live
on the same block in Chicago. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel
manipulation of the poor.
… As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told
them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to
offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change
comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked, and rightly so,
"What about Vietnam?" They asked if our own nation wasn’t using massive doses of
violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit
home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the
oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of
violence in the world today: my own government.
The War in Vietnam – Inflicting Suffering, Sowing Hatred
"Beyond Vietnam," Address,” Riverside Church, New York, April 4, 1967:
…we increased our troop commitments in support of governments which were
singularly corrupt, inept, and without popular support. All the while the people read
our leaflets and received the regular promises of peace and democracy and land reform.
Now they languish under our bombs and consider us, not their fellow Vietnamese, the
real enemy…
So they go, primarily women and children and the aged. They watch as we poison their
water, as we kill a million acres of their crops. They must weep as the bulldozers roar
through their areas preparing to destroy the precious trees. They wander into the
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 23 Student Handout #3 hospitals with at least twenty casualties from American firepower for one Vietconginflicted injury. So far we may have killed a million of them, mostly children. They
wander into the towns and see thousands of the children, homeless, without clothes,
running in packs on the streets like animals. They see the children degraded by our
soldiers as they beg for food. They see the children selling their sisters to our soldiers,
soliciting for their mothers.
What do the peasants think as we ally ourselves with the landlords and as we refuse to
put any action into our many words concerning land reform? What do they think as we
test out our latest weapons on them, just as the Germans tested out new medicine and
new tortures in the concentration camps of Europe? Where are the roots of the
independent Vietnam we claim to be building?
The War in Vietnam – A Call to Resist
"Beyond Vietnam," Address,” Riverside Church, New York, April 4, 1967:
We must continue to raise our voices and our lives if our nation persists in its perverse
ways in Vietnam. We must be prepared to match actions with words by seeking out
every creative method of protest possible.
As we counsel young men concerning military service, we must clarify for them our
nation’s role in Vietnam and challenge them with the alternative of conscientious
objection. I am pleased to say that this is a path now chosen by more than seventy
students at my own alma mater, Morehouse College, and I recommend it to all who
find the American course in Vietnam a dishonorable and unjust one. … These are the
times for real choices and not false ones. We are at the moment when our lives must be
placed on the line if our nation is to survive its own folly. Every man of humane
convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all
protest.
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 24 Student Handout #3 Beyond Vietnam – Imperialist Policies Around the World
"Beyond Vietnam," Address,” Riverside Church, New York, April 4, 1967:
The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American
spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality, we will find ourselves organizing "clergy
and laymen concerned" committees for the next generation. They will be concerned
about Guatemala and Peru. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia.
They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. We will be marching for
these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end unless there is a
significant and profound change in American life and policy. [Sustained applause] So
such thoughts take us beyond Vietnam, but not beyond our calling as sons of the living
God.
…In 1957, a sensitive American official overseas said that it seemed to him that our
nation was on the wrong side of a world revolution. During the past ten years we have
seen emerge a pattern of suppression which has now justified the presence of U.S.
military advisors in Venezuela. This need to maintain social stability for our
investments accounts for the counter-revolutionary action of American forces in
Guatemala. It tells why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in
Cambodia and why American napalm and Green Beret forces have already been active
against rebels in Peru.
It is with such activity [U.S. support for dictatorships in Latin America and Vietnam] in
mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago
he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution
inevitable." Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken,
the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the
privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas
investments…
Beyond Vietnam - A Revolution of Values
"Beyond Vietnam," Address,” Riverside Church, New York, April 4, 1967:
… I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a
nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift
from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and
computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than
people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of
being conquered.
…A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty
and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual
capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South
America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the
countries, and say: "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of
South America and say: "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has
everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 25 Student Handout #3 A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: "This way
of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm,
of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of
hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and
bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be
reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to
spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching
spiritual death.
Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out
into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and
militarism.
Beyond Vietnam – The Threat to Humanity
"Beyond Vietnam," Address,” Riverside Church, New York, April 4, 1967:
…We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of
retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate.
History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this selfdefeating path of hate…
We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted
with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is
such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves
us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity…
We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation. We must
move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam
and justice throughout the developing world, a world that borders on our doors. If we
do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of
time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without
morality, and strength without sight.
On Black Power and Black Nationalism
1967, from I May Not Get There With You, by Michael Eric Dyson:
The Negro will only be free when he reaches down to the inner depths of his own being
and signs with the pen and ink of assertive manhood his own emancipation
proclamation. And with a spirit straining toward true self-esteem, the Negro must
boldly throw off the manacles of self-abnegation and say to himself and to the world, “I
am somebody I am a person. I am a man with dignity and honor. I have a rich and
noble history. How painful and exploited that history has been... . Yes, we must stand
up and say, “I’m black and I’m beautiful,” and this self-affirmation is the black man’s
need, made compelling by the white man’s crimes against him.
…When we see integration in political terms, then we recognize that there are times
when we must see segregation as a temporary way-station to a truly integrated society.
There are many Negroes who feel this; they do not see segregation as the ultimate goal.
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 26 Student Handout #3 They do not see separation as the ultimate goal. They see it as a temporary way-station
to put them into a bargaining position to get to that ultimate goal, which is a truly
integrated society where there is shared power. I must honestly say that there are points
at which I share this view There are points at which I see the necessity for temporary
segregation in order to get to the integrated society.... We don’t want to be integrated
out of power; we want to be integrated into power.
Toward the end of his life, King said, “Most whites are unconscious racists,” and that
despite the work of a relatively small number of white allies, “There has never been any
single, solid, determined commitment on the part of the vast majority of white
Americans--to genuine equality for Negroes.”
Questioning Capitalism, Contemplating Socialism
From King’s presidential address to the SCLC convention, 1967:
A nation that will keep people in slavery for 244 years will “thingify” them, make them
things. Therefore they will exploit them, and poor people generally economically. And
a nation that will exploit economically will have to have foreign investments and
everything else, and will have to use its military might to protect them. All of these
problems are tied together.
From King’s Where Do We Go From Here? 1967:
There are forty million poor people here, and one day we must ask the question, “Why
are there forty million poor people in America?” And when you begin to ask that
question, you are raising a question about the economic system, about a broader
distribution of wealth. When you ask that question, you begin to question the
capitalistic economy.
Questioning Capitalism, Contemplating Socialism (continued)
From King’s Where Do We Go From Here? 1967:
…And I’m simply saying that more and more, we’ve got to begin to ask questions about
the whole society. We are called upon to help the discouraged beggars in life’s
marketplace. But one day we must come to see that an edifice which produces beggars
needs restructuring. It means that questions must be raised. And you see, my friends,
when you deal with this you begin to ask the question, “Who owns the oil?” You begin
to ask the question, “Who owns the iron ore?” You begin to ask the question, “Why is it
that people have to pay water bills in a world that’s two-thirds water?” These are words
that must be said.
Statement to his staff, 1966 quoted in I May Not Get There With You, Michael Eric Dyson:
We are now making demands that will cost the nation something. You can’t talk about
solving the economic problem of the Negro without talking about billions of dollars.
You can’t talk about ending slums without first saying profit must be taken out of
slums. You’re really tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 27 Student Handout #3 messing with folk then. You are messing with the captains of industry... Now this
means that we are treading in difficult waters, because it really means that we are
saying that something is wrong.., with capitalism.... There must be a better distribution
of wealth and maybe America must move toward a Democratic Socialism.
(After this quote, Michael Eric Dyson adds, “This statement is remarkable since King
rarely allowed his positive response to democratic socialism to be recorded. His usual
practice, according to one of his aides, was to demand that they “turn off the tape
recorder” while he expounded on the virtues of “what he called democratic socialism,
and he said, ‘I can’t say this publicly, and if you say I said it I’m not gonna admit to it.”)
The Next Stage of Nonviolent Direct Action: Mass Civil Disobedience
Dec. 1967, Published posthumously in King’s The Trumpet of Conscience 1968:
The dispossessed of this nation – the poor, both white and Negro – live in a cruelly
unjust society. They must organize a revolution against that injustice, not against the
lives of … their fellow citizens, but against the structures which the society is refusing
to take means … to lift the load of poverty…
… Nonviolent protest must now mature to a new level to correspond to heightened
black impatience and stiffened white resistance. This higher level is mass civil
disobedience. There must be more than a statement to the larger society, there must be a
force that interrupts its functioning at some key point. That interruption must not,
however be clandestine or surreptitious. It must be open and, above all, conducted by
large masses without violence. If the jails are filled to thwart it, its meaning will become
even clearer…
…The storm is rising against the privileged minority of the earth, from which there is
no shelter in isolation or armament. The storm will not abate until a just distribution of
the fruits of the earth enables men everywhere to live in dignity and human decency.
The American Negro … may be the vanguard of a prolonged struggle that may change
the shape of the world, as billions of deprived shake and transform the earth in the
quest for life, freedom and justice.
The Next Stage of Nonviolent Direct Action: Mass Civil Disobedience (continued)
From I May Not Get There With You, by Michael Eric Dyson:
The version of nonviolence that King promoted was more forceful than the outlook that
spirited his previous social campaigns. His language reflected his shifting mood. In
response, it seems, to the stepped-up attacks on both the social effectiveness of
nonviolence and poor communities, King announced a bolder initiative, calling it,
alternatively, “massive nonviolence,” “aggressive nonviolence,” and even “nonviolent
sabotage.” King signaled his attempt to escalate his campaign to match the national
escalation of racial violence. He also meant to counter the political opposition to his new
direction by insisting that nonviolence would now contain “disruptive dimensions.”…
Protesters would engage in massive civil disobedience, tying up traffic, staging sit-ins in
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 28 Student Handout #3 Congress and in government buildings, and shutting down business in the capital. The
purpose of this massive, aggressive, disruptive, dislocating, sabotaging nonviolence
was a protest “powerful enough, dramatic enough, morally appealing enough, so that
people of goodwill, the churches, labor, liberals, intellectuals, students, poor people
themselves begin to put pressure on congressmen to the point that they can no longer
elude our demands.” In 1967, King described how massive nonviolence flowed from
linking civil disobedience to the new urban contexts into which he attempted to extend
its influence:
“Nonviolence must be adapted to urban conditions and urban moods. Non-violent
protest must now mature to a new level, to correspond to heightened black impatience
and stiffened white resistance. This high level is mass civil disobedience. There must be
more than a statement to the larger society, there must be a force that interrupts its
functioning at some key point.... To dislocate the functioning of a city without
destroying it can be more effective than a riot because it can be longer lasting, costly to
the larger society, but not wantonly destructive. It is a device of social action that is
more difficult for a government to quell by superior force. ... It is militant and defiant,
not destructive.”
On the Poor People’s March on Washington, planned for Spring 1968
From Inconvenient Hero (1997), by Vincent Harding:
[King’s] plan was to mobilize and train thousands of the poor and their allies to come to
the nation’s capital and “just camp here and stay” until the country’s elected leaders
acted on the urgent needs of the poor… “the city will not function” until Congress
created and approved “a massive program on the part of the federal government that
will make jobs or income a reality for every American citizen…”
In the fall, King was envisioning more than Washington as a target. “We’ve got to find a
method that will disrupt our cities if necessary, create the crisis that will force the nation
to look at the situation, dramatize it, and yet at the same time not destroy life or
property.”
On the Poor People’s March on Washington, planned for Spring 1968 (continued)
From Inconvenient Hero (1997), by Vincent Harding:
He was planning to bring the poor of every color, to stand and sit with the poor where
they could not be missed. He said, “We’ve got to camp in – put our tents in front of the
White House… We’ve got to make it known that until our problem is solved, America
may have many, many days, but they will be full of trouble. There will be no rest, there
will be no tranquility in this country until the nation comes to terms with our problem.”
… Just a few weeks before the bullet struck (helping to explain to children, and to us,
whose bullet it was and why it was fired), King took his own sense of the American
dilemma and challenge even further. By then he had come to the conclusion that the
black freedom struggle was actually, “exposing the evils that are deeply rooted in the
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 29 Student Handout #3 whole structure of our society. It reveals systemic rather than superficial flaws and
suggests that radical reconstruction of society is the real issue to be faced.”
On Racial and Class Solidarity
April 3, 1968, Memphis, TN, King’s last speech, talking to striking sanitation workers:
… in this great period of history... we've got to stay together. We've got to stay together
and maintain unity. You know, whenever Pharaoh wanted to prolong the period of
slavery in Egypt, he had a favorite, favorite formula for doing it. What was that? He
kept the slaves fighting among themselves. But whenever the slaves get together,
something happens in Pharaoh's court, and he cannot hold the slaves in slavery. When
the slaves get together, that's the beginning of getting out of slavery. Now let us
maintain unity.
[In this next paragraph, King refers to the on violence that broke out during a march the
previous day. He criticizes the media for focusing only on the violence and not on the
issue of injustice.]
Secondly, let us keep the issues where they are. The issue is injustice. The issue is the
refusal of Memphis to be fair and honest in its dealings with its public servants, who
happen to be sanitation workers. Now, we've got to keep attention on that. That's
always the problem with a little violence. You know what happened the other day, and
the press dealt only with the window-breaking. I read the articles. They very seldom
got around to mentioning the fact that one thousand, three hundred sanitation workers
were on strike, and that Memphis is not being fair to them, and that Mayor Loeb is in
dire need of a doctor. They didn't get around to that.
[Next King talks of organizing a boycott against companies opposing fair treatment of
sanitation workers.]
…Now the other thing we'll have to do is this: Always anchor our external direct action
with the power of economic withdrawal. …That's power right there, if we know how to
pool it…And so, as a result of this, we are asking you tonight, to go out and tell your
neighbors not to buy Coca-Cola in Memphis. Go by and tell them not to buy Sealtest
milk. Tell them not to buy -- what is the other bread? -- Wonder Bread. …
Now, let me say as I move to my conclusion that we've got to give ourselves to this
struggle until the end. Nothing would be more tragic than to stop at this point, in
Memphis. We've got to see it through. And when we have our march, you need to be
there. Be concerned about your brother. You may not be on strike. But either we go up
together, or we go down together…
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 30 Student Handout #3 Reflecting on the Ideas of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Homework
Read the page(s) you were assigned, and write answers to the following questions (a-e):
a. What views does King express here that you already knew he held?
b. What did you learn about King's views here that you did NOT know about
before?
c. Find a brief passage – it could be one or two sentences or just a part of a sentence
– that strikes you as especially interesting, deep, poetic or moving to you.
Underline it.
d. Are you surprised by anything King says on this page? If so, what is it that
surprises you and why? (It may be some of what you already underlined in step
“c” above.”)
e. Most media coverage about Martin Luther King these days does not include any
of the views he expressed in these excerpts from his speeches and writings.
Instead, we almost exclusively hear excerpts from his “I Have a Dream” speech
and similar calls for an end to racial discrimination. Why do you imagine these
other ideas are usually ignored?
Classwork
1. Discuss with other students in your group what you found when you did the
homework. (Anyone who wasn’t in class yesterday or didn’t do the homework, should
still participate in the discussion.) As you discuss them, make notes on your page of
King quotes of the observations you and others have made and underline important
lines. Then have each person in your group read her or his choice aloud, with each
reader following immediately after another.
2. Discuss the passage found by each member of the group. Mark on your page which
lines each group member finds most interesting and make notes about their
observations.
3. You will now be grouped with students who have read the other pages of King’s
quotes. Share with them what your group discussed about the page you read, including
the phrases and sentences that stood out most. Of course, you also will listen to what
each other student found in his/her group. Take notes on their observations and mark
and write on the pages they talk about.
4. We will now produce a “class poem” by reading aloud our chosen lines from King’s
speeches and writings. Be prepared to read the lines you have chosen loudly and clearly
to the class. Don’t worry if someone else also reads your line. In poetry, repetition
commonly occurs.
5. After the class poem is completed, we will go back around the room once more so
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 31 Student Handout #3 that each person can tell the rest of the class exactly where to find the quote they read
and, if you can, why it stood out for you. The class may want to discuss what they’ve
learned from this work.
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 32 Student Handout #3 Additional Projects/Activities
(All materials named are included at end of this packet.)
These projects are intended to build upon whatever understanding students may get
from the main unit. Among other things, I hope they will expand the media literacy
that may have come from looking at how King has been packaged for the public, and
lead students to consider other areas where our perception is sharply limited by the
information usually available.
1. (Adapted from Rethinking Schools, December 2001) After reviewing King’s
statements about the War in Vietnam in the handout “Beyond I Have a Dream” (pp. 25), respond to any or all of the following assignments below:
a. Do you think Dr. King would support U.S. policies today? What evidence from
his speech supports your conclusion? What policies would he urge?
b. Write a speech that Martin Luther King might deliver today if he were alive. It
should cover the events of September 11, “terrorism” of all kinds, the war in
Afghanistan, and the threat of (as of 1/7/ 2002) war in Iraq, but can cover other
topics as well.
c. King talks about the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism. In what
ways are these giant triplets at work in today’s crisis? Make charts headed with
these categories and to list all the ways you see these forces at work in the current
circumstances. Choose one of the triplets and design a poster illustrating it.
d. Write a dialogue between Dr. King and another individual: you, George W. Bush,
a member of the Taliban, one of the September 11 attackers, someone who fled the
bombing of Afghanistan, a refugee in a camp in Gaza or the West Bank, etc.
2. Look up Martin Luther King in the index of your U.S. History textbook, The
Americans. Write down all of the page numbers listed after his name. Read about King
on each of these pages. In most cases, King is discussed for only a paragraph or a
sentence (and only appears in a photograph on page 667), so it isn’t really a huge
amount to read. Take notes on all of the ideas the textbook attributes to Dr. King.
Which of the views shown on the pages handed out in class show up in our
textbook? What conclusions can you draw from this mini-research project?
3. Write a letter to a local TV station or newspaper and tell them how you feel about
the coverage they give to King on his birthday and, possibly, during Black History
Month. If you like some things about it, say so. Also tell them what kind of
information you think should be included that usually is left out.
4. In King’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech, he suggests that the interconnected problems
of poverty, militarism and racism cannot be solved as long as our society protects
property rights and profits more than it serves human needs. Write an essay supporting
or disputing this belief. Use the handout “Essay on King’s Giant Triplets of Racism,
Extreme Materialism and Militarism.”
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 33 Additional Projects/Activities 5. Much of the power in King’s ideas in these handouts comes from their relevance to
people of all cultures, races and countries. They go far beyond a call for civil rights
reforms for African Americans. They call for a radical restructuring of society that will
benefit everyone all over the world. Apply something King says to other freedom
struggles by other groups and movements in the U.S. or in other countries. Some of the
questions you ask here and information you find can become the basis for later projects.
6. Research a particular area of King’s thinking. They could investigate any one of the
topics listed below or a combination of them:
a. The major ideas of King on a particular topic (e.g., war, economic inequality, the
relevance of religion to social change)
b. How the ideas being researched evolved during King’s life.
c. Who else was advocating such ideas and who was opposing them
d. The impact King’s expression of these ideas had on events
e. How do his ideas in the area chosen apply to issues today?
f. Are people advocating such ideas now? How are these people viewed publicly, if
they are paid any attention at all.
g. Are they well known? Why or why not?
7. Write a detailed proposal for a teach-in on Martin Luther King, possibly to be held
around his birthday. The teach-in should educate students about Martin Luther King,
Jr., and the civil rights movement in ways that go beyond the traditional MLK
assembly. The proposal will include the following:
a. An introduction giving your rationale for the kind of teach-in you would like to
have
b. A summary description of the teach-in (one or two paragraphs)
c. A detailed description of the teach-in, including:
i. the topics to be covered
ii. the people who would speak, perform or otherwise contribute to the
assembly
iii. Media to be used – e.g., films, music, recordings of speeches, etc.
iv. What would be displayed – for example, what quotes what images might
be displayed?
v. Activities students would engage in, so that the teach-in is not just a passive
experience for them
d. What you will need to do to make the teach-in actually happen
e. The results you hope to achieve
8. Read “Who Killed Martin Luther King?” The article points out that as early as 1963,
an FBI assistant director called King "the most dangerous and effective Negro leader in
the country." When we consider some of the ideas King openly advocated after 1963,
some say there’s even more reason to think the U.S. government wanted him
dead. What do you think?
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 34 Additional Projects/Activities 9. Write a eulogy for Martin Luther King. What was the meaning of his life? And what
is the meaning of his death? What impact did he have and for what did he stand? And –
placing yourself in the present time, rather than 1968 when King died – what meaning
can we draw from his life and work today, particularly regarding social activism and
change?
10. Read the commentary by Mumia Abu Jamal, “Saint Martin the Militant.” Based on
your experience in the past few days, extending what you previously knew of King,
write a response to Mumia Abu Jamal, saying why you agree or disagree.
11. Critically examine a possible parallel between Martin Luther King, Jr., and
someone else many believe is currently targeted by the U.S. government, Mumia AbuJamal.
a. What do students think of the following statement: “Martin Luther King may
have been silenced with the complicity of the FBI in 1968 and then had nearly all
of his words outside of a few lines in a 1963 speech erased from public
memory”?
All of the preceding assignments on King may have led students to conclude that
this is a true statement. Still, they could look for evidence to refute it at this
point. Or they may move on to part “b” and consider whether the same thing
may have happened to another public figure today.
b. What do students think of this statement: “The media, prison system and law
enforcement organizations have censored Mumia Abu Jamal”?
On one hand, there have been occasional stories in print and broadcast media
about Mumia Abu-Jamal. On the other, despite the widespread support for AbuJamal that has made his case the most renown and controversial of death penalty
cases in the world today, these stories are extremely rare and always refer to him
as a “convicted cop-killer.” And despite his prolific writings published in several
books, none of his work can be found in mainstream media. Commentaries by
him that were to be broadcast by National Public Radio were cancelled before
they had a chance to be aired, under intense pressure from the right wing,
including the Fraternal Order of Police.
Students who read or hear a few commentaries by Mumia Abu Jamal may have a
similar realization to what they may have experienced when reading some of
Martin Luther King’s buried speeches and writings. That is, how can one
seriously consider the claim that the federal government would want to kill King
or Abu Jamal in order to silence them, if one does not know of any of their
specific ideas? Once students see what King actually spoke about, that he was
moving in a revolutionary direction, the suspicion of federal governmental
complicity in his death might make a little more sense. The effect of reading
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 35 Additional Projects/Activities some of Abu-Jamal’s writings for the first time may have a similar effect, in
addition to humanizing somebody known only as a “convicted cop killer.”
o Students could read something by Abu-Jamal (e.g., “St. Martin the
Militant”) and/or something about him (“All Things Censored,” by
Martin Espada) and then consider the claim by Abu-Jamal’s supporters
that the government sees him as enough of a threat to want to kill
him. Do students agree that this is a possibility? Do they see a parallel
between Mumia Abu-Jamal and Martin Luther King? Why or why
not? You could remind students that many people, especially opponents
of Abu-Jamal, would dismiss such a parallel as absurd. They would argue
that Martin Luther King was a much more influential leader and was
never charged with killing anyone. It’s important that students analyze
this possible parallel critically and be able to consider these (and other)
counter-arguments. Of course, to thoroughly investigate this question
would require becoming familiar enough with Abu-Jamal’s case to
consider the possibility that he was framed, or, at least, was denied a fair
trial.
Students who do see a strong parallel and want to do something could
write letters to newspapers expressing their view on the subject.
o
Students could also look for information on Mumia Abu-Jamal in their
U.S. History textbook. California recently adopted new textbooks for
social studies, so the books are likely to have been published in 1999 or
2000. Again, since Abu-Jamal’s case is considered by many to carry the
political significance of the Sacco and Vanzetti case or case of the
Rosenbergs for our time, one might expect to find at least a mention of it
in a current U.S. History textbook. Students can do an analysis of their
textbook’s treatment – or its exclusion -- of this case. The difference
between how the book deals with the Sacco and Vanzetti and the
Rosenbergs on one hand and Abu-Jamal’s case on the other, may serve as
the basis for discussing the difference between how textbooks deal with
ongoing political controversies, compared to how they address those more
“safely” distanced by time. Another question to investigate is this: Do
textbooks ever dare to challenge the version of history for which a
consensus exists among leaders of the two dominant political parties
and/or corporate media?
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 36 Additional Projects/Activities 12. Connecting Martin Luther King and Leonard Peltier
a. Have half the class read “Native American Resistance in the 1960’s,”
excerpted from the U.S. History textbook, The Americans, and answer the
question at the bottom. Have the other half of the class read “Day of
Shame,” statement by the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee and answer
the question at the end.
b. Form groups of four (and five, if necessary) in which two students read
the excerpt from The Americans and the other two read “Day of
Shame.” Have each subgroup compare their perceptions what happened
at Pine Ridge in the early 1970s.
c. Students discuss why their perceptions of what happened at Pine Ridge
differed. Do they think that either account they read is “objective”? Is it
possible to be objective? If either or both accounts have a bias, what is the
bias of each? Focus especially on the textbook’s point of view here, since
it is presumed “objective,” until proven biased.
d. Discuss and write about the similarities between the following:
§ how the textbook, The Americans, describes what happened with
AIM and the FBI
§ The Americans’ treatment of Martin Luther King, both in his
political message and the failure to mention any of the FBI’s
campaign against him.
e. You could also have students read “Who Killed Martin Luther King, Jr.?”
by Douglas Valentine for more evidence that King was not killed by a
“lone assassin.” Have students talk about why the content of one’s ideas
and the degree to which others are listening might make one a “threat” to
those in power.
13. Finally, students could consider these questions: If they can hide Martin Luther
King, Jr., in plain sight, along with the other things we’ve uncovered, what other things
might be hidden? What questions do we need to ask to find what is being kept from
us? How can we expand our frame of reference? And once we do expand our
awareness, what should we do? (Or, does increased awareness come after you get
directly involved in political and social issues?)
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 37 Additional Projects/Activities Materials for Additional Projects/Activities
Who Killed Martin Luther King?
(condensed from the original article)
February 21, 2000, consortiumnews.com
By Douglas Valentine
(Editor's Note: Douglas Valentine worked as a researcher for the King family and
testified at the trial about suspicions that Dr. King might have been under U.S.
government surveillance at the time of the assassination.)
On Dec. 8, a jury in Memphis, Tenn., deliberated for only three hours before deciding
that the long-held official version of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination was wrong.
The jury's verdict implicated a retired Memphis businessman [Lloyd Jowers] and
government agencies in a conspiracy to kill the civil rights giant.
Though the trial testimony had received little press attention outside of the Memphis
area, the startling outcome drew an immediate rebuttal from defenders of the official
finding: that James Earl Ray acted alone or possibly as part of a low-level conspiracy of
a few white racists.
Leading newspapers across the country disparaged the December verdict as the
product of a flawed conspiracy theory given a one-sided presentation. …
…For its part, the King family cited the verdict as a way of dealing with its personal
grief. …
…Without doubt, the trial in Memphis lacked the neat wrap-up of a Perry Mason
drama. The testimony was sometimes imprecise, dredging up disputed memories more
than three decades old….
…Yet, despite the shortcomings, the trial was the first time that evidence from the King
assassination was presented to a jury in a court of law. The verdict demonstrated that 12
citizens -- six blacks and six whites -- did not find the notion of a wide-ranging
conspiracy to kill King as ludicrous as many commentators did.
The trial suggested, too, that the government erred by neglecting the larger issue of
public interest in the mystery of who killed Martin Luther King Jr. Instead the
government simply affirmed and reaffirmed James Earl Ray's guilty plea for three
decades. Insisting that the evidence pointed clearly toward Ray as the assassin, the
government never agreed to vacate Ray's guilty plea and allow for a full-scale trial, a
possibility that ended when Ray died from liver disease in 1998.
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 38 Additional Projects/Activities: Who Killed Martin Luther King? At that point, the King family judged that a wrongful death suit against Jowers was the
last chance for King's murder to be considered by a jury. From the start, the family
encountered harsh criticism from many editorial writers who judged the conspiracy
allegations nutty.
The King family's suspicions, however, derived from one fact that was beyond dispute:
that powerful elements of the federal government indeed were out to get Martin Luther
King Jr. in the years before his murder.
In particular, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover despised King as a dangerous radical who
threatened the national security and needed to be neutralized by almost any means
necessary.
After King's "I have a dream speech" in 1963, FBI assistant director William Sullivan
called King "the most dangerous and effective Negro leader in the country." Hoover
reacted to King's Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 with the comment that King was "the most
notorious liar in the country."
The documented record is clear that the FBI and other federal agencies aggressively
investigated King as an enemy of the state. His movements were monitored; his phones
were tapped; his rooms were bugged; derogatory information about his personal life
was leaked to discredit him; he was blackmailed about extramarital affairs; he was sent
a message suggesting that he commit suicide.
"There is only one way out for you," the message read. "You better take it before your
filthy, abnormal, fraudulent self is bared to the nation."
These FBI operations escalated as black uprisings burned down parts of American cities
and as the nation's campuses erupted in protests against the Vietnam War. To many
young Americans, black and white, King was a man of unparalleled stature and
extraordinary courage. He was the leader who could merge the civil rights and anti-war
movements.
Increasingly, King saw the two issues as intertwined, as President Lyndon Johnson
siphoned off anti-poverty funds to prosecute the costly war in Vietnam.
On April 15, 1967, less than a year before his murder, King concluded a speech to an
anti-war rally with a call on the Johnson administration to "stop the bombing." King
also began planning a Poor People's March on Washington that would put a tent city on
the Mall and press the government for a broad redistribution of the nation's wealth.
Covert government operations worked to disrupt both the anti-war and civil rights
movements by infiltrating them with spies and agents provocateurs. The FBI’s
COINTELPRO sought to neutralize what were called "black nationalist hate groups,"
counting among its targets King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 39 Additional Projects/Activities: Who Killed Martin Luther King? One FBI memo fretted about the possible emergence of a black "Messiah" who could
"unify and electrify" the various black militant groups. The memo listed King as "a real
contender" for this leadership role.
With this backdrop came the chaotic events in Memphis in early 1968 as King lent his
support to a sanitation workers' strike marred by violence.
The government's surveillance of King in Memphis -- by both federal agents and city
police -- would rest at the heart of the case more than three decades later.
On April 4, 1968, at 6 p.m., King emerged from his room on the second floor of the
Lorraine Motel. As he leaned over the balcony, King was struck by a single bullet and
died…
…In 1971, investigative writer Harold Weisberg published the first dissenting account
of the official King case in his book, Frame Up. Weisberg noted problems with the
physical evidence, including the FBI's failure to match the death slug to the alleged
murder weapon.
Questions about the case mounted when the federal government declassified records
revealing the intensity of FBI hatred for King. The combination of factual discrepancies
and a possible government motive led some of King's friends to suspect a conspiracy…
…On Oct. 2, 1998, the King family filed a wrongful death suit against Jowers. The trial
opened in November 1999, attracting scant attention from the national press….
…A former state judge, Joe Brown, took the stand to challenge the government's
confidence that Ray's rifle was the murder weapon. During one of Ray's earlier court
hearings, Brown had ordered new ballistic tests on the gun and the bullet that killed
King.
The results had been inconclusive, with the forensics experts unable to rule whether the
gun was the murder weapon or wasn't. In his testimony, however, Brown asserted that
the sight on the rifle was so poor that it couldn't have killed King.
"This weapon literally could not hit the broadside of a barn," Brown said. But he
acknowledged that he had no formal training as a weapons expert.
The jury also heard testimony that federal authorities were monitoring the area around
the Lorraine Motel. Carthel Weeden, a former captain with the Memphis Fire
Department, said that on the afternoon of April 4, 1968, two men appeared at the fire
station across from the motel and showed the credentials of U.S. Army officers.
The men then carried briefcases, which they said held photographic equipment, up to
the roof of the station. Weeden said the men positioned themselves behind a parapet
approximately 18 inches high, a position that gave them a clear view of the Lorraine
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 40 Additional Projects/Activities: Who Killed Martin Luther King? Motel and the rooming house window from which Ray allegedly fired the shot that
killed King.
They also would have had a view of the area behind Jim's Grill. But what happened to
any possible photographs remains a mystery. Weeden added that he was never
questioned by local or federal authorities…
…Other witnesses described a strange withdrawal of police protection from around the
motel about an hour before King's death. A group of black homicide detectives, who
had served as King's bodyguards on previous visits to Memphis, were kept from
performing those duties in April 1968.
In his summation, trying to minimize his client's alleged role in the conspiracy, Garrison
asked the jury, "would the owner of a greasy spoon restaurant, and a lone assassin,
could they pull away officers from the scene of an assassination? Could they put
someone up on the top of the fire station?"
The cumulative evidence apparently convinced the jury. After the trial, juror Robert
Tucker told a reporter that the 12 jurors agreed that the assassination was too complex
for one person to handle. He noted the testimony about the police guards being
removed and Army agents observing King from the firehouse. "All of these things
added up," Tucker said. [AP, Dec. 9, 1999]
Even before the trial ended, the media controversy about the case had begun. Many
reporters viewed the conspiracy allegations as half-baked and the defense as offering
few challenges to the breathtaking assertions…
…The larger tragedy may be that the serious questions about King's assassination have
receded even deeper into the historical mist.
As Court TV analyst [Harriet] Ryan noted, "Whatever theories Garrison and Pepper get
into the record ... it is not likely they will change the general belief that Ray was
responsible."
Though Ryan may be right, another perspective came in 1996 when two admirers of Dr.
King -- the Rev. James M. Lawson Jr. and actor Mike Farrell -- wrote a fund-raising
letter seeking support for a fuller investigation of the assassination.
They argued that the full story of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination was too
important to the country to leave any stone unturned. They stated:
"There are buried truths in our history which continue to insist themselves back into the
light, perhaps because they hold within them the nearly dead embers of what we were
once intended to be as a nation."
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 41 Additional Projects/Activities: Who Killed Martin Luther King? ST. MARTIN, THE MILITANT
By Mumia Abu-Jamal, M.A.
Column #489
January 10, 2001
“One night toward the end of January I settled into bed late, after a strenuous
day. Coretta had already fallen asleep and just as I was about to doze off the telephone
rang. An angry voice said, "Listen, nigger, we've taken all we want from you; before
next week you'll be sorry you ever came to Montgomery." I hung up, but I couldn't
sleep.”
Rev. Martin L. King, Jr., Stride Toward Freedom (1958)
Three nights after this phone call, King's house was bombed. It is possible, in this age
of consumer-driven commodification, for millions to know a name, to recognize an
image, and still to know next to nothing about the recognized figure. It has been over
30 years since the assassination of Dr. King, and in the 3 decades thereafter, few
Americans, black or white, have been so honored, so lionized, or so deeply projected
into public consciousness, as a figure of peace. This would not be so objectionable were
it not for the purposes of that projection.
Much of the projection seems purely commercial, a secular day-off for millions of
workers, to allow them to stimulate the economy by buying stuff in the King Day
Sale. Much of it also seems political, as Rev. King is raised as a kind of talisman, a
symbol of peace meant to keep the natives calm in times of discontent.
But symbols are funny things. They are sometimes overrun by the rampaging
complexities of reality. Living beings change, develop and grow. And Dr. King, in his
later years (and under pressure from black radicals and militants on his left) became
increasingly disenchanted with society, and of course, those who ruled the social order.
Black Christian theologian, Dr. James H. Cone, in his excellent Martin & Malcolm &
America: A Dream or a Nightmare (Orbis, 1991), draws a compelling portrait of King's
private and public selves, and his growing openness to radical ideas. Cone writes that
Martin's wife, Coretta, who knew him best, saw him inching closer and closer to the
views of Malcolm X. Indeed, Coretta S. King said as much, in her My Life with Martin
Luther King, where she saw "firm agreement" between the two men on "certain aspects"
of Malcolm's program. She sensed that "at some point the two would have come closer
together and would have been a very strong force in the total struggle for liberation and
self-determination of black people in our society."
This was not to be.
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 42 Additional Projects/Activities: St. Martin, The Militant Waves of rebellions in black communities in 1967 shook King, and opened his eyes to
what he called "a system of internal colonialism." In words that would seem to presage
the fiery words of Dr. Huey P. Newton and the Black Panthers a season later, King
observed: "The slum is little more than a domestic colony which leaves its inhabitants
dominated politically, exploited economically, segregated and humiliated at every turn"
(Cone, p. 223).
With these attacks on the economic injustices in America came criticism of King by the
media and their moneyed masters. To his eternal credit, King did not turn from his
vision, and instead heightened his economic critique, saying, at the SCLC Convention of
Aug. 1967:
We've got to begin to ask questions about the whole society. We are called upon to
help the discouraged beggars in life's market place. But one day we must come to see
that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. It means that questions
must be raised. "Who owns this oil?"... "Who owns the iron ore?"... "Why is it that
people have to pay water bills in a world that is two-thirds water?" (Cone, 224).
This is the voice of a man who was being radicalized. Nor were his previous feelings of
confidence and faith in white Americans unchanged. King called America a "confused,"
"sick," and "neurotic" nation, telling a group of blacks in Louisville that "the vast
majority of white Americans are racist," whether consciously or unconsciously (Cone, p.
233).
In months thereafter, he would severely criticize the Vietnam War, and call the U.S. the
"greatest purveyor of violence in the world today" (Cone, p. 237) at his "Beyond
Vietnam" speech at Riverside Church in New York City. Relatively shortly thereafter,
Dr. King was sent to his fathers and from this world.
As King Day once again passes, let us all remember that a man is more than a
symbol. Let us remember his growing radicalization, for if we have an idea where he
was going, we begin to see why the powers that be, (the rulers, the FBI, the police, etc.)
didn't want him to arrive.
(c)MAJ 2001
This column may be reprinted and/or distributed by electronic means, but only for non
commercial use, and only with the inclusion of the following copyright information:
Text (c) copyright 2001 by Mumia Abu-Jamal. All rights reserved. Reprinted by
permission of the author.
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 43 Additional Projects/Activities: St. Martin, The Militant All Things Censored
The Poem NPR Doesn't Want You to Hear
(abridged)
By Martin Espada (from his collection of essays, Zapata’s Disciple)
I was an NPR poet. In particular, I was an All Things Considered poet. All Things
Considered would occasionally broadcast my poems in conjunction with news stories.
One producer even commissioned a New Year's poem from me. "Imagine the Angels of
Bread" aired on January 2, 1994, in the same broadcast as the news of the Zapatista
uprising in Chiapas. But now I have been censored by All Things Considered and
National Public Radio because I wrote a poem for them about Mumia Abu Jamal.
As many readers may know, Mumia Abu Jamal is an eloquent African-American
journalist on death row, convicted in the 1981 slaying of police officer Daniel Faulkner
in Philadelphia-under extremely dubious circumstances. Officer Faulkner was beating
Mumia's brother with a flashlight when Mumia came upon the scene. In the ensuing
confrontation, both Faulkner and Mumia were shot. Though Mumia had a .38 caliber
pistol in his taxi that night, and the gun was found at the scene, the judgment of the
medical examiner concerning the fatal bullet was that it came from a .44 caliber weapon.
Several witnesses reported seeing an unidentified gunman flee, leaving Faulkner and
Mumia severely wounded in the street.
What happened in court was a tragic pantomime. The trial featured a prosecutor who
assailed Mumia for his radical politics, including his teenaged membership in the Black
Panthers. Witnesses were coached and coerced in their testimony or intimidated into
silence by police. The trial was presided over by a judge notorious for handing out
death sentences to Black defendants, or manipulating juries to do the same, as in this
case. A strong critic of the Philadelphia police -- particularly with respect to their brutal
treatment of the African-American collective called MOVE -- Mumia was condemned
by the very system he questioned.
In August 1995, Mumia came within ten days of being executed by lethal injection. He
is seeking a new trial. Robert Meeropol, the younger son of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg,
says: "Mumia is the first political prisoner in the U.S. to face execution since my
parents."
Enter NPR. In 1994, National Public Radio agreed to broadcast a series of Mumia's radio
commentaries from death row. The Prison Radio Project produced the recordings that
April. Suddenly, NPR canceled the commentaries under pressure from the right,
particularly the Fraternal Order of Police and Senator Robert Dole. Mumia and the
Prison Radio Project sued NPR on First Amendment grounds.
In April 1997, I was contacted by the staff at All Things Considered, their first
communication since my New Year's poem. Diantha Parker and Sara Sarasohn
commissioned me to write a poem for National Poetry Month. The general idea was
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 44 Additional Projects/Activities: All Things Censored that the poem should be like a news story, with a journalistic perspective. They
suggested that I write a poem in response to a news story in a city I visited during the
month. Ms. Parker called to obtain my itinerary, so that NPR could give me an
assignment relevant to a particular city. Fatefully, they could think of no such
assignment. But the idea had found a home in the folds of my brain.
Since April is National Poetry Month, I traveled everywhere. I went from Joplin,
Missouri, to Kansas City, to Rochester, to Chicago, to Camden, New Jersey. And then to
Philadelphia. I read an article in the April 16th Philadelphia Weekly about Mumia Abu
Jamal. The article described a motion by one of Mumia's lawyers, Leonard Weinglass, to
introduce testimony by an unnamed prostitute with new information about the case.
This became the catalyst for the poem.
I also visited the tomb of Walt Whitman in nearby Camden, and was moved. Whitman
wrote this in "Song of Myself": the runaway slave came to my house and stopt outside,
/1 heard his motions crackling the twigs of the wood pile, I Through the swung halfdoor of the kitchen I saw him limpsy and weak, I And went where he sat on a log and
led him in and assured him, I And brought water and fill'd a tub for his sweated body
and bruis'd feet." In my poem, Whitman's tomb became a place of refuge for the
"fugitive slave," first for a nameless prostitute, then Mumia. By poem's end, this place
and poet came to represent our sacred compassion, our ceremonies of conscience, our
will to resist, our refusal to forget.
I faxed the poem to NPR on April 21st. On April 24th, All Things Considered staff
informed me that they would not air the poem. They were explicit: They would not air
the poem because of its subject matter-Mumia Abu Jamal -- and its political sympathies.
"NPR is refusing to air this poem because of its political content?" I asked. "Yes," said
Diantha Parker.
She cited the "history" of NPR and Mumia, a reference to their refusal to air his
commentaries. She further explained that the poem was "not the way NPR wants to return to this subject." Such is the elegant bureaucratic language of censorship. Parker
would later admit, in an interview with Dennis Bernstein of KPFA-FM, that she "loved"
the poem, and that "the poem should have run, perhaps in a different context." This
comment also debunks the idea that NPR was merely exercising its editorial discretion.
The quality of the poem was never questioned. The criteria for the assignment had been
met. "He did everything we asked him to do," said Parker to Bernstein.
A few days later, I met Marilyn Jamal, Mumia's former wife. I presented her with the
poem and watched her struggle against tears. Then she said: “I promised myself that I
wouldn't cry anymore.” I concluded that NPR's censorship should come to light…
…I once asked my friend David Velasquez, who worked as a farrier, about
shoeing horses. He replied: "Imagine a creature that weighs 1,500 pounds and is
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 45 Additional Projects/Activities: All Things Censored motivated by fear." That's NPR, at least in terms of Mumia. Of course, the liberal media
is notorious for timidity. To again quote my wise friend: "A liberal is someone who
leaves the room when a fight breaks out."
Editorial decisions are made for political reasons on a daily basis: Rarely, however, is
the curtain lifted to reveal the corroded machinery. Moreover, as a left-wing poet, I expect to be censored by mainstream media. But when so-called "alternative" media also
censor the left, the impact is devastating. Ask Mumia Abu Jamal…
…Readers can call or write All Things Considered to urge that the poem be aired. They
can urge, again, that Mumia's commentaries be aired, or at least released from the
vaults of NPR so that others might have access to them. They can inform NPR that their
financial contributions to National Public Radio will instead be diverted to the legal
defense of Mumia Abu-Jamal. That address is: Committee to Save Mumia Abu-Jamal,
163 Amsterdam Avenue, #115, New York, NY 10023. Checks should be made payable
to the Bill of Rights Foundation ("for MAJ").
Meanwhile, I assume that All Things Considered has put my name on their blacklist. I
wonder what poems I must write to be allowed on All Things Considered again. Maybe
some cowboy poetry.
What follows is the poem NPR does not want you to hear. I have made a few minor
revisions, since, in the midst of this madness, with a poet's compulsive nature, I was trying to create a better poem.
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 46 Additional Projects/Activities: All Things Censored Another Nameless Prostitute
Says the Man is Innocent
for Mumia Abu-Jamal
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania/Camden, New Jersey, April 1997
The board-blinded windows knew what
happened;
the pavement sleepers of Philadelphia,
groaning
in their ghost-infested sleep, knew what
happened;
every Black man blessed
with the gashed eyebrow of nightsticks
knew what happened;
even Walt Whitman knew what happened,
poet a century dead, keeping vigil
from the tomb on the other side of the
bridge.
More than fifteen years ago,
the cataract stare of the cruiser's
headlights,
the impossible angle of the bullet,
the tributaries and lakes of blood,
Officer Faulkner dead, suspect Mumia
shot in the chest,
the witnesses who saw a gunman
running away, his heart and feet thudding.
The nameless prostitutes know,
hunched at the curb, their bare legs
chilled.
Their faces squinted to see that night,
rouged with fading bruises. Now the faces
fade.
Perhaps an eyewitness putrefies eyes open
in a bed of soil,
or floats in the warm gulf stream of her
addiction,
or hides from the fanged whispers of the
police
in the tomb of Walt Whitman,
where the granite door is open
and fugitive slaves may rest.
Mumia: the Panther beret, the thinking
dreadlocks,
dissident words that swarmed the
microphone like a hive,
sharing meals with people named Africa,
calling out their names even after the
police bombardment
that charred their black bodies.
So the governor has signed the death
warrant.
The executioner's needle would flush the
poison
down into Mumia's writing hand
so the fingers curl like a burned spider;
his calm questioning mouth would grow
numb,
and everywhere radios sputter to silence,
in his memory.
The veiled prostitutes are gone,
gone to the segregated balcony of whores.
But the newspaper reports that another
nameless prostitute
says the man is innocent, that she will
testify at the next hearing.
Beyond the courthouse, a multitude of
witnesses chants, prays,
shouts for his prison to collapse, a shack in
a hurricane.
Mumia, if the last nameless prostitute
becomes an unraveling turban of steam,
if the judges' robes become clouds of ink
swirling like octopus deception,
if the shroud becomes your Amish quilt,
if your dreadlocks are snipped during
autopsy,
then drift above the ruined RCA factory
that once birthed radios
to the tomb of Walt Whitman,
where the granite door is open
and fugitive slaves may rest.
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 47 Additional Projects/Activities: All Things Censored Native American Resistance in the 1960’s
From The Americans (U.S. History textbook) pp. 763-4
From this excerpt of the textbook, The Americans, what impression do you get of the
American Indian Movement? What impression does it give of the FBI? Who seems to
be most responsible for violent events?
MISSING: Image that accompanies this activity
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 48 Additional Projects/Activities: Native American Resistance in the 1960’s "DAY OF SHAME"
Leonard Peltier Defense Committee Public Statement Regarding Denial of Clemency
1/21/2001
We were both shocked and saddened by President Clinton's decision to deny executive
clemency to Leonard Peltier. During the last few days world support for the immediate
and unconditional release of Mr. Peltier had reached remarkable levels, with calls and
letters arriving from such renowned human rights and religious leaders as Coretta Scott
King, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Amnesty International, Nobel
Laureate Rigoberta Menchu and the Archbishop Desmond Tutu, amongst many others.
Grassroots support from people across the country had swamped the White House
phone and fax lines for months. Native nations and organizations made their support
known again and again in powerful messages. Thousands of concerned citizens walked
and prayed in the streets of New York on International Human Rights Day. Yet
somehow none of this was enough.
Why? The question remains for William Clinton to answer. The fact that so light a
penalty attached to the perjury charge in the Monica Lewinsky case raises disturbing
issues. We would like an explanation.
For many weeks now President Clinton had called for national reconciliation and racial
unity in this country. He has called for "One America" and emphasized the great racial
disparity and discrimination so evident in our criminal justice system. He has called
again and again for respect and equality for all races. He has stressed the need for
righting historical injustices and healing long festering wounds inflicted upon people of
color. He has insisted that the United States take its place as a world leader of human
rights affairs. He has personally visited Pine Ridge Reservation, the site of the tragic
shoot out at Oglala a long and bitter quarter of a century ago, and called for greater
respect and justice for our first citizens.
Yet in this last and most critical test , President Clinton has betrayed his own goals and
ideals. Again we must ask why?
Leonard Peltier has been imprisoned for 25 years without ever receiving the benefit of a
fair trial. The FBI forced Myrtle Poor Bear to sign a false affidavit, then committed fraud
upon the Canadian government by presenting her statement to their courts of law.
Three teenaged boys were terrorized and coerced into giving false testimonies to the
grand jury and at his trial. A ballistics test reflecting his innocence was concealed from
the defense and the FBI expert gave distorted testimony to the jury. No consequences
for these illegal acts have ever attached. Today even the United States Attorneys admit
that no one knows who fired the fatal shots. Yet Leonard Peltier was denied a new trial
on a technicality, with the judge admitting that a strong doubt was cast on the
prosecution's case. Even that judge now supports clemency . Meanwhile Mr. Peltier
himself is long overdue for parole and receives human rights awards for the remarkable
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 49 Additional Projects/Activities: “Day of Shame” human rights work he carries out from behind bars. He is now in failing health.
Most disturbing still is the fact that Leonard's highly controversial conviction is deeply
rooted in one of the most grim chapters of recent American civil rights history,
specifically the Pine Ridge Reign of Terror. Between 1973 and 1976 , FBI-backed
vigilantes terrorized, battered and assaulted scores of Lakota traditionalists and AIM
supporters throughout the reservation. Houses burned and entire families were
wounded in drive by shootings. While the FBI stood by, some 64 AIM members and
supporters were murdered, their deaths never properly investigated or vindicated.
Civil rights organizations excoriated FBI abuses again and again.
It can hardly be gainsaid that the history of our government's dealings with the first
citizens of this country have been tragic at best, and oftentimes shameful. It is difficult
to imagine a case more crucial to national reconciliation and healing that the case of
Leonard Peltier. Yet a door, instead of opening , has been slammed and locked. Our
society will pay the price.
Today will be remembered as but another day of U.S. government shame and betrayal
of Native people.
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 50 Additional Projects/Activities: “Day of Shame” Samples of Student Work
Midway through this short unit, after having the students read a variety excerpts from
King’s writings and speeches I asked students what they were most surprised to
learn. Here are a few of the more engaged responses:
•
I thought he was only speaking towards or among African Americans only. I
definitely didn’t know that he wanted to help the (Vietnamese) peasants in
action concerning the land reform by the landlords… All this time I thought he
was a motivational speaker for African Americans. I guess I was wrong all this
time…
… I am surprise because I thought he was speaking on behalf of African Americans, but
he’s speaking for everyone that has government or racial issues. Like the U.S. against
Vietnam.
…My view is that the media is trying to cover up what America really did…And also
the media is covering up the other ideas is that they realize King’s ideas and views are
true and they’re ashamed of what they did. So they used King’s “I Have a Dream” to
cover it up and try to ignore it.
•
His significance is so profound that I cannot describe it in words. He has
impacted this world so much. He brought only the beginning to fight all the
injustices that we face. He is the one that started the hopeful dream.
•
Is Martin Luther King’s dream actually achievable? Or is it really just a dream?
•
I never knew that he said anything like I read in this article, how they “poisoned
their waters and kill million acres of their crops.” …I never thought he really
cared about anything outside of America.
•
What I didn’t know was what he wanted to do for Vietnam. He said the
bulldozers destroyed their areas and the precious trees, poison their water and
kill a million acres of crops. He said if “we ignore this sobering reality, we will
find ourselves organizing committees for the next generation.” I never heard this
whole speech before and I thought it was cool that he wanted to help not just the
African Americans but Vietnamese.”
•
What I don’t know is his views on the government’s investment and the
economy. As also the fact that he believes the government see things and money
to be more important than a person’s well-being: “When machines and
computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important,
the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism and militarism are incapable of
being conquered.” … …I am surprised that he describes things to be more
important to the government than people. And I am also surprised that he talks
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 51 Samples of Student Work about how the profits from the investments have no concern for the “social
betterment” of the people. I didn’t know that he’s a politician and knows a lot
about the economy. I believe these other ideas are ignored because some of
King’s views here conflicts with politicians’ views about the government and
how it was like then. Plus these words come hastily at the government and I
guess people or the media didn’t want to make his views to be publicize – or
maybe they are being prevented by the government from allowing the public to
know.
•
I didn’t know that his plan was to “mobilize and train thousands of poor and
allies to camp out [in front of the White House] with him until they help the
urgent poors. He planned to group all the poors together, no matter the color,
race. I didn’t know he wanted unity, well maybe I did, but I didn’t know he
fought for the justice of poor people of all color and race.
•
It surprises me how the lives of Vietnamese are ruined and their homeland is
destroyed. A war can be very destructive as the details showed here. It said the
American bases killed a million acres of their crops. They destroyed the
beautiful and precious trees. Most importantly, the military counsels killed one
million of Vietnamese. This brings a large amount of resentment and hatred
towards the American government. One million is no small figure. It takes
dozens of years for a nation to recover. All losses, including property and
people’s way of living. They may have certain devastating changes. Most
importantly, it surprises me that King can speak so plainly and frankly that what
his nation did, particularly it means something bad and unapproved by majority.
…Martin Luther King is famous for his speech, “I have a dream.” … Nowadays, the
press emphasizes this idea and seems to ignore the others. I think this is because the
other issues may contradict to what we have today. They are abuse, use of violence,
criticism on the whites, economic inequality and so on. These are too political and will
obviously affect the status of the government. Owing to the sensitivity, I think the
media do not want to tell all of them. Besides, they are the exact problems of the society
now. Like the military expansion of America and her self-regarded role as international
police. This is foreseen when Dr. King led the freedom struggle.
The following are excerpted from the students’ work on a cloze exercise structuring the
writing of a simple newspaper article on how students learned new things about Martin
Luther King. (The italicized words are taken from the form given students to write the
“article.”)
·
Marianna thinks she knows why most Americans never hear about this side of Dr.
King. “Because I guess they never wanted us to learned the true meaning about the
speech I have a dream, but is cool that we are learning [now] all of this,” she said.
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 52 Samples of Student Work ·
Alisha thinks she knows why most Americans never hear about this side of Dr. King.
“They just want to make it seem that all he cared about is that dream he had. They
don’t want us to know that there were other issues he was concerned with that are
deeper and more serious than his dream,” she said.
·
As an example of why King’s words are still relevant today, s/he said, “If you take a look
around in our neighborhood it’s rare to find a white person. It’s seems like your more
likely to live in bad conditions if you’re a minority in this country.
·
But Reconstructions didn’t go far enough, and its gains were quickly reversed, said
Alexis. “For example, “There were a large amount of Black men in government, but
before they knew there weren’t any more black men in government.”
Martin Luther King understood that the freedom struggle was a second attempt at
Reconstruction, but that it had to go much deeper this time to achieve true equality,
explained Trisha. That’s why he said, “The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake
the foundation of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.”
·
Karmen said that she understands the connection between the problems of African
Americans and similar issues faced by other people of color and many whites in the U.S. and in
other countries. Some of our common problems are, “living in poverty, lack of jobs, less
education, and trying overcome the racist people who keep us down.”
To solve these problems, we’re going to need to, “take a stand for ourselves, know our
history to that we can go further on our journey toward equality.”
·
Adja thinks she knows why most Americans never hear about this side of Dr. King. His
views and concerns were never brought out, because America did not want to be
reminded by all of these issues. The media seems not allow everyone to be informed
about how King had struggled against poverty which still exists today,” she said.
As an example of why King’s words are still relevant today, she said, “Kin had given out a
line of how life is like then and now. He somehow had predicted most of the injustices and
problems that can be associated with today. Besides in his only “I have a dream” speech, I believe
King had a lot of other dreams. He maybe even have nightmares about the Vietnam war.
·
Martin Luther King understood that the freedom struggle was a second attempt at
Reconstruction, but that it had to go much deeper this time to achieve true equality, explained
Sonia Silva. That’s why he said, we’ve got to give ourselves to this struggle until the
end. Nothing would be more tragic than to stop at this point. We’ve got to see it
through.”
·
Billy Jenkins said that he understands the connection between the problems of African
Americans and similar issues faced by other people of color and many whites in the U.S. and in
other countries. Some of our common problems are, “poverty and the class structures are the
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 53 Samples of Student Work main problem almost all of us. There is also the case of discrimination because of our
sex, race or gender,” he said.
To solve these problems, we’re going to need to “bond together and force the
government to see and resolve our problems. Let everyone see that we are all the same
with a head and a brain.”
·
As an example of why King’s words are still relevant today, she said, “King knows
economy of the nation and status of the colored people are closely linked. When there
is a wide gap between the wealth of the poor and the rich, there will be more
conflicts. So he guaranteed annual income to the workers of the lower class, like the
sanitary workers.”
·
She wants to answer this question: Why is the United States actively engaged in
other countries’ affairs?”
·
He wants to investigate this question: Why they considered some man heroes if they
are the worse man in history and they know that, so why we commemorate their
birthdays like a big success.
·
Martin Luther King understood that the freedom struggle was a second attempt at
Reconstruction, but that it had to go much deeper this time to achieve true equality,” explained
Jim Do. That’s why he said, Nonviolent protest must now mature to a new level. The
storm will not abate until a just distribution of the fruits of the earth…”
·
I didn’t know that King suggested a program that he believed was a solution for
white and Negro racial and economic problem. This program was called
measure: guaranteed annual income. I also didn’t know that King supported the union
movement that supported unskilled labor workers and protected them from these
enterprises who were unorganized and provided low wages with longer hours.
Yes, I’m very surprised about what King says on this page, because just when I started
reading the passage it kept my attention. I was concentrated more than the other
text; this sentence made me stop and think of the meaning of the words. The words
were so clear and powerful and I thought how difficult it is to fight against
discrimination.
·
Martin Luther King understood that the freedom struggle was a second attempt at
Reconstruction, but that it had to go much deeper this time to achieve true equality, explained
Andy Bee. That’s why he said, “A true revolution of values will soon cause us to
question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. It comes to
see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 54 Samples of Student Work ·
William said that what he discovered about King’s ideas was so inspiring that he already
has ideas about questions to pursue next semester. For example, he wants to investigate this
question: Who killed Martin Luther King and why?
·
Martin Luther King understood that the freedom struggle was a second attempt at
Reconstruction, but that it had to go much deeper this time to achieve true equality, explained
Mason. That’s why he said, “We know through painful experience that freedom is never
voluntarily given by the oppressor. It must be demanded by the oppressed.”
… wants to investigate this question: The world today is different from King’s time. Is it
still necessary to fight for freedom?
•
Thuy thinks she knows why most Americans never hear about this side of Dr.
King. “We never hear about King’s other ideas because the people in power are
afraid that we might try to take up some of King’s ideas and make it a reality.
…already has ideas about questions to pursue next semester. For example, she wants to
investigate this question: If Martin Luther King, Jr., had not been killed, would our world
or society still be the same today?
Hidden in Plain Sight – Page 55 Samples of Student Work