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March. On. Washington. August. 28. 1963.


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The. March. On. Washington.  August. 1963. About. Jobs. ,Livable. ,Wages,Equality. ,Racism.  All. These. Years. Later. Still. Need. More,Jobs. ,Liveable. Wages,Equality. Racism. .The. King. Family. Talks. About. Their. Father. Voting.  They. Will. Not. Talk. About ,Preachers Stealing. All. The. Church. Money. Buying. Cars,Mansions ,Not. Caring. About. Poor. Black. Communities.  Preachers. In. Prison ,For. Raping. Children. Murdering. Their. Wives.......Pastor. Warnock ,Do. Not. Talk. About. Church. Corruption.   Preachers. Are. Money ,Worshipping. Snakes .Jackals ..Hyenas ,Vultures......Bllack. Genocide. Black. Men. Genocide. The. Black. Communities. ,Crack ,Houses. ,Selling. Crack. Prostituting. Teenage. Girls. In. The. Street ,Gangs. Street. Thugs.....Black. Politicians. NAACP ,Church  ,The,King   Family. Do. Not. Talk. About. Solutions. To. Stop. The ,Black. Genocide. ,Organizing. Kwanzaa. Principles. To. Uplift. Black ,Communities.....

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I remember this momentous event well, just like it was yesterday.  I had 3 young children when the March of Washington took place, and was not able to make the trip, but I did gather with a group of friends to watch it on TV and shed tears when MLK gave his famous "I have a dream" speech.  Now, MLK and all of those friends have passed on, and I am left to contemplate how King's dream played out...

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3 hours ago, Cynique said:

  Now, MLK and all of those friends has passed on, and i am left to contemplate how King's dream played out...


I think the proper word to use would be "HAVE" instead of "HAS", but we understand your point baby.
I'm sure a lot of people are wondering the same thing.

 

 

 

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I was 13. I was a white kid in the suburbs. I liked what Dr. King was doing. My parents did not. What they called "rebellion" on my part had already begun to split us apart.

 

I liked the musicians who played there. I liked the black celebs. And Dr. King made such total sense that his words cut to the center of my adolescent brain.

 

A few months later John Kennedy was murdered. I stood lined up for P.E. in Jr. High in Los Angeles listening to the loudspeakers telling us that the President was dead. The naive belief in our perfect country and great world which they'd inculcated in us in school, that was fading as I woke up to the ambient racism, the hypocrisy... well, this was only the beginning.

 

In 1968, a few months after Dr. King was gunned down. so also was Robert Kennedy.  By then Malcolm had also been murdered. That year I graduated high school and stepped out into a revolution, We thought the country was being torn apart. We knew that we had to change it, that in its existing form it was not viable nor worth fighting for.

 

There were a lot of young whites like me resonating positively to Dr. King's message and struggle. We wanted to do something.

 

Now I'm 72. And I want to do something. It is far less clear just what one should do at this point! We do not have a great moral voice like Dr. King informing us. We all know what is wrong... but we'll be lucky if the country has any time to do much of anything but combat the forces of fascism and dictatorship which are gathering and looming on the horizon. I felt that the various ethnic groups involved in this struggle back then were pulling together. We were uniting, getting to know each other. That unity is not as great now, there are many voices of division from right and left. The innocence we had then is gone. Now we're cynical and distrustful of nearly everyone.

 

Shoot, I'd get up and give a speech, and it would be a good one, but nobody will listen. Sometimes I feel sorry for younger people who did not experience what we did in the 60s. Much of it was very bad, but the solidarity, the feeling that we would win, the fervor we had for justice... it was great.

 

Things are going to change. and rapidly, as we move forward. Let's all keep the positive motivation strong in us as we continue to struggle for change. If anyone thought the 60s was a mess, you ain't seen nothing yet!

 

 

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The 1960s was a watershed moment that forced the United States to deal with its disenfranchised folks. 

 

Civil rights for AfroAmericans.  Equal rights for White women.  Calm down rebellious White folks (sex, drugs and rock & roll, antiwar protestors, etc.).

 

The strongest AfroAmerican voices were assassinated.  We haven't had a voice like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in over 50 years now. 

 

Voting rights and affirmative action were supposed to be some kind of panacea providing AfroAmericans with equal representation politically and quotas in the education and job markets.

 

During the 1970s, AfroAmerican communities were flooded with heroin.  Meanwhile, many of those former hippies only had to cut their hair and put on casual clothes and they were absorbed into affordable higher education and well paying jobs.

 

During the 1980s, POTUS Ronald Reagan created opportunities that provided White folks with a windfall of cash.  AfroAmerican communities were flooded with more drugs in the form of crack cocaine. 

 

During the 1990s, POTUS Bill Clinton stamped mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines for drug offenses disproportionately affecting AfroAmericans.  The prison industrial complex sprawled into big business. 

 

America definitely looks different than it did back in the 1960s.  The middle class of America has been expanded and anesthetized with gross consumerism.  Yet, racism and socioeconomic problems remain unchanged. 

 

Now, Americans are being pitted against each other....Folks on the Right feel their sense of entitlement is being infringed upon.  Folks on the Left believe a few  handouts and  benign neglect will make the real problems disappear. 

 

Overall, under the system of racism white supremacy, it's just a different generation of folks executing the same old plays. The promissory note of Dr. King's dream is still a bad check for many folks.😎

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Michel Montvert

 

Since you were old enough to remember....


When King and Kennedy were assassinated, do you remember White people cheering or expressing approval of those actions?

A lot of White people I know who were alive at that time said things like "he got what he deserved" and other things expressing joy over their deaths.

 

Michael Moore said that when he was a kid in school, when it was announced that MLK was assassinated...the entire class started clapping and cheering.
I've heard many similar stories.

 

 

 

 

 

 


ProfD

 

 

America definitely looks different than it did back in the 1960s.  The middle class of America has been expanded and anesthetized with gross consumerism.  Yet, racism and socioeconomic problems remain unchanged. 

 

Yeah, for one thing...White people have more "allies" today!

Back in the 50s and 60s when the nation was primarily Black or White with a few Native Americans...Black people were far more united.  The racial lines were clear.


On top of that....
Most Latinos and Asians were seeking friendship and socio-political ties with AfroAmericans at that time because they saw us and our power rising.

Today, you have a lot of people of different races and colors but many if not most of them who come from other countries and cultures side with White people and seek alliances with them.


Who wants to unite with "crack heads" and "gang bangers"??
Since the 80s, AfroAmericans as a community have been tagged with one negative stereotype after another to the point that even fellow Black people from other countries are ready to walk across the street when they see the average nigga bouncing up the block in their direction.
Especially if he's Rapping to himself with a crazy look on his face.

 

 

 

 

 


Cynique


America definitely looks different than it did back in the 1960s.  The middle class of America has been expanded and anesthetized with gross consumerism.  Yet, racism and socioeconomic problems remain unchanged. 


Did they REALLY believe that?
Or were they a bunch of White kids who looked at the riots of the 50s and 60s....thought that White civilization was on it's way to collapse...and decided to get high and live a life of leisure before they died?

 

 

Hippie Style | LoveToKnow

"Get a job?
Fur' what man?
The world is ending man.
Let's get high and make love while we still can man!"


 

 


 

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41 minutes ago, Pioneer1 said:


Michel Montvert

 

Since you were old enough to remember....


When King and Kennedy were assassinated, do you remember White people cheering or expressing approval of those actions?

A lot of White people I know who were alive at that time said things like "he got what he deserved" and other things expressing joy over their deaths.

 

Michael Moore said that when he was a kid in school, when it was announced that MLK was assassinated...the entire class started clapping and cheering.
I've heard many similar stories.


ProfD

 

America definitely looks different than it did back in the 1960s.  The middle class of America has been expanded and anesthetized with gross consumerism.  Yet, racism and socioeconomic problems remain unchanged. 

 

Yeah, for one thing...White people have more "allies" today!

Back in the 50s and 60s when the nation was primarily Black or White with a few Native Americans...Black people were far more united.  The racial lines were clear.

 

 

 


Cynique


America definitely looks different than it did back in the 1960s.  The middle class of America has been expanded and anesthetized with gross consumerism.  Yet, racism and socioeconomic problems remain unchanged. 


Did they REALLY believe that?
Or were they a bunch of White kids who looked at the riots of the 50s and 60s....thought that White civilization was on it's way to collapse...and decided to get high and live a life of leisure before they died?


 

 


 

Yes to the first question. In Jr. High as the loudspeaker announced that Pres. Kennedy was dead, some of the kids were exclaiming, "Good!" Obviously they were reflecting the attitudes of their parents. When Dr. King was killed I was not around people so saw no immediate reactions. I was home when Bobby Kennedy was shot. My Republican mother came to wake me up laughing, "Well, your hero is dead," she said and walked away still laughing.

 

For those in the East back then, things might have seemed all "black and white", but in the West there was activism by chicanos during that period. López Reies Tijerina in NM, La Raza Unida (Corky González) in Colorado, and a lot of action in California, including UFW and the movement which led to the Moratorium and Blow-out in Los Angeles. It is true that the black movement inspired all of that as well as Native activism, but one cannot claim that they had not already been active in the past. But when both civil rights and anti-war movements exploded, obviously there were other interests who said, "Yeah, us too!", and so the end result was the American Indian Movement. a lot of chicano activism, the women's movement, the environmental movement. gay rights movement, and so on. Well... why not? EVERYONE deserves freedom and justice, no? Well, maybe not Donald Trump, but y'all get the idea.

 

Hippies and other longhaired white activists at that time were not as shallow and empty as you indicate. We did not think civilization was collapsing. Instead, we saw that change was at hand and we jumped in to accelerate it. We saw the riots and so on as revolutionary action! That was part of the process of change. We had complete sympathy with the blacks in the inner cities who rioted. We had great esteem and respect for all the leaders of that time, MLK, Malcolm, the Panthers... as well as the other ethnic leaders, César Chávez, AIM, etc. Many of my generation did sacrifice considerably to be in that struggle. Some were killed. The forces arrayed against us were not only Police and legal system, but employers, parents, a lot of people and institutions who did NOT like what we were doing.

 

As criticism, I will say that we were indeed too high, put on too much of a freak show, and we would have done better to be less extreme, less scary to the mainstream, and think about what was effective rather than what was fun and gave us a thrill by scaring our parents (who did deserve it, however). But then among the non-white activists I saw firsthand also a lot of ego and bull$hit which was counter-productive. A lot of posing, dilettantism, weekend warriors and all that, among all ethnicities, white or other.

 

Did anyone learn from our mistakes? I doubt it... I don't want to crap on the younger people, but I'm seeing now little of the mass dedication and energy which was happening then. This is not y'all's fault... the powers that be have manipulated society a lot to ensure that the 60s won't happen again.

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