Posted by
Tim Blessing on Friday, April 04, 2008 7:17:59 PM
I have read about the protest movements in the 1960s.
I have read about Barry Goldwater's supporters activities from that era.
I think civil rights was and is a necessary response to the injustices of the past up to that time.
I think those people who salute MLK should salute LBJ, JFK, Malcolm X, Eisenhower, and Nixon for their parts in the process.
Martin Luther King symbolized an era of African American Empowerment, but was he the central force in that struggle.
From a public relations standpoint, he was the Gandhi of the Civil Rights Movement, but he did not force government to change.
That was the Politicians work that did that.
Every group needed a hero or a symbol to rally around and Martin Luther King serves this purpose for African Americans.
Republicans are in the same boat to a degree: Lincoln is too distant, Teddy Roosevelt too Liberal, Eisenhower (Passive), and Nixon to self-destructive.
So they settle on Reagan and in his hey day of the 1980s.
If you intend to remember history through Historical Figures and become fixed on that point and time then you become frozen in that point in time.
I live in the 21st Century and I do not celebrate Reagan's birthday or mull over his times in terms of nostalgia.
There were other African American Leaders in the 19th Century, but today their just for the study of Historians and History Classes.
If you think people in History have no flaws all you have to do is get a number of books on that individual person, cross reference the information, and you get a better picture of who they are in reality.
Martin Luther King was no saint, but he is held up like one.
Let me end it this way, what have all of these protests on both sides of the political divide accomplish since the 1960s? Nothing, at least as far as I can see.
In 1969, there was a major protest in Washington by Left-Wing Groups to force further change on the United States. They wanted Nixon to come to speak to them, but he was busy watching a football game on television.
Get a life those of you who go out and protest.