#ML King, Jr: The bravest man I ever met
5888 Dead, 1031 since 1/20/09
The bravest man I ever met
by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Pageant magazine
June 1965
Last December, 2000 Americans gathered at New York's Hotel Astor to
celebrate the 80th birthday of Norman Thomas. I could not be present
because I had to go to Oslo to accept the Nobel Peace Prize. But before I
enplaned for Norway, I taped the following message to be sent to
America's foremost Socialist:
"I can think of no man who has done more than you to inspire the vision
of a society free of injustice and exploitation. While some would adjust
to the status quo, you urged struggle. While some would corrupt struggle
with violence or undemocratic perversions, you have stood firmly for the
integrity of ends and means. Your example has ennobled and dignified the
fight for freedom, and all that we hear of the Great Society seems only
an echo of your prophetic eloquence. Your pursuit of racial and economic
democracy at home, and of sanity and peace in the world, has been awesome
in scope. It is with deep admiration and indebtedness that I carry the
inspiration of your life to Oslo."
Truly, the life of Norman Thomas has been one of deep commitment to the
betterment of all humanity. In 1928, the year before I was born, he waged
the first of six campaigns as the Socialist Party's candidate for
President of the United States. A decade earlier, as a preacher, he
fought gallantly, if unsuccessfully, against American involvement in
World War I. Both then and now he has raised aloft the banner of civil
liberties, civil rights, labor's right to organize, and has played a
significant role in so many diverse areas of activity that newspapers all
over the land have termed him "America's conscience."
There are those who call Norman Thomas a failure because he has never
been elected to office. One of his severest critics is Thomas himself.
When asked what he had accomplished in his life, the white-haired
Socialist leader replied:
"I suppose it is an achievement to live to my age and feel that one has
kept the faith, or tried to. It is an achievement to have had a part,
even if it was a minor part, in some of the things that have been
accomplished in the field of civil liberty, in the field of better race
relations, and the rest of it. It is something of an achievement, I
think, to keep the idea of socialism before a rather indifferent or even
hostile public. That's the kind of achievement that I would have to my
credit, if any. As the world counts achievement, I have not got much."
But the world disagrees. The Washington Post, echoed by scores of other
newspapers, called Thomas "among the most influential individuals in 20th
century politics" and added: "We join great numbers of his fellow
Americans in congratulating the country on having him as a leader at
large."
During our historic March on Washington in the summer of 1963, when
250,000 Negro and white Americans joined together in an outpouring of
fellowship and brotherly cooperation for a world of freedom and equality,
a little Negro boy listened at the Washington Monument to an eloquent
orator.
Turning to his father, he asked: "Who is that man?"
Came the inevitable answer: "That's Norman Thomas. He was for us before
any other white folks were."
His concern for racial equality flows naturally from his heritage. His
father and both grandparents were Presbyterian ministers. His maternal
grandfather Stephen Mattoon was not only an abolitionist but went south
to Charlotte, North Carolina after the Civil War and became the founder
and first president of a college for Negroes, then named Biddle College,
but now called Johnson C. Smith University. Emma Mattoon, Norman's
mother, was a girl of about 12 when the family moved to Charlotte. She
remembered vividly how the other white girls in the area ostracized her
and her sister because their father, a Northerner, taught "niggers."
Thomas, of course, was actively opposed to racial discrimination. In
1921, when he edited a pacifist magazine, The World Tomorrow, he wrote
(and this perhaps indicates how far we are from those days):
"Northern industrial centers may seem by comparison desirable to the
southern Negroes who emigrate to them. But they are very poor sort of
earthly paradise, as The World Tomorrow can testify. This thought has
been brought home to the magazine by an experience of its own. We are
obliged to move to new offices at 108 Lexington Avenue, New York City,
and the reason is this-- but the owners of the building demanded of us
signature of a lease forbidding the employment of any Negro. We should
have refused such a demand on principle, but in addition we are proud of
the fact that one of the most faithful of our office staff is a Negro
woman. That her race should be discriminated against in more than one
office building in New York City as a practical denial of the fundamental
principles of brotherhood and Christianity."
And in 1933, when labor, farm, unemployed, Socialist and liberal groups
joined together in a New Continental Congress in Washington, D.C., to
lobby for a decent deal for America's depressed millions, Thomas was
instrumental in dealing a blow to Jim Crow. Most of the New York
delegates were originally housed in the Cairo Hotel. In his book Norman
Thomas: A Biography (Norton), Harry Fleischman relates that when the
hotel barred Floria Pinkney, a Negro delegate, hundreds of the delegates
marched to the hotel in the body, canceled their reservations, and
demanded return of the money they had paid in advance. Thomas was their
spokesman. When the hotel refused to return the money, Thomas arranged
with lawyers to bring suit, whereupon the hotel agreed to return the
money.
Thomas also worked hand-in-hand with our most illustrious Negro labor
leader, A. Philip Randolph, in speaking at organizing meetings of the
Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, in fighting for permanent Federal
Fair Employment Practices executive orders and laws, and in helping to
abolish discrimination in the nation's armed forces.
But his concern for civil rights is only one facet of Thomas's life that
has aroused my admiration and that of many of his fellow Americans, black
and white. Describing the Socialist leader's career, Dr. John Haynes
Holmes recalled the words of the prophet Isaiah:
For Zion's sake I will not hold my peace,
and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest,
Until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness,
And the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth.
Upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, have I set watchmen,
Who shall never hold their peace, day and night,
Go through, go through the gates;
Prepare ye the way of the people.
The role of watchman on the tower has never been an easy calling. Who
stands upon the wall stands alone. And a man's arms can weary of lifting
a standard for the people. There is no rest in it, nor worldly success,
nor choice. Yet his courageous championship of exhausted sharecroppers in
the South, of persecuted Japanese Americans in World War II, of
conscientious objectors in federal prisons, of exploited hospital workers
in northern settings, of Mississippi Negroes fighting for the right to
vote, his lifelong campaign for economic and social democracy, and his
unceasing drive for the maximum international cooperation for peace with
justice have endeared him to millions around the globe. He has proved
that there is something truly glorious human being forever engaged in the
pursuit of justice and equality. He is one of the bravest men I ever met.
"So long as Norman Thomas is alive and capable of standing before a
public forum," stated dramatist Morton Wishengrad, "those who are
alienated and excluded are not entirely mute. One man articulate in the
service of so many. It is beyond socialism, beyond political system, and
beyond economic doctrine."
The overriding passion of Thomas's life has been the pursuit of peace--
not the deadly apathy of appeasement or submission to tyranny but the
insistence that the resolution of differences must be transferred from
the dreadful realm of military force to economic and ideological conflict
and, ultimately, international long and cooperation. He has put that
philosophy practically-- maximum isolation from war, maximum cooperation
for peace.
His quest for peace started during World War I when he came to the
conviction that Christianity and war were in complete opposition, that
"you cannot conquer war by war, cast out Satan by Satan, or do the
enormous evil of war that good may come." Thomas was so passionate
speaker even then that his intense convictions drew forth strong
responses from his audiences.
After a talk in February 1917 at Wesleyan University's Y.M.C.A., its
president, Fred Stevens, who had been in the U.S. Army for six years, was
much impressed by Thomas's remarks. He was scheduled to address the
entire student body at a University preparedness rally. The chairman
arose and said: "Wesleyan is fortunate in having an Army officer in its
midst who has agreed to drill our volunteers and teach them military
tactics. I give you Fred Stevens." Stevens got up and told his startled
audience: "I'm sorry, fellows. I can't do it. I heard Norman Thomas last
night. I'm a pacifist now."
Through that war, and between wars, and into the next war, Thomas
proclaimed that ethical imperative: Thou shalt not kill. When it was
popular to do so and when it was dangerous to do so, he kept insisting
that war is an evil that men can make-- and that only men can cure.
This message the dynamic Socialist leader has taken to his country and to
the world in every form that human energy and eloquence allow. A score of
books that have reached people all over the world reveals some of their
content in their titles: Is Conscience the Crime?; War-- No Profit, No
Glory, No Need; Appeal to the Nations; The Prerequisites For Peace. It is
been the basis for rallying the American people in times of crisis in
organizations from the American Union against Militarism at the time of
World War I to the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy and Turn
toward Peace today (two organizations in which I am happy to work with
him).
Peace has been the theme of countless hundreds of broadcasts over radio
and, later, TV networks over a period of 40 years. Peace has been
included in conferences on the economic and other practical aspects of
universal disarmament under effective international inspection, which
have drawn Senators and scholars as well as representatives of voluntary
agencies. The search for peace has taken Thomas across the American
continent year after year, speaking to small groups and large. And peace
has taken him across the world to conferences with leaders of nations and
with the prototype of that international fellowship of free men whose
vision he has helped to create.
Thomas, a Presbyterian minister, found his interest in socialism
stimulated by the antiwar declaration of the Socialist Party in 1917. He
wrote Morris Hillquit, one of the declaration's authors, to offer help in
Hillquit's New York mayoralty campaign: "The hope for the future lies in
a new social and economic order which demands the abolition of the
capitalist system. War itself is only the most horrible and dramatic of
the many evil fruits of our present organized system of explication and
the philosophy of life which exalts competition instead of cooperation."
When Thomas joined the Socialist Party in 1918, it was with certain
reservations: "Perhaps to certain members of the Party my socialism would
not be of the most orthodox variety. As you know I have a profound fear
of the undue exaltation of the State and the profound faith that the new
world we desire must depend upon freedom and fellowship rather than upon
any sort of coercion whatsoever. I am interested in political parties
only to the extent in which they may be serviceable in advancing certain
ideals and in winning liberty for men and women."
Even before becoming a Socialist, Thomas displayed a lack of orthodoxy in
nonconformity when he coupled his support of women's suffrage with an
expressed doubt that women would vote any more wisely than men. While
maintaining that women had just as much right to be wrong as men, Thomas
annoyed those suffragettes who argued passionately, "When women get the
vote, war will be ended for all time."
In the dark days before the New Deal, when the open shop prevailed and
unions were weak and poor, the Socialist leader was a familiar figure to
workers in scores of strikes. Thomas could be found, noted David
Dubinsky, president of the Ladies International Garment Workers' Union,
"In each and every strike on the picket lines and in the hall meetings.
We found him when we could not raise money to supply food, sandwiches, or
literature for our strikers. We found him championing every battle for
free speech, for free assemblage."
Before I was in kindergarten, America was in the throes of a desperate
depression, with the Wall Street crash followed by the grim misery of
rapidly growing mass unemployment. In the 1932 presidential campaign,
Thomas, as the Socialist presidential nominee, called for socialization
of the nation's major industries and natural resources, but his major
stress was on immediate programs to ameliorate the tragic effects of the
depression and to lead to economic recovery. The platform called for a
$10 billion federal program of public works and unemployment relief plus
laws to acquire land, buildings, and equipment to put the unemployed to
work producing food, fuel, clothing, and homes for their own use.
The platform also urged:
*Compulsory insurance against unemployment.
*Employment agencies free to the public.
*Old-age pensions for men and women 60 years old.
*Abolition of child labor.
*The six-hour day, five-day week with no wage reductions.
*Aid to farmers and homeowners against foreclosures of their mortgages.
*Health insurance and maternity insurance.
*Adequate minimum wage laws.
Neither the Republican nor Democratic platforms showed any comparable
understanding of the nation's needs in a time of crisis. It is to
Franklin D Roosevelt's credit that, when elected, he did not hesitate to
use many of Thomas's planks to build his New Deal.
I have remarked upon Thomas's suspicion of orthodoxy, but in one respect
he accepted orthodox Socialist views on race. The Socialist Party had no
special plank on the problem of the Negro. It assumed that abolishing
capitalism would automatically mean equality for the Negro. Thomas did
not find out how inadequate this approach was until the W.P.A. (Works
Progress Administration) came upon the scene. While in Birmingham,
Alabama, on a speaking tour, Thomas was told by a white Socialist who was
on W.P.A. that he had asked his fellow white workers if they would prefer
getting $5 a day if Negroes were paid the same wage, or only $4 a day,
with Negroes getting only $3.50. Overwhelmingly, he told Thomas, a
preferred less money so long as it was more than the Negroes were given!
This failure to understand the deeply rooted psychological bases of
racism contributed to the Socialist failure to win massive Negro support.
It is been my good fortune to work with Norman Thomas not only for world
peace and for racial equality but for fair treatment of all of the
world's minorities and for social justice everywhere. Several years ago,
when the Soviet Union sentenced more than 120 persons -- most of them
Jews-- to death for "economic" crimes, we joined with Dr. Linus Pauling,
Dr. Henry Steele Commager, and Dr. William Ernest Hocking in initiating a
petition signed by more than 200 prominent Americans urging the Soviet
Union to abandon such a practice.
When the U.S.S.R. formally abolished the death penalty some years ago, it
boasted that it "was leaving the capitalistic countries behind and was
moving toward a more liberal, enlightened Communist society." When the
death penalty was invoked in the United States, particularly in the case
of convicted Soviet spies, many anti-Communists, running the gamut from
Pope Pius XII to Norman Thomas and myself, inveighed against such death
sentences.
By reverting to capital punishment, the Khrushchev regime abandoned any
propaganda advantages it had boasted. Boris Nikiforov, head of the
Criminal Law Department of the U.S.S.R. Institute of Jurisprudence,
attempted to whitewash the Soviet death penalty by claiming that state
property is "sacred and inviolable" and deliver appropriates state
property "encroaches on the basic principle of life of Soviet society."
To that argument, we joined former Sen. Herbert Lehman when he aptly
replied: "Property rights are no less important in the private economy
than in a Communist economy. But one of the chief glories of a sane
society is that it places human rights and human life on a higher and
more sacred plane than property rights." Incidentally, the "economic"
crimes for which the Russians imposed the death penalty included currency
speculation and black marketing. One man was doomed for running a private
cosmetics business. Three others were condemned to death for selling low-
grade apples at top prices.
One of Norman Thomas's most endearing qualities has been his ability to
hate the sin but love the sinner. While recognizing that people are
influenced by their economic and social backgrounds, he knows that they
are often capable of rising above narrow self- or class-interest. He has
often been critical of leaders in high places, but he is been scrupulous
in giving credit where credit is due, a circumstance that has appealed to
Presidents and hosts of other public officials. And, in a time when
apathy and indifference have characterized much of mankind, one of his
outstanding attributes has been his capacity for indignation at any
injustice, which led Roger Baldwin to call Thomas "a civil liberties
agency all by himself, with an acute sense of timing and publicity."
Nor is Thomas a dissenter just for the sake of dissent. "The secret of a
good life," he once wrote, "is to have the right loyalties and to hold
them in the right scale of values. The value of dissent and dissenters is
to make us reappraise those values with supreme concern for the truth.…
Rebellion per se is not a virtue. If it were, we would have some heroes
on very low levels."
At Thomas's 80th birthday party, one of the greetings read:
"I understand the moment of truth has arrived and you are confessing
another birthday. In your instance this should be easy because you remain
eternally young of heart and young of spirit. As one of your older
friends, I wish to join in wishing you not only a happy birthday but
continued good health. Your life has been dedicated to the practice and
ideals of democracy. It is also been a life of courage in the battle
against all forms of totalitarianism. With equal vigor and determination
you have challenged the evil forces both of fascism and communism-- never
flinching or retreating, always advocating the cause of freedom and
social justice. America is a better land because of you, your life, your
work, your deeds."
Signing that greeting was Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey. Other
greetings came from present or former prime ministers, Supreme Court
judges, Senators, Congressmen, and leaders of all of America's political
parties.
Yet America has never fully utilized Thomas's great abilities. He has
been a marvelous unofficial ambassador-at-large to our friends in Europe,
Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Would it not make sense to make him our
official representative to the United Nations?
--
Information has never been so free. Even in authoritarian countries
information networks are helping people discover new facts and making
governments more accountable.- US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,
January 21, 2010
Dänk 666
wrote:
> The bravest man I ever met
>
> by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. was a narcissistic opportunist who co-opted the
civil rights movement started by Rosa Parks.
Ms. Parks is the real hero; she did nothing more than stand up for
herself, which contrasts sharply with Mr. King's attitude that African-
Americans needed someone else to stand up for them.
MLK went on to establish an unofficial African-American monarchy, in
which a charismatic yet unelected xian preacher would become the de
facto "leader" of all black people. When MLK died, the crown was
passed on to Jesse Jackson, whose only claim to fame was his claim
that he held MLK in his arms as he was dying. Since JJ was the only
xian preacher present at the time of MLK's death, the crown was passed
to him.
If there is a point here, it is that American blacks should stand up
for themselves, think for themselves, instead of being told how to
think and vote by unelected "black leaders" who are really nothing but
puppets of white Democrats, the same white Democrats who defended
slavery and segregation a century ago.
Martin Luther King Day should be abolished and replaced with Rosa
Parks Day. Though Ms. Parks had everything to lose, she chose to
stand up for HERSELF, instead of waiting for someone else to come and
defend her rights. This is the true spirit of the civil rights
movement: the right to self-determination vs. the right of the farmer
to grant special privileges to the more obedient animals.
5888 Dead, 1031 since 1/20/09
> On Jan 15, 8:11 pm, "5888 Dead, 1031 since 1/20/09" <d...@gone.com>
> wrote:
>> The bravest man I ever met
>>
>> by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
>
> Martin Luther King Jr. was a narcissistic opportunist who co-opted the
> civil rights movement started by Rosa Parks.
>
> Ms. Parks is the real hero; she did nothing more than stand up for
> herself, which contrasts sharply with Mr. King's attitude that African-
> Americans needed someone else to stand up for them.
OK. You're lying, probably cribbing from some Nationalist website.
Run along, Danky. Troll somewhere else.
Dänk 666
wrote:
> On Mon, 17 Jan 2011 00:28:15 -0800, Dänk 666 wrote:
> > On Jan 15, 8:11 pm, "5888 Dead, 1031 since 1/20/09" <d...@gone.com>
> > wrote:
> >> The bravest man I ever met
>
> >> by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
>
> > Martin Luther King Jr. was a narcissistic opportunist who co-opted the
> > civil rights movement started by Rosa Parks.
>
> > Ms. Parks is the real hero; she did nothing more than stand up for
> > herself, which contrasts sharply with Mr. King's attitude that African-
> > Americans needed someone else to stand up for them.
>
> OK. You're lying, probably cribbing from some Nationalist website.
An opinion is hardly a "lie." But I forged a Nationalist website just
to humor you.
> Run along, Danky. Troll somewhere else.
You're the one who's trolling. I merely observed the role of Rosa
Parks in the civil rights movement, and you rudely dismissed her in
favor of a charismatic male who stole her ideas and claimed them as
his own. No wonder Hillary hates you.
5888 Dead, 1031 since 1/20/09
> On Jan 17, 9:23 am, "5888 Dead, 1031 since 1/20/09" <d...@gone.com>
> wrote:
>> On Mon, 17 Jan 2011 00:28:15 -0800, Dänk 666 wrote:
>> > On Jan 15, 8:11 pm, "5888 Dead, 1031 since 1/20/09" <d...@gone.com>
>> > wrote:
>> >> The bravest man I ever met
>>
>> >> by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
>>
>> > Martin Luther King Jr. was a narcissistic opportunist who co-opted
>> > the civil rights movement started by Rosa Parks.
>>
>> > Ms. Parks is the real hero; she did nothing more than stand up for
>> > herself, which contrasts sharply with Mr. King's attitude that
>> > African- Americans needed someone else to stand up for them.
>>
>> OK. You're lying, probably cribbing from some Nationalist website.
>
> An opinion is hardly a "lie." But I forged a Nationalist website just
> to humor you.
I wouldn't put it past you. You sure put in a lot of effort faking it,
trying to impress people who really don't give a shit about you>
>
>
>> Run along, Danky. Troll somewhere else.
>
> You're the one who's trolling. I merely observed the role of Rosa Parks
> in the civil rights movement, and you rudely dismissed her in favor of a
> charismatic male who stole her ideas and claimed them as his own. No
> wonder Hillary hates you.
--
buzz
> It's time to unseal the hidden files on MLK and let people learn the
> Truth!
>> On Sat, 15 Jan 2011 21:11:30 -0600, "5888 Dead, 1031 since 1/20/09"
>> de...@gone.com> wrote:
> There is probably no greater sacred cow in America than Martin Luther
> King Jr. The slightest criticism of him or even suggesting that he
> isn’t deserving of a national holiday leads to the usual accusations
> of racist, fascism, and the rest of the usual left-wing epithets not
> only from liberals, but also from many ostensible conservatives and
> libertarians.
>
> This is amazing because during the 50s and 60s, the Right almost
> unanimously opposed the civil rights movement.
Pure BS!
Civil rights legislation would never have passed except for the
Republicans. The dim-witted dummycrats opposed it all the way.
God Bless America...God Damn Rev J. Wright and his white hating black
panther buddies.
Calling an illegal alien an 'undocumented immigrant' is like calling a
drug dealer an 'unlicensed pharmacist'
"The Police acted stupidly"...Urkel Husein before taking time to learn
the facts.
Q...What does Barack Hussein Obama and Osama bin Laden have in common?
A...They both have friends that bombed the Pentagon.
Everybody can buy a truck."...Urkel Obama
Not in your economy Mr. Urkel Obama
"Navy corpse-man"...Urkel Obama (three times)
"We don't begrudge success. But I do think at a
certain point you've made enough money." -Urkel Obama
Liberal slogan: "Cool-Aid Cool-Aid, tastes great, Cool-Aid Cool-Aid,
can't wait"
Barack Hussein Obama...mmm mmm mmm
Send HIM to Pakistan to fight Osama...mmm mmm mmm
Simple-minded lying dummycrats (the party that birthed the KKK) and
liberals...morons electing morons.
Sex offender? Rapist? Child molester? Pedophile? Deal in child porn? Any
or all of these and not in jail? Thank a lib, especially a lib judge.