a maybe different meditation for MLK day today

I am not about to pull down the honor of Mr. Martin Luther King jr. and the wellspring of "fight" which he brought an entire people, a level of hope not forgotten, and now renewed.

really.

However, I do want too add a little balance of reminders.
Ever heard of Myles Horton and the Highlander Folk School? he had set up, against the laws of Tennesee, a place for whites and blacks alike to spend overnight time, as much as they wanted, sharing their THOUGHTS... a place for adults to come and talk. A few people who attended this school, in the 50's, before the famousness of Mr. King jr. were women like Rosa Parks and Septima Clark. Without all three of these people, we may not have heard much about the civil rights movement which was already festering and fostering more and more small actions and back yard "talks." Myles Horton was a white man. Rosa Parks lost her job so she couldn't do that bus thing anymore and eventually had to leave Montgomery. Septima and Rosa met at Higlander in 1955. In the 80's and today, people generally still do not know their stories -- nor how what Mr. King accomplished rests on their backs. Rosa Parks at 80 confessed she had struggled with and it took time at Highlander to let go her own prejudice and take on the spirit of non-violence. Rosa Parks was part native American and her hair was long, thick and wavy. Rosa dn Septima were both members of the NAACP, and struggled some harsh rejections because of it. Septima is to be honored for her insight into what was NEEDED, for the general segregated population like that of John's Island. Septima understood that the people needed to be able to read, understand what the laws were, and vote for themselves. Myles Horton had ideas to just TELL folks stuff and register them. Septima started teaching the people to read and Myles Horton started writing it up for her, seeing the wisdom of her insight. Septima understtod that she and Myles and other "leaders" had to first LISTEN.
They had to let people say what they wanted to say. She set up a system, traveling around, of first LISTENING to a gathering of people -- telling them she agreed, and then asking them to listen to her.
it was called a communist school and raided - Higlander. So after Septima got out of jail they all started training more teachers in more places. After her second heart attack and the Highlander school was totally shut down, Septima became a close associate, with Myles, of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

In her own words in, "ready from within," Septima said that the young leaders wer just barely beginning to understand and ambrace non-violence as the method of change, when Dr. King was killed. April, 1968.

another little fact: Eleanor Roosevelt was a white woman firaly hated by many other white women of her own time. WHY? Why do we still quote her and think of her as a strong woman, source of inspiration? Just because she was the president's wife? or perhaps because - for instance - in 1938, at the first big interracial meeting held in the south - Alabama --Mrs. Roosevelt insisted on sitting on "the black side" until a policeman told her she had to move according to local law. She rejoined her husband, indignant.

Another unfortunate fact is that Mr. King (and other male leaders) were not fond of women, and womanized. Septima Clark had been efficient and effective so she was part of his first staff. she says that she personally wrote a letter to him, asking him to NOT lead all the marches and NOT do all the speeches. She asked him to do what she had done, go about training other leaders and speakers for their own marches. He read it outloud to his staff, and they laughed.
Still, Septima says, "In those days I didn't criticize Dr. King, other than asking him not to lead all the marches. I adored him. I supported him in every way I could because I greatly respected his courage, his service to others, and his non-violence. The way I think of him now comes from my experience in the women's movement. But in those days, of course, in the black church men were always in charge. It was just the way things were." p78.

I see as one of the weaknesses of the civil rights movement, the way men looked at women." p 79.
She says that the women's movement had already begun, and was not something that came OUT OF the civil rights movement. Rather, "In stories about the civil rights movement you hear mostly about the black ministers. But if you talk to the women who were there, you'll hear another story. I think the civil rights movement would never have taken off if some women hadn't started speaking up." p 83.

READY FROM WITHIN: Septima Clark and the civil rights movement A first person narrative edited with an introduction by Cynthia Stokes Brown. Wild Trees Press 1986