Black Panther Party of Northern California - Freedom Archives

DR . MARTIN KING (Continued #2)
ti"iolence in the
wgrld~ ."
For those who 'kriei~ - the 'man and
the depth of his non-violent con-"
~.~ietians, this was the admission of
grave incertitude and defeat, But
a dangerous defeat for whom? Least
nor the Blacks of the ghettos, who
lead, by their own pressure, pushed
the apostle of .non»violence to take
on such a poszt~;.c~n, . :` `Mostly foz the
white power structfuxe,
In Autumn, 1966`, Dr, King decided
'to push his offensive of non»vialence
in the North by beginning in
Chicago, He prepared a march on
Cicerd`(a section of Chicago), then
calhed it off at :the last minute
after the local authorities made a
promise of concessions .
Two years later, ;, the uprising
that overflowed in the supportive
march for the garbage collectors of
Memphis could no longer afford an
occasion for suprise . :. . King, in e~-
~:ect, had to count mo.~g and more on
pressure excercised by ;$~o~Cely Car-
~ichael and numexous othex Chris»
vian leaders of the South ; even
SNCC had remained non-violent only
as long as the weight of oppression
had allowed .
King himself was walking a tight-
7_°ope . His is the tragedy of Black,
liberals,ir~ a society based on ;seg» ; :
negation . Reduced .to making 'comp-, ! ; ;
r~mises :from all sides, at the same
4i~e ._ .h.e ;had to relay the challenge
;that a new generation :of ~3lacks ,had , : ,
flung at him, _alb, the -.wh l .~ ~~ntQxtwining
the liberal illusionv that
the "integrationist,d3.alogue" was
still po Bible .
From there we go on to the real
causes of King's death- ., It .was ,irk- .
:;erted on the AmeXa.can calendar- :. a : ,
few days before Johnson;'s, : ~ '"peace
~affensive" in Vietnam ; this was not
by accident . The "hawks," the American
army which wa~~ hum lia't.ec~ ,by , ,
a loss of initiative :,,-;~qu.xvalent to . r
defeat in the famous ~ T~at~}Offensive,
and the ; tensions betw~e~r~ t~aoae : .wha_ .
earned their livelihood through the
nar and those who; ; ~uaoted : ;'.'geaGe", ,
slid not spare this ~. .~la~~C libexal
.hrham ,:hey had expected, better _of; - .
In the Herald Tribune editorial
t:~n pa~ ~ 22 tree title should Ue
^_ ;;,rb,~,~~:I~y-P~-~-~, instea3 of ^-1VIZi;1~IC:1 ;
BLACK POWER : Page 2~l
~if February 24, 1968, a last a,-nd
grave warning was addressed to King
on the question of the tylack United
Font that he and Carmichael had
farmed in several cities (including
the San Francisco Bay Area . . . .ed.) :
"King's poorly thought-out campaign
coincic~s exactly with the new Lenmist
stage--and,th~e most:dang;erous
one-»of the rapid ascension~,of Stokely
Carmichael towards the-.summit .
Tn effect, the lattex-,;s3nce :his return
has been practi~Eing :;th~ ' Len»
mist tactics of alla.ance, .;between
revolutionaries and non-revolutionaries
."
~v Urr3aed~ with K~.ng, the xevolutionaries
could take the initiative ail
the more, as they then : :had at their
disposal theeBlv~k masse whom King
could cause to~move intothe struggle
. With King dead :they (the
white power) thought they could
make the "L31ack mdr~stera" leave
theix "jungles" so bheyr':oould be
offed by racists . : ;: Kingcs. death
could serve ~. : . as a ;~us~tification for
repression against Black '"extrem
ists ." But, in fact, the revolutionaries
have shown that with or
w,i,thout, King they have th+~ ` in tiative
. . .,if King'had to Pay with his
life for the difficult" task of
Black Unification ., . . .in .,the United
States, his mux~der is .already achieving
results ; the coming together
of lack Amexicans is a more fitting
tribute : to the goal of Martin
Luther King's life work than all
the useless eulogies that have been
wx3tten after ,him.
Stack Power salute-°~~s gspen~~OZane-bearing body aJ Dr . Kinr~
as it readies jpr ~IIR'e hxs taken$,, ,trip . tm.,.A~tanta .