views
Ida Bae Wells Profile picture
Jan 17, 2022 26 tweets 4 min read Read on X
I was invited to give an MLK speech today and a small number of members of the group hosting me wrote and then leaked emails opposing my giving this speech, as it dishonored Dr. King for me to do so. They called me a "discredited activist" "unworthy of such association with King"
So, I scrapped my original speech and spent the entire first half of it reading excerpts from a bunch of Dr. King's speeches, but without telling anyone that I was doing so, leading the audience to think King's words were mine. And, whew, chile, it was AMAZING.
Here is some of it "It was in the year 1619 that the first BLACK slave was brought to the shores of this nation. They were brought here from the soils of Africa and unlike the Pilgrim fathers who landed here at Plymouth a year later, they were brought here against their will..."
Wherever you see Black in caps, it's bc I subbed out Negro to not give it away."For more than 200 years Africa was raped and plundered, a native kingdom disorganized, the people and rulers demoralized and throughout slavery the BLACK slaves were treated in a very inhuman form..."
“White Americans must recognize that justice for black people cannot be achieved without radical changes in the structure of our society...The evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and racism..."
"The problems of racial injustice and economic injustice cannot be solved without a radical redistribution of political and economic power. A nation that continues year after year to spend more $ on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death
"The crowning achievement in hypocrisy must go to those staunch Republicans and Democrats of the Midwest and West who were given land by our government when they came here as immigrants from Europe. They were given education through the land grant colleges..."
"These are the same people that now say to black people, whose ancestors were brought to this country in chains and who were emancipated in 1863 without being given land to cultivate or bread to eat; that they must pull themselves up by their own bootstraps..."
"What they truly advocate is Socialism for the rich and Capitalism for the poor...

"We know full well that racism is still that hound of hell which dogs the tracks of our civilization."
"Ever since the birth of our nation, White America has had a Schizophrenic personality on the ? of race, she has been torn between selves. A self in which she proudly professes the great principle of democracy and a self in which she madly practices the antithesis of democracy."
"The fact is, there has never been a single, solid, determined commitment on the part of the vast majority of white Americans to genuine equality for Black people."
"The step backwards has a new name today, it is called the white backlash, but the white backlash is nothing new. It is the surfacing of old prejudices, hostilities and ambivalences that have always been there..."
"The white backlash of today is rooted in the same problem that has characterized America ever since the black man landed in chains on the shores of this nation."
“Whites, it must frankly be said, are not putting in a similar mass effort to reeducate themselves out of their racial ignorance...with each modest advance the white population promptly raises the argument that BLACK AMERICANS HAVE come far enough.”
"...for the good of America, it is necessary to refute the idea that the dominant ideology in our country, even today, is freedom and equality and that racism is just an occasional departure from the norm on the part of a few bigoted extremists."
"If America does not respond creatively to the challenge to banish racism, some future historian will have to say, that a great civilization died because it lacked the soul and commitment to make justice a reality for all men."
"Why do white people seem to find it so difficult to understand that the Black people are sick and tired of having reluctantly parceled out to THEM those rights and privileges which all others receive upon birth or entry in America?"
"I never cease to wonder at the amazing presumption of much of white society, assuming that they have the right to bargain with the BLACK for their freedom..."
Oh, the uncomfortable silence as I read Dr. King's words at a commemoration of Dr. King's life when people had no idea that these were his words. When I revealed that everything I said to that point was taken from his speeches between '56 and 67... Can you say SHOOK!
Then I read all the names that white Americans called King: charlatan, demagogue, communist, traitor -- and brought out the polling showing more than three-quarters of Americans opposed King at his death while 94 percent approve of him now.
I left them with this: People who oppose today what he stood for back then do not get to be the arbiters of his legacy. The real Dr. King cannot be commodified, homogenized, and white-washed and whatever side you stand on TODAY is the side you would have been back then.
In fact, most white Americans in 1963 opposed the March on Washington where Dr. King gave the "I Have A Dream Speech" with that one line that people oppose to anti-racism like to trot out against those working for racial justice.
When the speech was over, Father Pfleger, who had been been cheering me on from the crowd, whispered in my ear: That's what you call the "You Gone Learn Today" speech and I 💀. Because, yeah.
This is why the 1619 Project exists. This is why the decades of scholarship that undergirds the 1619 Project exists. Because if we do nothing, they will co-opt our history and use it against us.
Dr. King was a radical critic of racism, capitalism and militarism. He didn't die. He was assassinated. And many, including Regan, fought the national holiday we're not commemorating. If you haven't read, in entirety, his speeches, you've been miseducated & I hope that you will

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Ida Bae Wells

Ida Bae Wells Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @nhannahjones

Mar 13
I began working on this essay even before the affirmative action ruling came down. It is a warning. We are in the midst of a radical abandonment of the compact forged by the CRM that cynically coopts the ideal of colorblindness to attack racial justice.
nytimes.com/2024/03/13/mag…
Image
"Over the last 50 years, we have experienced a slow-moving, near-complete unwinding of the idea that this country owes anything to Black Americans for 350 years of legalized slavery and racism."
"But we have also undergone something far more dangerous: the dismantling of the constitutional tools for undoing racial caste in the United States."
Read 7 tweets
Jan 24
What we’re seeing with the LA Times is the result of an ethos that sees newsroom diversity as about feeling or looking good, and not about ensuring the accuracy and trust needed to produce high-quality journalism in a multiracial democracy.
The anti-DEI backlash is being loudly fomented by the right but is also quietly embraced by many so-called progressives. When we talk about eroding trust in news, seldom mentioned is the distrust that occurs in majority non-white communities covered by heavily white newsrooms.
Like I say again and again: Too often our daily report reflects power and not truth. How a newspaper in a majority Latino city sheds that number of Latino journalists and expects to maintain community trust says a lot to me about how its leaders define their community.
Read 4 tweets
Jan 24
I sleep well at night knowing that every white man who ever held an important job was most definitely, 100 percent, without question, the most qualified. I mean, they never get fired for incompetence, jailed for corruption, let go for poor performance.
They’re never given jobs or opportunities because of who their daddy’s are, or who they know, or the school they went to, or well, because folks would rather have a white man at the top of their organization because it makes them feel better. It’s only POC we need worry about.
Imagine the sort of victimology and delusion leads one to believe the only time you need to question if someone was qualified enough for the job is if that person isn’t white. Like, what about 400 years of American history would give one that confidence?
Read 5 tweets
Dec 20, 2023
Are we going to talk to all the 1619 references in “Leave the World Behind”??
Super market in town is called Point Comfort, which is the landing spot of the first Africans sold into slavery in Virginia.
At the fork in the road, they can go to Point Comfort, or they can go left to Fort Mose. Fort Mose was the first sanctioned town of free Black people, founded by enslaved Africans who had escaped the British and passed into Spanish territory. floridastateparks.org/parks-and-trai…
Read 9 tweets
Dec 13, 2023
It’s not well known that when LDF attacked segregation in Brown v. Board of Ed it didn’t just argue that segregation made Black people feel inferior but also that it made white people feel a false sense of superiority and the truth of that is so clear in this Pres. Gay discussion
The # of white people who attack every successful Black person as an unqualified diversity hire reveals a desperate need to believe that the only way any Black person — and I mean any — can be more successful than they are is because they didn’t deserve it. This is racial caste.
What they can never explain is how if folks are just giving out prestigious jobs, prizes, leadership roles to Black folks just for being Black, why are Black people under-represented across every field in all of these things? The data refutes the lie.
Read 6 tweets
Sep 28, 2023
Imagine being Black and running in a political party where you believe you need to disgrace your ancestors to have a chance.
Tim Scott, the Second Middle Passage ALONE broke up about 1/3 of Black marriages. But, yes, anti-poverty program are the problem. wams.nyhistory.org/building-a-new…
Also, just to be absolutely crystal clear, NOTHING Black people have experienced in this country is worse than slavery. Like, it’s not even close. So obvious that the only reason it needs to be said is to counter trolls and Black men trying to win MAGA voters.
Read 4 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(