Category: History

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day News: From D.C. to Burma

martin luther king jr. autobiography Today is Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday, and Monday is Martin Luther King Jr. Day here in the United States. Below are some recent stories related to the holiday. For more history on the holiday, as well as Stevie Wonder’s birthday song for the great man, check out this Chimesfreedom post on MLK Day.

– The National Park Service will correct a paraphrased quote on the Martin Luther King Day Jr. Memorial in Washington D.C. The chiseled quote is not only an inaccurate quote, but the change makes it sound like a boast: “”I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness.” King actually said in a 1968 speech, “If you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter.”

– Occupy Wall Street activists plan to honor King.

– The Grio noted that some people prefer to celebrate Robert E. Lee’s birthday on the King holiday.

– The Milwaukee Courier wrote about “the New South” and the legacy of King.

– Slate has some newly discovered photos taken at the Lorraine Motel around the time King was killed.

– Amnesty International considers what King would think about today’s criminal justice system and what he had to say about capital punishment.

– The Huffington Post collects a number of quotes from MLK. Hopefully these are more accurate than the one chiseled in stone on the memorial.

– Finally,  consider U2’s song “MLK,” the final song song from their Unforgettable Fire (1984) album.

In thier 2009 performance, U2 dedicated the songs to Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who for fifteen years was under house arrest in Burma to suppress her struggle for democratic freedoms. I think King would have been happy to share his song with her. I think he’d be even prouder to share his birthday weekend this year with Burma’s release of a large number of dissidents and the government signing a cease fire with rebels. Walk on.

  • Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. On “Meet the Press” After Selma-to-Montgomery March
  • MLK Shot This Morning, er. . . Evening
  • Martin Luther King Jr. on “The Merv Griffin Show”
  • Martin Luther King Jr.: “The Other America”
  • The Tragic Civil Rights Hero Clyde Kennard
  • The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and “We Shall Overcome”

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    13th Amendment Ratified: Redemption Song

    Bob Marley redemption song

    On today’s date of December 6 in 1865, Georgia voted for the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  The vote provided sufficient state support to officially ratify the amendment ending slavery in the United States.

    Earlier, after the U.S. Senate had passed the amendment in April 1864, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the measure in January of 1865.  The vote sent the amendment to the states for ratification, with that process ending on today’s date.

    The Thirteenth Amendment

    Thus, on today’s date, after more than a century of bloodshed by the lash followed by several years of bloodshed on the battlefield, these words were finally placed in the U.S. Constitution: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

    A Song of Freedom: Redemption Song

    They are beautiful words, long overdue, of course. The words of freedom remind me of some other beautiful words that begin, “Old pirates, yes, they rob I;/ Sold I to the merchant ships.” In honor of the anniversary of the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, it seems an appropriate time to join in to sing a song of freedom.  The song, of course, is “Redemption Song” written by the great Bob Marley, who sings it live in the following video.

    Marley wrote the song around 1979 after being diagnosed with cancer.  He took the famous line “emancipate ourselves from mental slavery” from a speech by Pan-Africanist Marcus Garvey.

    Marley’s song, though, speaks in a broader context.  He starts off singing about slave ships and ends with a plea for us to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery.

    The powerful song is not locked in time or place, but it now belongs to the world. Earlier this year, Playing for Change created a cool video of performers from around the world — including Stephen Marley — joining in to create a beautiful cover of the song.

    I suppose more Americans know the words to “Redemption Song” than to the Thirteenth Amendment. Yet, both continue to resonate around the world. Won’t you help to sing these songs of freedom?

  • “The Abolitionists”: A PBS Series That Makes Things Personal (Short Review)
  • American Tune: We Came on a Ship in a Blood Red Moon
  • Lee’s Surrender to Grant at Appomattox Court House in April 1895
  • General John Sedgwick and His Last Words
  • Harriet Tubman and the $20 Bill
  • Gettysburg in Four Minutes

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    “Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst”

    The documentary Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst (2004), now on DVD, tells the story of when the Symbionese Liberation Army kidnapped newspaper heiress Patty Hearst.  Although one might long for the movie to go deeper into the subject, it provides a good overview of the story and the time period, with some implied prophecies for our current times.

    Patty Hearst Wanted PosterIn February 1974, the nineteen-year-old granddaughter of William Randolph Hearst was kidnapped in Berkeley, California by a group calling themselves the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA). What followed was a story that became stranger and stranger. After the SLA failed to negotiate a trade of Patty Hearst for other SLA members who were in prison, they then demanded that the Hearst family feed the poor, which the family tried to do with various degrees of success.  Two months after the kidnapping, in a recorded message, Patty Hearst announced that she had joined the SLA and was now named “Tania.”  A few weeks later the nation saw her holding a gun on a bank camera with other SLA members committing a robbery.

    Guerilla takes us step-by-step through the months while Hearst was missing. It also briefly follows up through Pres. Carter granting her a commutation (Pres. Clinton later gave her a full pardon).  Near the very end, the movie includes brief footage from the 2003 trial of some of the SLA members.

    Today, through our individual failing memories (or through no memory if you were not born yet), one might struggle to comprehend what was going on the minds of the members of the SLA, an organization created with a name basically out of thin air and with an almost equally non-defined practical strategy beyond bringing about “revolution” in American society.  Compounding our difficulty in understanding the movie is that 9/11 forever changed our our perspectives on terrorism, and the SLA’s acts in the pursuit of media attention are directly related to modern terrorism.

    The movie does an excellent job of telling the story about the kidnapping through the arrest and trial of Hearst and other members of the SLA. It features interviews with some people involved in the events, including some insight from Russ Little, a founding member of the SLA who was in prison when the captors tried to trade Hearst for him. The one weakness is that there is very little from Hearst or the captors who were later caught, so the details of the captivity and Heart’s change are summarized and left to conjecture. The hole is not the fault of the producers, as many of the key players are now dead. 

    Regarding Patty Hearst, the director explains on the DVD commentary that they deliberately chose not to interview her because the focus was on the surrounding events and not her ordeal.  The director also notes that Patty Hearst liked the movie and said it was better without her.  I disagree, and I am not sure why her perspective was less relevant to the director, than, say Mr. Little.  But the movie still tells a fascinating historical story about the time period and the events. And the movie does provide some new perspectives from some of the people involved at the time.

    Conclusion? Guerilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst is a compelling documentary that will tell you much about the events surrounding the kidnapping, and it is a great introduction or refresher for those who vaguely remember 1974, while providing some new depth for those who were there. The movie, however, will leave you with several questions. But a successful documentary will leave you with a desire to learn more and seek out additional information, such as this Larry King interview with Patty Hearst on YouTube.

    Do you have memories of the period when Patty Hearst was kidnapped? Leave a comment.

    Alaska Bought Today: Anchored in Anchorage

    alaska compared to u.s.
    “But you know you’re in the largest state in the Union / When you’re anchored down in Anchorage”

    On October 18 in 1867, just a little more than two years after the nation ended a Civil War, the United States took control of Alaska. The U.S. had bought the land for 2 cents an acre for a total of $7.2 million.

    Seward’s Folly

    Secretary of State William Henry Seward pushed for the controversial purchase, so critics dubbed the purchase “Seward’s Folly.” Seward and President Andrew Johnson, who would be impeached a year later, were eventually vindicated in the Alaska deal.

    Gold was discovered in Alaska in 1896.  And today, after the territory became a state in 1959, the state is a treasure of oil and other natural resources. One other benefit is my favorite song about the state, Michelle Shocked’s “Anchorage,” off her debut album Short Sharp Shocked (1988).

    Michelle Shocked’s “Anchorage”

    In the song “Anchorage,” a singer who lives in New York City describes how she wrote a letter to her friend in Dallas, but the reply came back from Anchorage, Alaska. The rest of the song recites the letter from Alaska.

    In the letter, the friend does not complain about her life in Alaska.  Butut in her description, you sense some longing for the life of her big city singer friend.

    Leroy got a better job so we moved;
    Kevin lost a tooth, he’s started school;
    I’ve got a brand new eight month old baby girl;
    I sound like a housewife;
    Hey ‘Shelle, I think I’m a housewife.

    “Anchorage” is a beautiful song about friends and how we end up in places with our lives where we may not have planned. One senses the singer also may think the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence.

    Yet, the words and the way the song is sung reflect affection, not envy. If Michelle Shocked, who grew up in East Texas, wrote another song in the form of a letter from New York City back to her old friend in Anchorage, I wonder what she would say.

    Michelle Shocked

    Shocked’s song gives a voice to someone you might not think about. In the history-book version about adding all that beautiful land to the United States, we often hear about the later gold rush and the building of a new state.  But one should not forget the role of all of the regular people, especially including the overlooked women and natives, just getting by day-to-day.

    As we have been reminded with events around the world, society is not just the Andrew Johnsons and other politicians.  It is also made up of the rockers and the anchored-down folks.

    Map illustration via Eric Gaba.

  • “The Grey” Is Not the Movie You Thought It Was (Missed Movies)

    • Steve Jobs, RIP

    Steve Jobs passed away this evening. In 1976, after selling his Volkswagen Van to raise money, he began a new venture making computers in his parents’ garage with Steve Wozniak. Below is the famous commercial from the 1984 Super Bowl that introduced the Apple Macintosh personal computer.

    From computers to iPods to iPhones to iPads, his work, leadership, and innovation contributed to the way we live today. Rest in peace.

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  • Ferris Bueller Returns . . . In a Commercial

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