Know Your History: MLK was not shot until he initiated a Labor Movement

[Solomon]

He was moving on to labor/war issues.

[Bluerthanblue]

1. he was begining his "Poor People's Campaign"-

which is what I believe really worried the ptb.

http://www.poorpeoplescampaignppc.org/HISTORY.html

[RT Atlanta]

2. Poor Peoples Campaign

and its focus on the 3 evils of American society:

1) racism;
2) poverty; and
3) war

What we need is for this campaign to be reinvigorated (btw: this "new" direction is my personal favorite in studying Dr. King's life and what he was seeking to address at the end of his life). You can read more at the links below about Dr. King's plans:

http://www.poorpeoplescampaignppc.org/King-s-Last--March.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_People%27s_Campaign

[Wilms]

3. Yep. A co-worker schooled me on that one a few years back.

I had thought it might have been King's opposition to the Vietnam War that sealed his fate.

[Brickbat]

4. Reminds me of the quote from Langston Hughes:

He is speaking of poetry, but it applies to many things:

"I have never known the police of any country to show an interest in lyric poetry as such. But when poems stop talking about the moon and begin to mention poverty, trade unions, color lines, and colonies, somebody tells the police."

[still_one]

5. He wasn't shot because of his involvement in the Tennessee sanitation strike, he was shot because a

racist jerk killed him, purely based on his racial prejudice

james earl ray was a george wallace fan, whose speeches are somewhat reminiscent of the garbage you hear coming out of the tea party

[mistertrickster]

So why didn't some "racist jerk" kill him when he was marching in Birmingham?

The timing is just too convenient.

Kinda like JFK's back door rapprochement with Kruschev, and the next thing you know, he's dead.

[still_one]

14. They tried to /nt

[mistertrickster]

17. Yeah. He was hard to hit there . . . marching at the head of the parade. nt

[hifiguy]

26. Agreed

That JFK, Malcolm X, MLK and RFK were all killed in the space of four and a half years is NOT a coincidence.

[Solomon]

11. Bullshit

That's what they told you and what they want you to believe.

[mistertrickster]

12. Yup, the old "bad apple--lone gunman" theory. How many sins has it covered up

over the years.

And no matter how many times the power-structure trots it out, the masses never stop believing it . . .

[still_one]

13. Bullshit back. You obviously have no sense of history during the civil rights movement

and the racism that was prevalent then, and is starting to make a come back now

[mistertrickster]

15. You don't know what the poster knows or doesn't know. Cool it with the cheap shots. nt

[still_one]

23. He said bullshit to me first, and you are calling what I said a cheap shot. This is a moderated

forum where people are allowed to express their opinion. An opinion is just that. The poster also doesn't know what I know, I lived through that time

[socialist_n_TN]

56. So did I AND, what's more, I lived in the SOUTH

at that time and I believe the poster. It's NOT a coincidence that MLK was killed when he started using his cred to get into economic issues on the side of the PEOPLE.

[still_one]

65. So are you saying that james earl ray's motivation for killing MLK was because of the labor movement

or that he wasn't involved.

Hoover was a racist pig, but Ramsey Clark was the attorney general at the time, and the investigation indicated it was purely racial. In fact, there was evidence to implicate ray's brother also, but not enough to convict

[socialist_n_TN]

70. IF James Earl Ray did the killing..........

(and I don't take that as a given, MLK's family sure didn't), then HIS motivation might have been racial. But I don't believe he acted alone and the OTHER conspirators motivations were less racial than economic.

Normally I'm not that much of a conspiracy guy and I do look at other things first. Usually. But I lived through the Nixon, Hoover, and Reagan years. CONSPIRACIES are a FACT and at the highest levels of government too. WHY is it so hard to believe that there are NOT conspiracies?

[ThomCat]

72. A "conspiracy" is just 2 or more people agreeing to do something

and keep it a secret. Nothing more or less.

Any time you have people with any power or authority sitting alone in a meeting room discussing a goal or project that they don't want the general public to know about it is, in truth, a conspiracy.

Conspiracies happen. The whole idea that conspiracies are always and necessarily fantasies, false, and need to be ridiculed is deliberately perpetuated so that people will not question authority.

It is no coincidence that one of the first defenses by people in authority when anyone tries to challenge their authority is always to call accusations a conspiracy theory.

When government is in the business of spying on people, they are also in the business of taking actions in secret. that means conspiracies are definitely taking place. The only question is whether they are big or small, harmful or harmless.

It would be absolutely no surprise if there were several conspiracies under way to try to kill MLK. That one managed to succeed.

Anyone who thinks that conspiracies can't or don't happen is a fool who doesn't understand or doesn't think about what a conspiracy necessarily means or is.

[socialist_n_TN]

73. Agreed. You're last sentence summed it up nicely........

Although, I DO think that there are a group of "conspiracy squashers", ESPECIALLY on these big mysteries, who just don't WANT to believe that something as tragic as an assassination for political reasons can happen here. I have no idea how big this group is, whether it's a majority or a minority, but they are there. And of course, there are those who squash conspiracies because they have an agenda supporting the PTBs.

As I said in my post, however, having lived through Nixon, Hoover, and Reagan I KNOW that conspiracies DO happen and at the highest levels of government.

[Name removed]

28. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[H2O Man]

25. Correct.

[ProudDad]

82. That's the story they want you to believe...

The "lone gunman" theory that covers so many asses...

[Pacifist Patriot]

6. I think it was a combination of things.

His growing opposition to the Vietnam War (he was shot just a year after the Riverside Church sermon), the "Poor People's Campaign" and being openly in support of the strikers of AFSCME Local 1733. Which should be noted represented public employees.

I'll be honest, and admit I would be very nervous if we had any single individual in such a public position of oppositional leadership today. I think he or she would absolutely be a target for assassination.

[mistertrickster]

7. Actually, activism for labor rights and civil rights went way back. But your point is still true.

A. Phillip Randolf started a labor union in the early TEENs for railroad workers.

But there's no doubt that when King with his popularity (more like "notoriety" among the white power-brokers) focused more on labor rights in the North than civil rights in the South, he became a much bigger threat to the status-quo.

I agree with your main point.

K & R'd

[cali]

8. right. his assassination had nothing to do with

his being black or civil rights. because that's what you're implying.

[still_one]

10. This is trying to adjust the reality with what really happened /nt

[Solomon]

16. That's not what I'm implying: nice try

You can believe the bullshit all you want. It's always a lone gunman when an American icon is gunned down.

His ability to unite the poor, black and white, over labor issues was much more threatening to the powers that be.

He had the ability to create a mass movement, which is the one weakness of the powers that be.

[mistertrickster]

18. That's exactly NOT what he's implying. How about react to what he posted. nt

[onenote]

9. Know Your History: MLK was involved with labor movement long before 1968

Example: http://www.afscme.org/about/1550.cfm

And while he was not shot until 1968, he was obviously the target of many many threats for years before that.

[mistertrickster]

22. This is true. King JOINED labor and civil rights movements . . . he didn't start them.

Still, his focus clearly evolved as the years passed--from civil rights for blacks to ending poverty and war for every American.

[Hannah Bell]

57. you don't see the difference between speaking at a labor rally & starting a multiracial

poor people's movement?

[Atman]

19. I recced it despite no show of cause and effect.

He was shot during the period in which he was moving on to labor/war issues. We're the two incidences related? Other than by chronology, I don't know. While I tend to lean toward your interpretation of events, since there was no sourcing or any way for readers of your post to "know their history," it isn't really helpful. What if it wasn't about labor and war? Maybe just old fashioned 60's racism?

[randr]

20. He had also just made a definitive stand against the Viet Nam war.

[JohnyCanuck]

21. King family lawyer, Dr. William Pepper, explains it in court....

during the civil case brought by the King family against a suspected conspirator, Loyd Jowers, and other unnamed co-conspirators in the death of MLK. (It is a fact not widely broadcast by the mainstream media that the King family won the case, and the court found that, in addition to Jowers, agencies of the US government were also involved in the assassination death of Martin Luther King.)

In his closing remarks on the last day of the trial, Dr. Pepper touched upon the underlying dynamics of what created the circumstances of Dr. King's execution:

Martin King, as you know, for many years was a Baptist preacher in the southern part of this country, and he was thrust into leadership of the civil rights movement at a historic moment in the civil rights movement and social change movement in this part of the country. That's where he was. That's where he has been locked in time, locked in a media image, locked as an icon in the brains of the people of this country.

But Martin King had moved well beyond that. When he was awarded the Noble Peace Prize he became in the mid-1960's an international figure, a person of serious stature whose voice, his opinions, on other issues than just the plight of black people in the South became very significant world-wide. He commanded world-wide attention as few had before him. As a successor, if you will, to Mahatmas Gandhi in terms of the movement for social change through civil disobedience. So that's where he was moving. Then in 1967, April 4, 1967, one year to the day before he was killed, he delivered the momentous speech at Riverside Church in New York where he opposed the war.

Now, he thought carefully about this war. . . . I remember vividly, I was a journalist in Vietnam, when I came back he asked to meet with me, and when I opened my files to him, which were devastating in terms of the effects upon the civilian population of that country, he unashamedly wept.

I knew at that point really that the die was cast. This was in February of 1967. He was definitely going to oppose that war with every strength, every fiber in his body. And he did so. He opposed it. And from the date of the Riverside speech to the date he was killed, he never wavered in that opposition. Now, what does that mean? Is he an enemy of the State? The State regarded him as an enemy because he opposed it. But what does it really mean, his opposition? I put it to you that his opposition to that war had little to do with ideology, with capitalism, with democracy. It had to do with money. It had to do with huge amounts of money that that war was generating to large multinational corporations that were based in the United States . . .

When Martin King opposed the war, when he rallied people to oppose the war, he was threatening the bottom lines of some of the largest defense contractors in this country. This was about money. When he threatened to bring that war to a close through massive popular opposition, he was threatening the bottom lines of some of the largest construction companies, one of which was in the State of Texas, that patronized the Presidency of Lyndon Johnson and had the major construction contracts at Cam Ran Bay in Vietnam. This is what Martin King was challenging. He was challenging the weapons industry, the hardware, the armament industries, that all would lose as a result of the end of the war. . . .

Now, he begin to talk about a redistribution of wealth, in this the wealthiest country in the world that had such a large group of poor people, of people living then and now, by the way, in poverty. That problem had to be addressed. And it wasn't a black-and-white problem. This was a problem that dealt with Hispanics, and it dealt with poor whites as well. That is what he was taking on. That's what he was challenging.

The powers in this land believed he would not be successful. Why did they believe that? They believed that because they knew that the decision-making processes in the United States had by that point in time, and today it is much worse in my view, but by that point in time had so consolidated power that they were the representatives, the foot soldiers, of the . . . very economic interests who were going to suffer as a result of these times of changes. So the very powerful lobbying forces that put their people in the halls of Congress and indeed in the White House itself and controlled them, paid and bought them and controlled them, were certainly not going to agree to the type of social legislation that Martin King and his mass of humanity were going to require. (my emphasis /JC)

http://www.ratical.com/ratville/JFK/MLKactOstate.html

Watch Pepper's summation to the jury at the close of the trial here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/reprehensor#p/p (Look in the playlists listed on the right for MLK Summation).

[Bluerthanblue]

29. thank you for posting this- I believe in my heart, that the

ptb- were NOT about to let him motivate the 'people' into addressing wealth inequality- because they understood that he was likely to actually succeed, where so many had failed.

Poverty and all the issues that are connected with it- (military, education, health-care, etc)- continues to destroy our society, and cripple our country. imo.

[Solomon]

30. I thank you as well

I'm at work so I can't spend the time here like a need to.

Thank you very much. The trial got almost no publicity.

[Raksha]

36. Good documentation - thank you for posting it.

I forgot all about the civil suit, if I was even aware of it in the first place.

[Little Star]

24. TPTB hate labor movements. Thats a fact.

[H2O Man]

27. Recommended.

[FailureToCommunicate]

31. MLK was killed, like all our leaders, because of two reasons:

Hatred and easy access to guns. The pro gun folks here will chime in that presidents and other leaders assassinated COULD have been killed with ......(insert favorite: baseball bat, knife, bomb, poison...) but they weren't.

It matters less WHAT the reasons - anti labor speeches, economic justice speeches, racism, left handed-ness, - than the means. Motivation can be debated endlessly.

Lots of secessionists hated Lincoln, but it only took one with a plan, and a gun.

[Solomon]

32. Utter Fail

(shakes head)

[FailureToCommunicate]

77. Thanks for the lesson

I'll know better than to bother with a thread started, and puffed up, by you in the future.


(shakes head, and walks away)

[slackmaster]

33. No, he was shot for being an uppity n*****

:argh:

[Raksha]

34. That's true. I've thought about that more than once over the past few weeks.

The PTB tolerated the civil rights movement, even if they weren't happy about it. But a revitalized labor movement was just too much for them to swallow.

[Solomon]

35. Exactly. A labor movement was much more threatening.

They didn't have to sit in restaurants with normal people anyway. Or ride buses, or whatever. Civil rights was about social justice. Worker's rights are about economic justice and redistribution of wealth.

[SpartanDem]

37. That's not why he was killed

Ray was a noted a racist and King had attempts on life before Memphis

[slackmaster]

39. Never let an obvious truth get in the way of someone's persecution complex

:nuke:

[Solomon]

41. An obvious truth? Persecution complex?

Even King's family doesn't believe the official story. Have you kept up with information since the lie was put out? Guess not. Nothing to see here, just a nutty racist, move on, right? Okay, whatever.

[slackmaster]

44. No, I haven't kept up with the latest conspiracy theories

[Solomon]

46. LOL Conspiracy theories? Right, there are no such things as

conspiracies. We're not talking "latest" theories. The evidence has only been around for decades. You probably haven't even read Cointellpro or any of J. Edgar Hoover's obsessions have you. And why would you? Just bought the official story hook, line and sinker. Can't says I blame you. It makes perfect sense. King was black, and a racist killed him. Very cut and dried. Nothing to see here, just move on.

Well inform me. What's my persecution complex? Does being killed over economic rights rather than civil rights make for a persecution complex somehow? I mean the conventional wisdom is he was killed over civil rights. So what makes it a persecution complex?

[slackmaster]

52. You're a real fountain of information

You aren't even promoting a conspiracy. You're promoting a meta-conspiracy by making vague, detail-free claims that the generally accepted account of MLK's assassination isn't true. You haven't presented a shred of verifiable information here.

I think your purpose in starting this thread was to bait people into some kind of silly argument.

[Solomon]

54. You're the only one here making silly arguments.

And you look silly too with that tin foil on your head.

Touched a nerve did I? Why are you so invested in the official story?

And I wouldn't call it the "accepted" version. Not at all.

[slackmaster]

61. Your prowess at interpreting my attitude is even weaker than your conspiracy cheerleading

I haven't given the story much thought in a long time, because nobody has given me any information to suggest that it involved anything other than a racist nut-job murdering an uppity n*****.

[Solomon]

68. Nobody has "given" you information?

LOL It's been available for a long while. Why don't you start with some of the leads on this thread?

You like that "uppity ******r part a like, don't you?

[slackmaster]

69. This thread is bullshit flame bait

That's why.

[Solomon]

71. It's not flame bait at all. Why do you see it as flame bait?

Boy, you are really invested in the story they gave you. Why does it bother you so much that it isn't true? I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, why does it bother you so much that the official story might not be true?

The thread is certainly making people think as you can see. You, however, seem to be alone. Well, except for your tinfoil cat.

[slackmaster]

74. It doesn't bother me a bit that you doubt what I regard as the only credible story

It's your problem.

[Solomon]

75. you admit that you haven't done any research about it

after the official story was put out, but yet you see that as the "only credible story."

Interesting.

[reformist2]

38. Excellent MLK, Jr. Quote on Labor:

"You are demanding that this city will respect the dignity of labor. So often we overlook the work and the significance of those who are not in professional jobs, of those who are not in the so-called big jobs. But let me say to you tonight that whenever you are engaged in work that serves humanity and is for the building of humanity, it has dignity and it has worth. You are reminding not only Memphis but you are reminding the nation that it is a crime for people who live in this rich nation and receive starvation wages."

[Brickbat]

40. King called for a general strike two weeks before he was assassinated. I strongly suggest everyone

read the lesser-known and -quoted March 18 speech, in which he says America is going to hell for not using its wealth to help the poor.

http://disruptivegrace.blogspot.com/2008/03/martin-luther-king-in-memphis-america.html

[Solomon]

42. One thing I have to add here. You know MLK was demonized

and hated when he was alive by the same people who venerated him after his death.

Now that he's gone he was a saint. But I remember what they said about him when he was alive.

[Brickbat]

43. Oh, absolutely.

It's always easier to like people after they're dead.

[EFerrari]

45. Oh, yeah. And when he started in on poverty and war

didn't a good number of people abandon him?

[Solomon]

47. Indeed. I even remember some black people wondering why

he was arguing for poor whites.

At any rate, he was indeed a great man, and we haven't seen anyone who could come close to galvanizing masses of people.

The deep doo that we're in started a long time ago.

[EFerrari]

48. I was like 12 when he was killed but remember my grandma telling me

in Spanish how brave he was and how dangerous it was to talk as he was talking. She'd seen everything in the way of public violence in El Salvador and knew what happened to people who stood up for the powerless.

[Solomon]

51. I'll never forget the first time I saw him flinch. A nearby car

backfired and he ducked. Then I realized what kind of life he was leading.
He was a brave man. Every minute of every day he had to think about being killed. Then he finally gave up and reached the point where he knew it was going to happen and spoke about it. But he still flinched when he heard a noise.

[deaniac21]

49. I thought he was moving more in an Anarco-Syndicalist direction.

[blindpig]

50. Civil Rights without economic rights are an empty thing.

When he started talking about imperialism and economic rights he was a marked man, you can fuck with the sensibilities of the ruling class but attacking their material basis is perilous.

[socialist_n_TN]

58. BINGO! Your whole post, but the caption line.........

is ESPECIALLY true.

[Lyric]

53. Yep. Even the King family doesn't believe the official story.

I read that they think James Earl Ray was an innocent crazy person set up to take the fall, and that the murder was actually a joint effort between the FBI, the mafia, and a few corrupt local Memphis cops--all because King's ability to inspire action in the masses was a threat to the wealthy--both the mafia-criminal and the upstanding-citizen varieties.

Frankly, I'm far more inclined to believe the King family's point of view. They've had access to more in-depth information and details about the murder than anyone else. They're a hell of a lot more informed that any of us are--so why do people write their opinions off so easily?

[Solomon]

55. Because the "racist" did it story is so believable.

I had a hard time too when the King family said that Ray was a patsy, but I had to admit, they have far more infomration about it than anyone else. Notice how people here overlook the trial that was had.

[socialist_n_TN]

59. Well for one thing, the ptb WILL allow.........

social changes to occur when it becomes obvious that they're probably going to occur anyway. We see it today with the advances in LGBT rights. Social changes don't impact the bottom line like economic changes do.

BUT the uproar over the social changes made a GREAT cover for the real reason for the assassination. Blame it on the racists. That's believable. All my opinion of course, but there's enough evidence of this TYPES of thing going on in history to discount it out of hand.

[hifiguy]

80. Indeed

I have long thought that the MIC and other PTB allowed LBJ to have the Civil/Voting Rights Acts and the Great Society (to tamp down growing unrest) in return for one thing: unlimited escalation in Vietnam.

[slackmaster]

62. Well now, there's a compelling reason to doubt the official story

:rofl:

[Lyric]

63. Your contempt for the King family's thoughts on the issue is duly noted.

I am, of course, referring to your mocking and insulting use of the :rofl: emoticon to signify your utter contempt for their ideas.

You can disagree without being so crudely disrespectful. I realize the internet is anonymous, so you can say just about anything you want to without any consequences...but really? Mockingly laughing at the notion of thoughtfully listening to (and maybe even taking seriously!) the thoughts and opinions of Dr. King's own family about his murder?

If you can't have respect, at least try to find a scrap of shame inside of yourself somewhere. Jesus.

[slackmaster]

67. I have no contempt for their thoughts whatsoever. You're intentionally misrepresenting my view.

:hi:

[apocalypsehow]

66. Because their "opinions" on the matter have morphed into laughable, fact-free conspiracy nonsense.

"James Earl Ray was an innocent crazy person set up to take the fall, and that the murder was actually a joint effort between the FBI, the mafia, and a few corrupt local Memphis cops" - And there is not a shred of credible, verifiable evidence and/or data available to back up that claim. Indeed, all such hard evidence points to one man being the culprit: James Earl Ray.

Get back with us when you have some. Thanks. :thumbsup:

[Solomon]

78. Glen Beck agrees with you

http://mediamatters.org/research/201104050005?lid=1162801&rid=60208104

[apocalypsehow]

81. Not according to that link he doesn't, but nice try at a "guilt by association" smear.

That link contains nary a word about Glen Beck's beliefs on whether the assassination of MLK was the result of a conspiracy or one man, James Earl Ray. That is the focus of my post above, as you well know.

But you know what? Even if Glen Beck agrees with me that the historical record and evidence points to James Earl Ray as the sole assassin - something that link above does not discuss despite your efforts to conflate the two - so what? If he believes that, he'd be correct. Ideology has nothing to do with it: the available facts do.

[villager]

60. Exactly right -- he went farther than the allowed illusion of democracy...

n/t

[spanone]

64. he was in memphis to support the sanitation workers....garbage collectors

In the later 1960s, the targets of King's activism were less often the legal and political obstacles to the exercise of civil rights by blacks, and more often the underlying poverty, unemployment, lack of education, and blocked avenues of economic opportunity confronting black Americans. Despite increasing militancy in the movement for black power, King steadfastly adhered to the principles of nonviolence that had been the foundation of his career. Those principles were put to a severe test in his support of a strike by sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee. This was King's final campaign before his death.

During a heavy rainstorm in Memphis on February 1, 1968, two black sanitation workers had been crushed to death when the compactor mechanism of the trash truck was accidentally triggered. On the same day in a separate incident also related to the inclement weather, 22 black sewer workers had been sent home without pay while their white supervisors were retained for the day with pay. About two weeks later, on February 12, more than 1,100 of a possible 1,300 black sanitation workers began a strike for job safety, better wages and benefits, and union recognition. Mayor Henry Loeb, unsympathetic to most of the workers' demands, was especially opposed to the union. Black and white civic groups in Memphis tried to resolve the conflict, but the mayor held fast to his position.

As the strike lengthened, support for the strikers within the black community of Memphis grew. Organizations such as COME (Community on the Move for Equality) established food and clothing banks in churches, took up collections for strikers to meet rent and mortgages, and recruited marchers for frequent demonstrations. King's participation in forming a city-wide boycott to support the striking workers was invited by the Reverend James Lawson, pastor of the Centenary Methodist Church in Memphis and an adviser to the strikers. Lawson was a seasoned veteran of the civil rights movement and an experienced trainer of activists in the philosophy and methods of nonviolent resistance.

At that time King was involved in planning with other civil rights workers the Poor People's Campaign for economic opportunity and equality. He was also zigzagging by airplane through the eastern United States meeting speaking engagements and attending important social events as head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).


http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/memphis-v-mlk/

[freshwest]

76. So true, and that is what has been repressed for years!

[Solomon]

79. More information

http://www.documentarywire.com/who-killed-martin-luther-king

http://www.documentarywire.com/fbis-war-on-black-america