Thread by @RevDrBarber

“When much of the black leadership attacked or shunned him, King replied, ‘What you’re saying may get you a foundation grant, but it won’t get you into the kingdom of truth.’

“In short, Martin Luther King Jr. refused to sell his soul for a mess of pottage. He refused to silence his voice in his quest for unarmed truth and unconditional love. For King, the condition of truth was to allow suffering to speak;

“for him, justice was what love looks like in public. In King’s eyes, even too many black leaders sacrificed the truth for access to power or reduced sacrificial love and service to selfish expediency and personal gain.

“They too often were sycophants, cheerleaders, or bootlickers for big monied interests, even as the boots were crushing poor & working people. In stark contrast to this cowardice, King stated to his staff, ‘I’d rather be dead than afraid.’” @CornelWest

salon.com/2015/01/19/his…

We must know this MLK, and when we do, we will know any attempt to simply popularize him, make a commodity of him, throw celebratory and commemorative platitudes at him, without embracing, embodying, and engaging the prophetic vision and call to action he espoused ...

is to participate in the destruction of his legacy. It is to demean and dismiss all the poor people that took up his call. And it is to commit the sin that Jesus once spoke of, which is to love the tombs of dead prophets and not the living,

which is itself a form of ever-diminishing hypocrisy that renders any claim to really love the prophet false.

“In Dr. King’s own time, he would say repeatedly, ‘I am nevertheless greatly saddened ... that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment, or my calling.’

“It is no accident that just prior to King’s death, 72% of whites and 55% of blacks disapproved of his opposition to the Vietnam War and his efforts to eradicate poverty in America.” @CornelWest @Salon

salon.com/2015/01/19/his…