“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…

• • •

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

Keep Current with Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II

Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II 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 @RevDrBarber

Jan 18,
A new report out today from Oxfam finds that inequality has not only worsened over the last two years, it has become deadly.

Read my latest w/ @liztheo & @OxfamAmerica’s @abbymaxman @BNCNews: bnc.tv/covid-economic…
In stark terms: The wealth of the world’s 10 richest men has doubled since the pandemic began, from $700 billion to $1.5 trillion, at a rate of $1.3 billion a day.
Meanwhile, the incomes of 99% of humanity have fallen because of the pandemic and one person is dying every four seconds from lack of access to healthcare, gender-based violence, hunger and climate change.
Read 4 tweets
Jan 14,
WATCH: #PoorPeoplesCampaign Press Conference & National Launch for June 18, 2022! #ForwardTogether twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1…
We’re committing to go full, all-out in building the #PoorPeoplesCampaign: A National Call for Moral Revival in this moment of our national sickness. When we see political and physical insurrection; when we see assaults on the poor and low-wealth;
when we see wide-spread assaults on voting rights and democracy; when we see misinformation campaigns and billions spent to divide us; in this moment, we are committed to mobilizing the largest mass assembly of poor people & low-wage workers in this nation’s history on June 18.
Read 48 tweets
Jan 13,
This is a damn shame to have to do all of this to protect the promises of the 14th and 15th amendments and the right to vote.

washingtonpost.com/politics/senat…
Anyone who agreed to stand down and wait a year after the inauguration and insurrection to push to fix the VRA is just as guilty to seeding power and influence to Manchin and Sinema as anyone else. But redemption is always possible, if we all chip in and do our part now.
Let’s not forget that the VRA has been before the Congress since 2013. Ever since June 25, 2013, when the Shelby decision said the Congress had to write a new coverage formula.
Read 4 tweets
Jan 12,
Exactly. That is why it was important that @POTUS declared he is tired of being silent. Theologically, I wish he had said, “I’m sorry I was ever silent,” because we should’ve never treated this like normal politics.

This should have been all one fight, and we should have been as loud about voting rights as infrastructure and Build Back Better, all as one. But now we are going to fight and declare that Washington’s manipulating games and deals have no place here.
From today forward, I want us all to remember another 6th anniversary. Not the 6th of January but the 6th of August 1965, when President LBJ signed the Voting Rights Act & declared, “Today is a triumph for freedom as huge as any victory that has ever been won on any battlefield.”
Read 4 tweets
Jan 11,
All of the people & GA activists that challenged the President today stand in the same tradition of John Lewis when he challenged JFK at the March on Washington in 1963. Some civil rights groups didn’t like it then, but John Lewis was right. And those activists were right today,
and the President would do well to meet with them & diverse moral & religious leaders, as we have been asking for months but his handlers have not facilitated.
Read what John Lewis did 59 years ago: “It is true that we support the administration’s civil rights bill. We support it with great reservations, however.
Read 9 tweets
Jan 9,
In “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?” Sidney Poitier said this line to his father, “I love you, but you think of yourself as a Black man. I think of myself as a man.” This line needs to be embraced today.
Someone asked me, “Are you a Black preacher?” No, I first see myself as a preacher, able to be in any place, the pulpit, the streets, etc. This is why I resist and fight anytime racism and classism seeks to treat me as less than a man.
For instance, some say @VP Kamala Harris is a Black woman and a Black vice president. No, she is first a woman and the Vice President, and this is why she must resist any limits and blocks that are tried to be placed upon her.
Read 8 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

Too expensive? 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 on Twitter!

:(