Thought Picnic: MLK suffers another misquote

A pastime of quotes

When I was an adolescent I collected quotes, I had an old diary which was just well suited to recording quotes from many sources including newspapers. We had at least six daily newspapers and I voraciously devoured the content from the news to reviews of issues and opinion pieces.

It was a time that you could trust Nigerian newspapers to pay attention to quality of news, quality of copy, objective analysis and most of all proofreading, I suppose the phrase will be they were committed professions of the art of communication and journalism.

Now, I have always risked a level of facetiousness that has had some label me as pedantic, I will beg to differ; there is no pedantry in the verification and confirmation process, having an engineering education just compels you as a matter of course to be procedural and to avoid approximation when precision, exactness and accuracy is required.

Quotes awry

Once again on my Facebook news feed provided another gem for a blog which is topical as it is essential in the way we communicate on the social networking space.

A quote was posted thus: “If you succumb to the temptation of using violence in the struggle, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness, and your chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos.” Martin Luther King, Jr.

I had no reason to doubt this was spoken from the lips of Martin Luther King, Jr. but considering recent events about wrongly attributed quotes [1], I felt anything attributed should and must be scrutinised and verified, more so, I expect everyone to be alert to that fact and go the extra mile to ensure they are not caught in another urban legend of misinformation.

Trust, but verify

So, I searched for the quote on Google and it revealed a number of interesting points that I tried to highlight in the Facebook post I made to the author of that Facebook status. My Facebook entry appears within brackets the rest of the text serves as a running commentary.

[I think is essential following the quote attributed to MLK following Osama bin Laden's death to ensure that he is quoted correctly, completely and in context.]

I suppose I have already introduced the context of this blog, but this is how I tried to address the issue.

[The exact excerpt of what you have posted is - "If the Negro succumbs to the temptation of using violence in his struggle for justice, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate life of bitterness, and his chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos."]

I have emboldened the differences between the quote on Facebook and the original quote itself; whilst the context seems to have been maintained, it has been generalised and it has shifted from a struggle for justice to just the struggle.

Retracing the context

[The quote was specific about the Negro, hence the one you published being paraphrased should have said so.]

It is probably pedantic to dwell on the person of the Negro but I have opportunity in this blog to flesh out the issue and contend that there was more to this quote than had been offered and then for the changes made to the quote which itself had been used by others it has lost its literality, however, on reflection it had not become a paraphrase but at the same time it was incorrect because the specific context had changed.

[It was part of a longer speech delivered on the 3rd of April 1957, titled, Justice without Violence http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/liberation_curriculum/pdfs/justicewithoutviolence.pdf ]

Martin Luther King, Jr. had just returned from the Independence Day celebrations in Ghana and he gave an address to the Institute of Adult Education at Brandeis University for the Helmsley Lecture series and this quote appears towards the bottom of the second paragraph on the third page.

Giving the quote a body

[And when the Stanford University’s Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers Project uses it, it publishes a much longer contextual quote of which you have published just a quarter.]

[The second in the list at this site http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/quotes_contents ]

The authoritative archives [3] of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s works are kept at Stanford University and that is where one should go for anything attributed to the great man.

When using this quote it is placed in the context of the paragraph in which it was made.

“Now the question that we face this evening is this: In the light of the fact that the oppressed people of the world are rising up against that oppression; in the light of the fact that the American Negro is rising up against his oppression, the question is this: How will the struggle for justice be waged? And I think that is one of the most important questions confronting our generation. As we move to make justice a reality on the international scale, as we move to make justice a reality in this nation, how will the struggle be waged? It seems to me that there are two possible answers to this question. One is to use the all [too] prevalent method of physical violence. And it is true that man throughout history has sought to achieve justice through violence. And we all know the danger of this method. It seems to create many more social problems than it solves. And it seems to me that in the struggle for justice that this method is ultimately futile. If the Negro succumbs to the temptation of using violence in his struggle for justice, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate life of bitterness, and his chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos. And there is still a voice crying into the vista of time saying to every potential Peter put up your sword. And history is replete with the bleached bones of nations and communities that failed to follow this command.”

Nuances of speech to text

I will not begin an exegesis the grammatical correctness of any of the text but it goes without saying and it the speech the use of “and” is conjunctive throughout the paragraph linking clauses and thoughts even though they inappropriately appear to commence sentences.

The “Now” at the beginning of the paragraph infers that the speaker was about to make some statements based on the groundwork laid earlier in his speech and the crux of the whole paragraph is balanced on one basic question. How will the struggle for justice be waged?

What he says from then on should be the fundamental guiding principle for non-violent struggle and it shows why the excerpted quote does no justice in correctness, completeness and context to what Martin Luther King, Jr. said on that day.

[Thank you :D ]

I think I have made my point, always seek the authoritative source of quotes you intent to share and I will also add if Bible verses are being shared the specific translation used should be shown.

Sources

[1] Anatomy of a Fake Quotation - Megan McArdle - National - The Atlantic

[2] Paraphrase - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[3] King Institute Home @ The Stanford University

I have a nano-dream

Is America Ready?

As observers of the US Presidential Primaries from afar one hears the question time and again.

Is America ready for a black president?

Is America ready for a lady president?

Frankly, I am still not sure – there are still many White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) males clamouring from every chandelier that can bear their weight that they are the best to run the country – it would take the amazing force of democracy for all these people to defer to these imponderables.

The Grand Old Party still has not been able to produce anything radical, somehow between the strongman, the broker, the preacher, the actor and possibly the mayor, someone might emerge to reset America to its norm.

Little of the great dream

In the week that commemorates the birthday of Martin Luther King born January the 15^th but which is celebrated as Martin Luther King Day, falling on the third Monday of January one has to wonder about the dream that the great man had.

So far, I see one amongst multitudes in every place, it is not like a floodlight over a whole area but a flickering flame way out in the dark.

In government, it is the lone Condoleezza Rice who is the only major African-American figure on the guest list attending the 2008 Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland and she would be delivering the opening address.

In entertainment, Oprah Winfrey stands out a beacon of amazing success and an opinion leader because of the media platform she heads.

In business, Stan O’Neal was the lightning rod for the sub-prime crisis at Merrill Lynch and he left with a suitable golden parachute. Kenneth Chenault heads American Express and Richard Parsons heads Time Warner.

The noose is back

The list is hardly exhaustive, there are popular African-American personalities but very few that have an exceptional and outstanding profile – so recently, the top-most sportsman – Tiger Woods – through no fault of his apart from his success got associated with that symbol of American white supremacy – the noose.

It first made an appearance in 2007 with the Jena 6 when “three white students hung nooses from a tree at Jena High School, after a black student asked permission from a school administrator to sit under the tree”.

This act was dismissed as prank and it lead to the beating of a white student by other black kids, court cases, a seeming miscarriage of justice and protest marches reminiscent of 40 years before.

As a result of these protests a noose was found hanging from a door at Columbia’s Teachers College. The noose if may know was one of the means by which barbaric savages in white skin lynched African-Americans up until the 1960s.

According to the Tuskegee Institute, lynchings between 1880 to 1951 took 3,437 African-American victims and 1,293 white victims - such savagery.

Caught in a Noose

So, Kelly Tilghman in idle banter with Nick Faldo on the 4^th of January on The Golf Channel and in response to his joke that younger players should gang up on Woods said, “Lynch him in a back alley”.

Somewhat inferring that Tiger Woods is unbeatable on the field of play but it stirred up a lot more that the flippant comment could have realised. She was suspended for two weeks, she also apologised for the comment.

However, a fuse had been lit as Golfweek magazine made a cover of the episode with the title “Caught in a Noose” and the picture of a noose. They are sorry.

Oh! Brother. Is the overwhelming success of any African-American in danger of being caught in a noose?

I fear that on Martin Luther King Day 2008, we remember that he had a dream and so far, the fulfilment is very much a nano-dream.

The realisation of that dream is still a long way off – as for the two questions I asked at the beginning of this blog – the answer is NO to both, but there is more at work than the few can control – We would definitely end up with either.

I have a dream

Where is that dream today?

Today in America they celebrate Martin Luther King Day, however, the speech he gave on the 28^th of August 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC still resonates as a dream still unfulfilled - I have a dream.

Not only in America where the “great vaults of opportunity” have been closed to many who still live “on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of prosperity”, but around the world where disease, poverty, illiteracy and a deficit of leadership lead people not to the land of promise like Moses did but entrench them in disappointment, despair, desolation and destruction.

We still live in a world where bitterness and distrust by those who claim to carry on the mantle of that great man stops us from walking in partnership and brotherhood with the white man to achieve the dreams that cannot be realised in isolation and singularity.

I shall not take away from the message of the day as I have highlighted some points in the speech – but take time to read the speech and listen to the voice of the great man – I have a dream (Google Video) – and wonder about yourself, your community, your world and your people – are they indeed – Free at last?

The transcript of that speech courtesy of Steve Mount @ The U.S. Constitution Online

The speech – I have a dream

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of colour are concerned. Instead of honouring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt.

We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.

Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquillity in America until the Negro 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.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvellous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality.

We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, 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 and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

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 that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, When we allow freedom to 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 Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

The people who do not believe

As we celebrate this auspicious day, comments appeared alongside the video and I place some of them here.

On this day, the 15^th of January 2007, somebody has written this.

+ Take a niggger out of the cotton patch, put a suit on him and feed him with peanut butter and what do you get? A lying communist whoremonger who needed to be shot.

+ NEGROS WILL NEVER "OVERCOME" ANYTHING They only wish that they had the ability and native intelligence to get beyond the sad state of their condition. I feel sorry for them.

+ MUCH ADO ABOUT ABSOLUTELY NOTHING This video is yet another incredibly weak example of how far negros have to go to find a hero. Let us lament the condition of the negro while celebrating the fact that we were born white.

Stop and think! It is our world today, many other comments are just too despicable to publish.