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MICHEAL ERIC DYSON: 'APRIL 4, 1968': New book commemorates MLK anniversary; He also makes startling Martin and Jeremiah parallels.
EUR's Lee Bailey spoke with him last Saturday at the Sacramento Observer's 40th anniversary celebration & Black Expo weekend in California's capital city.
The new book comes on the 40th anniversary of King’s assassination, taking a “provocative and fresh” look at how the civil rights activist faced his own death and how readers should use his death and legacy.
In addition to the historical date, Dyson has found that the socio-political debate in the Democratic Party brings up an important perspective on the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.
“My first book on Martin Luther King, which came out in 2000, was called ‘I May Not Get There With You: The True Martin Luther King Jr.’ In that book, I had about six, seven, eight pages, arguing with Bill Clinton; saying the stuff he did was quite problematic,” Dyson said in talking about not supporting Hillary Clinton’s bid for the White House, though the Clintons are considered friends of the black community.
“I’ve (was) critical of Bill Clinton long ago when people were proclaiming him the first black president,” he said, “I was always skeptical in that claim.”
Dyson’s perspective on the race for the Democratic nomination is basically that Hillary Clinton is running a campaign, while Barack Obama “is running destiny,” considering Obama’s path to the presidency as one of the many legacies of Martin Luther King, Jr.
“It’s a hell of hard thing to beat destiny with a campaign,” said Dyson, University Professor of Sociology at Georgetown University, Washington, DC. “Any other year, I think most of us would have been supporting her and she could have gone on to the presidency, but something happened that was unanticipated. Black history broke out; black genius spoke up; and the will of black people shifted from being on a plantation of gratitude with the Clintons to the independence with Obama.”
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Dyson also explained that Martin Luther King Jr’s legacy is a part of the controversial teachings and “inflammatory rhetoric” of the (former) pastor of Barack Obama's Chicago-based church, Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Early last month, Rev. Wright was cast into the spotlight after portions of one of his politically laced sermon spread on the web and news.
“Americans are scarcely able to hear the truth,” he began. “The Reverend Wright fiasco/situation/debacle reflects the fact that white Americans don’t know black Americans; that white people don’t know the intensity of the verbal volleying going on in black pulpits. The black pulpit, historically, has been the freest place on earth for black people. When we could speak nowhere else, think nowhere else, talk nowhere else, and speak our minds nowhere else, the black pulpit was that forum.”
Dyson reminded that black people have always gravitated to churches seeking political identity and social change, “voicing their grievances with the broader world.”
“The black pulpit has always been more than a mere station to distribute evangelical piety and theological truth,” he said. “It has always, simultaneously been about expressing our hurts, our heartbreaks, our pains, the traumas, and the grief we had to endure. So, sometimes we had to get angry.”
Dyson told EUR's Lee Bailey, and Sacramento Observer reporter Antonio Harvey, that Rev. Wright’s sermons are one aspect of the Martin Luther King Jr. legacy and Barack Obama’s speeches are another. He clarified that Obama represents the hopeful, earlier, pre-1965 Rev. King and Rev. Wright embodies the later, post-1965, more skeptical King.
“Many white people think when they hear Barack Obama, they’re hearing Martin Luther King Jr. and when they hear Jeremiah Wright, they’re hearing anti-Martin Luther King Jr. They’re wrong. They’re hearing two different elements of Martin Luther King Jr.”
“If YouTube was around when Martin Luther King was holding forth in black churches, where he said among the following: ‘I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to go back to the reservation like their trying to put Japanese brothers and sisters on during World War II, and I’m tired of living on the reservation and being in the concentration camp, ‘cause they’ll do it to us.’ Where he said: ‘I’m not going to ask young black men to put their guns down and to be non-violent without also speaking the same to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today, my government’ Where he also said that, ‘America was born in genocide and born in inequity and inequality.’ Where Martin Luther King Jr. said that: ‘America is a sick nation and most Americans are unconscious racists.”
Dyson, a Georgetown University Professor, continued that Rev. King was quite different before 1965 than he was after. In the early stages of the civil rights activism, Dyson says Rev. King was hopeful of America’s transformation. After 1965, he professes, King became a skeptic of American society, doubting “whether America was willing to move forward.”
“Had Barack Obama swept his pastor under the bus, he would have been sweeping the powerful legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.,” he said.
Dyson told Lee Bailey that he finds it unfortunate that America has “little ability” to think critically about the issues that Rev. Wright mentioned in the highly dispersed sound bite that caused considerable controversy for Presidential hopeful Barack Obama.
“How hypocritical it is for the masses of Americans to feign horror at the words of Jeremiah Wright. What he said was sound, it was basic it was true,” Dyson proclaimed. “That this is not the first time we’ve dealt with terror. That black Americans dealt with terror long before 9/11; that Hilary Clinton had not been the recipient of an epithet – being called the ‘N’ word; and that white privilege does operate in America. Jeremiah Wright was saying some things that were extremely important.”
Available in stores, Dyson’s “April 4, 1968” commemorates the prophetic leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and creates a new dream for America to renew its commitment to his vision.
“We need the King before 1695 to express the hopes and aspirations, and we need the King after 1965 to remind of us of the price to be paid should we fail to achieve them.”
For more on and from the author, check out www.michaelericdyson.com.
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