Words for the National Commemoration of the Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.

My play on the cut-up technique and sampling for remarks delivered on January 20, 2015, as part of Boston University’s annual celebration of the life and legacy of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  The words in these remarks are from Gina Fried,[i] Lauryn Hill,[ii] and Martin Luther King, Jr. [iii]

In a society that is crippled by racism, no one can move forward. This is the message that was conveyed by Thursday’s blocking of two major arteries into the city.  It’s worth noting the parallels between the temporary obstacles faced by morning commuters and permanent fixtures faced daily by our country’s black population.  Thursday morning, people could not access jobs, schools, sufficient medical treatment, or other activities and resources that are rightfully considered a normal part of human life. This is the oppression too many of our fellow citizens face every day

What I’m trying to get across is that our nation has constantly taking a positive step forward on the question of racial justice and racially equality. But over and over again at the same time, it made certain backward steps. And this has been the persistence of the so-called white backlash. In 1863 the Negro was free from the bondage of physical slavery. But at the same time, the nation refused to give him land to make that freedom meaningful. And at the same period America was giving millions of acres of land in the West and the Midwest, which meant that America was willing to undergird it’s white peasants from Europe with an economic floor that would make it possible to grow and develop, and refused to give that economic floor to its black peasants, so to speak.

And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the black poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo then about justice, equality, and humanity.

Y’all can handle the truth in a court room of lies

Perjurers the jurors, witness despised

Crooked lawyers, false indictments publicized

Its entertainment . . . the arraignments

The subpoenas

High-profile gladiators and bloodthirsty arenas

Enter the Dragon

Black-robe crooked balance

Souls bought and sold and paroled for thirty talents

Court reporters catch the circus on the paper

File it in the system not acknowledged by the Maker

Swearing by the bible blatantly blasphemous

Publicly perpetrating that “In God We Trust”

Many may argue that these protest punish people who have new connection to the problem at hand. But systematic racism belongs to all who exist within the system, whether we gain or lose from its inequities. The problem is all of ours to solve, even though those of us who benefit from the system have the luxury of pretending that this is not the case.

So these conditions, existence of widespread poverty, of slums and of tragic conditions in schools and other areas of life, all of these things have brought about a great deal of despair and a great deal of desperation, a great deal of disappointment and even bitterness in black communities. And today all of our cities confront huge problems. All of our cities are potential powder kegs as a result of the continued existence Of these conditions. Many in moments of anger, many in moments of deep bitterness engage in riots.

[Principles.]

I’m happy to say that I see them every day in the student generation who cherish democratic principles and justice above principal, and who will stick with the cause of justice and the cause of civil rights and the cause of peace throughout the days ahead. And so I refuse to despair. I think we’re going to achieve our freedom because however much America strays away from the ideals of justice, the goal of America is freedom.

Cross-examined by a master manipulator

The faster intimidator

Receiving the judge’s favor

Deceiving sabers doing injury to their neighbors

For status, gratis, apparatus and legal waivers

See the bailiff

Representing security

Holding the word of God soliciting perjury

The prosecution

Political prostitution

The more money you pay, the further away solution

But at the same time, it is necessary for me to be as vigorous in condemning the conditions which cause persons to feel that they must engage in riotous activities as it is for me to condemn riots. I think America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air. Certain conditions continue to exist in our society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard.

And I say that if the inexpressible cruelties of slavery couldn’t stop us, the opposition that we now face, including the so-called white backlash, will surely fail. We’re going to win our freedom because both the sacred heritage of our nation and the external will of the Almighty God are embodied in our echoing demands.

And so I can still sing “We Shall Overcome.” We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice. We shall overcome because Carlyle is right: “No lie can live forever.” We shall overcome because William Cullen Bryant is right: “Truth crush to earth will rise again.” We shall overcome because James Russell Lowell is right: “Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne – Yet that scaffold sways the future.”