It feels like just yesterday we were welcoming in a new year, and now we’re on the eve of entering into April – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Month.
When did this happen, you ask? A few days ago. I declared it and made it so. No congressional approval necessary. No scholarly debates engaged. No peer review published. I just tapped into my divine, co-creating power and declared, “April is now the official month that all the world will celebrate, research, wrestle with, debate, engage and honor the drum major artist formerly known as Michael.
You’re welcome.
Why April, you say?
January weary
Let’s see… Black people fought and lobbied to make MLK’s birthday a national holiday; an effort that did come to pass. And I’m not going to rain on that parade by mentioning that just days before then-President Ronald Ray-Gun signed that MLK Day bill into law (Nov. 2, 1983), he ordered U.S. troops to invade the island (i.e. Black) nation of Grenada (Oct 25, 1983)… for being Black! But since then, every third Monday of January, MLK Day is observed, and the days surrounding it are filled with parades, BBQs, oratory contests and so many dream-themed conferences – “Has the Dream Been Realized,” “Are You Living the Dream,” “How Does the Dream Look in (insert year),” “Dream On”… and on and on.
Maybe one day Blackfolk will start putting more meat on the January MLK Day bone, and see it as an opportunity to push past the generic, “social structure” (i.e. white-washed) version of MLK, and engage in his evolving issue positions. If not, there’s always April.
February… nah
With February, Black History Month, MLK again takes center stage, but not in a way that truly honors the man and his mission. And we all know, central to the woeful way our story has been and continues to be presented in K-12 (really K-College) classrooms, is the woeful, whitewashed version of MLK that we get fed; i.e. Dr. King that has been stripped of his denunciation of the U.S. military-industrial complex, racist wars, capitalism, white liberals and his own dream’s naïveté. Even Black K-12 students who only know the MLK they’ve been “taught” every February, know they’ve been hoodwinked, bamboozled and short-changed when it comes to MLK and BHM, in general. We can and must do better.
We’ve March-ed enough
Though MLK mentions in March drastically decrease compared to the first two months of the year, come Bloody Sunday (March 7, 1965) and the Selma to Montgomery march anniversaries, we once again get a snippet or two of MLK via a 15-second video clip or a social media post from your Black-Black friend who always reminds you of Black-Black historical moments. But after that, with the exception of Black August and the commemoration of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, many don’t hear or speak a word about MLK until January of the next year.
And that’s a shame for many reasons. But I’m sticking to why April, of all months, cannot pass without the deepest of dives into MLK.
Why April?
You wanna talk anniversaries? On April 4, 1967, MLK publicly announced his opposition to the war in Vietnam. Some scholars contend that move served as the nail of MLK’s coffin. The announcement, which came at the urging of his wife, Coretta, jeopardized any working relationship he had with friends in high places (i.e. the White House). It also had countless Blackfolk in the movement criticizing MLK for spreading his message too thin and threatening to piss off movement donors. And there were many in the general public who voiced that MLK was stepping out of his place, and needed to stay in his civil rights lane. And those red-blooded “mericans” who had already labeled MLK a “commie” saw his denunciation of the war as further proof of his “un-merican” ways.
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivering his final public address in Memphis on April 3, 1968. Screenshot.
But wait; there’s more. On April 3, 1968, the night before MLK was murdered, he gave what might have been his most important speech – “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” – and not just for the final refrain.
In that speech, MLK put the religious and patriotic hypocrisy of this country on blast, saying:
All we say to America is, “Be true to what you said on paper.” If I lived in China or even Russia, or any totalitarian country, maybe I could understand the denial of certain basic First Amendment privileges, because they hadn’t committed themselves to that over there. But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of the press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right.
On that April 3, 1968 evening MLK also issued a call for Blackfolk to “buy Black,” early, often and unashamedly. Moreover, MLK told those gathered “We must redistribute the pain.”
Yes, MLK said that, though he credited Jesse Jackson with the expression.
But he was saying, for too long, Blackfolk alone have been feeling the pain of this racist nation’s racism and delusion of the myth of white supremacy, and it was time that whitefolk, business owners, elected officials, etc. come get some of this pain… in the form of economic boycotts and other forms of economic coercion in support of the striking Memphis sanitation workers and Black workers and Black people in general.
That’s what MLK did in April. Unfortunately, April wasn’t done with MLK. On April 4, 1968, he was murdered. Assassinated. Killed. I was originally going to name this piece, “Let’s Never Forget They Killed MLK for Protesting for Peace,” because the fact that he was assassinated seems to be slipping out of our collective consciousness. That fact gets mentioned less and less as the years go by. And we forget this fact to our own peril.
We forget the potential cost of standing on business for our God and our people; for our principles; for a transgenerational movement that is bigger and greater than our personal selves. And we forget MLK, knowing this possible outcome, continued to preach truth to power. And in that forgetting, we miss the example and standard we who celebrate MLK (and other freedom fighters) are called to emulate. We forget that it’s not enough to celebrate the commitment and sacrifices of MLK, Malcolm X, Gloria Richardson, Joanne Robinson, Ella Baker, Assata Shakur, Walter Rodney, Medgar Evers, Bobby Hutton, Fred Hampton, Jesus, Yaa Assantewaa, Gullah Jack, David Walker, Edward Wilmot Blyden, Dr. Edith Irby Jones, Walter Sisulu, Amy Jacques Garvey, etc. We are called to, expected to, required to do our part in our day and time, as well.
For these reasons, I believe April is the month we need to devote to going all the way in on MLK, not just to rightfully honor our ancestor, but to empower us to be the drum majors we need to be today.
