Martin’s legacy calls us to carry on in Fresno

last 3 addresses wrong should be:
2002: http://www.sunmt.org/ jan26chron01.html
2001: http://www.sunmt.org/jan1501chron.html
2000: http://www.sunmt.org/jan25chron.html

2002 should read: http:http://www.sunmt.org/jan26chron01.html

We all like to look back fondly at the 60's ... but do you recall all the political murders of those times? Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered and we still don't have a freekin clue as to who was in on it ... who set it up ... who executed the murder and so on. Everyone seems to be happy just forgetting about this. Also, we all seem to be happy with the nice, safe watered-down version of his message and to forget what he was working on towards the end of his life.

So, while Michael Krazny and other feel-good, bugey liberals were busy putting down hip-hop culture on Martin Luther King day, ... thankfully Democracy Now! .Org, chose to play the words of Doctor King himself ... and it was the entire speech from April 4, 1967 - just one year to-the-day before he was murdered in Memphis. That is the great speech that never gets any play from the "left," the "right" or the "center." It reminds us that freedom without economic freedom is sentimental and anemic. So, please listen to that speech because in may ways, we still haven't gotten "beyond vietnam."
On Democracy Now!
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/01/16/1522229

We still don't know who murdered Doctor King. Well, William Pepper wrote a book about this, and I really encourage people to look into this:
An Act of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/WFP020403.html

And, of course, many will remember that Malcom X and two Kennedy's were murdered. But also, please don't forget the great and eloquent
Fred Hampton and how he was murdered too:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hampton

Also, there is Emmitt Till. He was actually beaten, marred and murdered in the 50's, down in Mississippi. In many ways the civil rights movement really began when people gazed upon his brutalized body at a church in Chicago. So, I have a dream that the young people of today will learn the rest of this story and will remember Emmitt Till and that the brave people who testified at his trial
were among the first to set the spark for the gains of the 60's ...
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/till/timeline/index.html

OK, and to end on a positive note ... I wish I heard more people talk of Shirley Chisholm - more often. She was a black Congresswoman and she ran for president in 1972.
But, more than this, she was not shy when discussing issues related to women's rights or in defending the rights of Native Americans. Her quotes are pointed and clever.
You can find some nice ones here ...
http://www.africanamericans.com/ShirleyChisholm.htm
And, also, please check out the award winning documentary about her -
Chisholm '72: Unbought and Unbossed
http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2005/chisholm/

OK, peace ...