In Honor of MLK

I just returned from our local MLK celebration. It was great to see so many folks out. I am sure the nice weather helped!

To help honor of MLK, I have created a top ten list of things we should remember today:

1. Millions of people and thousands of leaders shaped the Civil Rights movement. While MLK was incredibly important and influential, he was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
2. The Civil Rights movement focused on changing ordinary things, such as access to pools, schools, and restaurants. Sometimes, you get the impression the movement was mostly philosophy or theory.
3. Per James Hal Cone's scholarship, King's success is linked to the popularity of Malcolm X. King's fame is as much related to who he wasn't as to who he was.
4. King's career did not end in 1963 with his "I Have a Dream" speech.
5. King was assassinated while helping sanitation workers improve their negotiating position during a strike.
6. King (and the rest of the civil rights movment)was much more successful in changing social institutions in the South and attitudes in the North than he was at changing social institutions in the North and attitudes in the South.
7. The Civil Rights movement was primarily a religious movement.
8. The Civil Rights movement relied on music (both gospel and soul music) and art to bring people together.
9. The NAACP litigation strategy and lawyers (including people like Thurgood Marshall and Constance Baker Motley) were a significant element to the Civil Rights movement.
10. The Civil Rights movement was as much about property and power as it was abstract rights. Consequently, we should not be satisfied with the rights revolution. We should look to the distribution of power and property to determine how much racial progress has been made.