Opinion

Let’s Not Censor Dr. King’s Life Even As We Glorify Him

Published

6 years ago

January 30, 2020

As another year passes with celebrations marking the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, I worry about the dangers of neutering Dr. King’s life, turning him into a “dreamer” who became a martyr.

We shouldn’t forget that Dr. King was a leader, a man of conscience and of action. He sought to transform America and that forced him to be a disrupter—and to bear the wounds of being unpopular in a just cause.

With segregation the law of the land and voting rights suppressed, Dr. King understood the only way change would come would be by disrupting an unjust system. He believed in nonviolence, but not in passivity. One of my favorite quotes of Dr. King was when he was asked what his favorite demonstration was. “This week’s,” he responded, even as he planned for the next week’s demonstrations.

Dr. King opposed those who equated quiet with peace. We were told to be quiet at the back of the bus, quiet in the face of oppression. He understood that true peace came only with justice, and justice could not be achieved without disruption.

He was not an idle dreamer; he was clear about wanting to amass power. He emphasized the drive for the Voting Rights Act, to protect the power of the vote, because that would give African Americans the power to change their conditions.

Consider the 2016 election, where Donald Trump lost the popular vote nationally, but won the electoral college by the margin of less than 80,000 votes in three key states; Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. 10,704 in Michigan, 22,177 in Wisconsin and 46,765 in Pennsylvania.

In each state, eligible African American voters could have changed the election if they had turned out to vote. In 2020, Dr. King would be leading efforts to register new voters in numbers larger than those margins as a measure of their power. There are more 18-year-old voters than 81-year-old voters. If they register and vote, they can change the course of history.

Dr. King was fearless in the cause of justice. He realized early that the war in Vietnam was an unjust folly that would not be won. The cost of that war was draining the funds from the war on poverty at home. He came out publicly against the war in a dramatic speech at Riverside Church, publicly criticizing the Democratic president, Lyndon Johnson, with whom he had worked to achieve the end of segregation and the Voting Rights Bill.

He was savaged by the establishment media and criticized by leading liberals. Black leaders spoke out against him. At the height of the controversy, he was seen unfavorably by three-fourths of whites, and as “irrelevant” by a majority of blacks. The FBI intensified its covert operations against him, deeming him a national security threat. He was deluged with threats of assassination.

He knew he would spark a fierce reaction but realized that he had no choice but to speak. The Vietnam debacle would divide the country and eliminate any hope of rebuilding at home.

Dr. King, of course, was proven right. He was right about the injustice of segregation and of efforts to suppress voting rights. He was right about the need for economic justice in the United States, for basic economic rights that would extend to people of all races. He was right about the need for a war on poverty rather than war abroad. And he was right that the Vietnam War was a costly, unjust debacle that could never be won. Many more knew that he was right, but too few had the courage of their convictions, the courage to speak out, the commitment to action to make things better.

Let us not censor Dr. King’s life even as we glorify him. What made him remarkable wasn’t his dream, but his willingness to sacrifice, to act, to work to make that dream real. Those who would seek to emulate Dr. King would be well advised to launch voter registration and get out the vote drives. Use the power that he helped provide to build even more power, and more justice.

Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.

Posts by Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.

Activism

Oakland Post: Week of June 17 – 23, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of June 17 – 23, 2026

Published

2 weeks ago

June 20, 2026

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Oakland Post: Week of June 10 – 16, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of June 10 – 16, 2026

Published

3 weeks ago

June 12, 2026

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Arts and Culture

COMMENTARY: Black Music is the Sound of Black Freedom: Let Us Reclaim Both This Juneteenth

Black Music Month started when Black Music Association members Ed Wright, Kenny Gamble and his wife, journalist and radio host Dyanna Williams were able to persuade President Jimmy Carter to establish the observation on June 7, 1979.

Published

3 weeks ago

June 9, 2026

Oakland Post

Robert Johnson (1911-1938) is thought of as the godfather of blues music, especially Delta blues. The 29 songs recorded by him during his short life have been of massive inspiration to guitarists and musicians over the last 80 years. Public domain photo.

By Wanda Ravernell

Black Music Month and Juneteenth are inextricably linked – Black music is the sound of our freedom.

From the plaintive moans of the enslaved Africans’ ‘sorrow songs,’ to the fields of Civil War battle where Black soldiers picked up abandoned bugles, to the upright piano played in juke joints on Saturday night and churches come Sunday morning, our ancestors’ innovation in the face of want, fear, degradation, and hopelessness has yielded genres of music imitated ’round the world.

In 2000, Congress made it official. In 2009, Pres. Barack Obama changed the name to African American Music Heritage Month and in 2023, Pres. Joe Biden changed it back to Black Music Month, two years after he declared Juneteenth a national holiday, the result of a movement led by Opal Lee.

Our ancestors battle for freedom over these last 400 years and the music that allowed them expression of their humanity deserved to be honored.

But we may be losing sight of the value of their sacrifices.

‘Sing a Song Full of the Faith That the Dark past Has Taught Us…’

Along with the long-known exploitation of Black musicians whose recordings were stolen by record companies, the commercialization of Juneteenth feels like another kind of theft.

I had never heard of Juneteenth until I moved to the Bay Area from my hometown of Philadelphia. I didn’t know it was one of many freedom festivals celebrated by descendants of enslaved people in the United States.

Emancipation Day was Jan. 1 in Pennsylvania, April 16 in Wash., D.C., May 20 in Florida, and Aug. 8 in Kentucky. But Juneteenth, June 19, has the most renown, known in Texas as the ‘colored peoples’ Fourth of July.’

It was marked by parades, beauty pageants, rodeos, backyard barbecues and church picnics.

Yes, church.

The formerly enslaved began the day praying in thanks for their freedom just as they had prayed for Jubilee – the day of freedom – when they had chains on their feet and hands. They ‘testified’ about their past suffering and how they had managed to overcome.

And they sang.

Although, we will not hold it this year, Omnira Institute’s Juneteenth Ritual of Remembrance recalled this part of Juneteenth with prayers in the languages of the African captives. In the middle of the ceremony, a soloist would lead us in singing “Many Thousand Gone” while we took turns reciting portions of the Emancipation Proclamation, the news of freedom that took more than two years to reach Texas – two months after the Civil War ended.

“Many Thousand Gone” was famously recorded by Black luminary Paul Robeson in 1947:

“No more auction block for me,

No more, no more

No more auction black for me

Many thousand gone.”

Other verses refer to the ‘pint of salt’ and the ‘driver’s lash,’ the realities of enslavement that they had survived.

‘Sing a Song Full of the Hope That the Present has Brought Us’

All of the genres of African American music have at their root songs like that, the essence being, as Stevie Wonder, wrote, “the joy inside our pain.” So Black music is not just music. It is our story, our history, our very strength.

During the Civil Rights Movement, which peaked 100 years after slavery ended, the people testified that it was the freedom songs – based on spirituals – that gave them the heart to march, face attack dogs, fire hoses, beatings, and shootouts with vigilantes.

The music reminded them that power was in the people. That music, our music, can do so again. We don’t have to accept the commodification of the products of our culture.

The power of those songs is showing a resurgence across the South as we battle again for the right to self-determination through the ballot box.

Those songs are the voices of our ancestors, voices forged in their blood, their sweat, their tears, joy and, above all, faith. Those songs, those prayers live in our blood and our very breath.

This Juneteenth, let us reclaim those holy voices expressed in Black music for ourselves. It is our birthright. It can neither be bought nor sold. No more. Never again.

Wanda Ravernell is the executive director of Omnira Institute, sponsor for 18 years of the Juneteenth Ritual of Remembrance and Oakland’s 11^th Annual Black-Eyed Pea Festival, which will take place on Sept. 12.