Re: Eli's a-comin'

[aburke5054@aol.com]

I believe Martin would have seen, for example, today's stance by Ed 
Trust and investments by the Broad Foundation in improving urban 
education as true to his legacy.  He strove to get more Americans to 
pitch in in more ways for disadvantaged children and parents.  That is 
what Broad and Ed Trust do.  That's a great thing and I think Martin 
would have said that it is a great thing.  You don't like Broad and Ed 
Trust, fine.  Trying to paint these organizations as capitalist 
exploiters is absolutely ridiculous.

Art

-----Original Message-----

From: Csubstance@aol.com

To: taunar@plateautel.net; arn-l@interversity.org

Sent: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 2:57 am

Subject: Re: [arn-l] Eli's a-comin'



In a message dated 12/1/07 8:08:34 PM, taunar@plateautel.net writes:



<< So what if they want to see higher test scores.  Tell me Martin



> would have been marching against Broad instead of with him. >> (Art 
Burke)



12/2/07



OK. I will. From Chicago.



When Martin (and Al Raby and others who worked with him) came to 
Chicago, his

focus was on overall improvement for the people who were living in 
poverty

and segregation. One of his legacies was a broad based movement that 
included

those of us who organized to elect Harold Washington mayor here in 
1983. That

movement was short circuited by Harold's death and the vicious reaction 
that led



to corporate "school reform" (along with "welfare reform" and "housing

reform" -- the three horns of the same devil) by the mid-1990s.



As late as 1976, when I marched with the Martin Luther King Jr. 
Movement here

in Chicago against Nazi attacks on black people moving into "white"

communities on the Southwest Side, we were still mobilized, and most of 
the

people

remaining from those days still are and are firmly against corporate 
"school

reform" and all the rest of that crap.



So, Art, the answer is Yes. By the end of his life, Dr. King was 
organizing

against poverty (the Poor Peoples Campaign) and against the other 
underlying

class injustices of capitalist society -- and not to scapegoat the 
public

schools for trying to face the problems created by a vicious class and 
race

segregated society.



I know. I was part of those marches, both during Dr. King's life and 
since.



And he would have laughed to think the Education Trust was claiming his

legacy, lucrative as their funding may be. Then he would have thundered 
against

the

betrayal's being mouthed by the Hati Kaycocks and Broad Elis of the 
world,

even though it would have cost him millions in product endorsements and

fundings. That's actually what happened when he was on the West Side 
here 40

years

ago, Art. The entire corporate ruling class of Chicago lined up against 
him.

Read

the accounts of King's work in the Chicago Tribune from back then.



The simplistic and truncated hagiography that has happened since can't

overcome the real legacies of the man who not only stood up against 
class

exploitation ("I Am A Man" the union picket signs said in Memphis), but 
also

against an

imperialist war -- despite warnings from all the official and wealthy 
big

shots that he was undermining his legacy.



George N. Schmidt

Editor, Substance



www.substancenews.net



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