I attended the 50th Anniversary Commemoration at the National Civil Rights Museum, which was the first MLK50 event I had been to. I went not really knowing what to expect but having the slight feeling that nothing has changed. That is because what happens during the 50-year commemoration of Dr. King’s assassination happens during the 49-year commemoration and the 45 year commemoration and so on and so forth. People, young and old, black and white, will come together or be vocal on social media about the legacy of Dr. King, speaking on how he has changed our country for the better. We (America) celebrate Dr. King’s life as if we have come so far, as if our country isn’t backward and completely contradicting what Dr. King spent his time advocating for, racial and economic justice. With that said, the event was full of amazing speakers and performers, such as Jesse Jackson, Reverend James Lawson, and Al Green. However, it was hard to focus on that when I could only see the major problem with this event.
The number of sponsors of MLK50, the many performers, the speakers, the news channel, many of these organizations were benefiting in some way from the presence of thousands of people celebrating the life of a legend, while there are still thousands of people that are affected by low wages which is what Dr. King brought attention to back in the 60s. To me, this showed how greedy and money hungry our society is. Although the event was “open to the public”, the “normal” people were separated from those with special passes. Those with more money or those considered “important” received reserved seating at this event while everyone else was roped off behind them. This clear partition showed how this event was definitely a way in showing who the event was intended for and the type of people that received special attention. An event that may have good intentions cannot outweigh the simple fact that everything is about making a profit these days. Even when to comes to honoring Dr. King, someone that was very critical of our economic system, we still go against what he preached. Dr. King did great work in communities such as South Memphis where residents dealt with great poverty. To this day, people in this community are still experiencing poverty but have Dr. King to thank for the major progress in Memphis. The question now is how are people that have been directly impacted by Dr. King’s change supposed to attend these events that celebrate and honor Dr. King when these events are technically “open to the public” but may not be accessible or affordable? These black-tie events that cost money to attend had the clear message of who their intended audience was. I also attended (snuck in to) another event called “An Evening of Storytelling” that consisted of many panelists, Clarence Jones being one of them. A point he made that I believe summarizes the truth behind some of these MLK50 events is that we cannot have amnesia about the reality of our experiences. We cannot speak of the problems Dr. King advocated for as if they are all in the past; how are we supposed to poke a hole in the sky if we do not explicitly define and analyze what the sky is?
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This post was very interesting, and I believe you acknowledged one of the issues that Dr. King was focused on. The event did ring with capitalism and separation of people. One thing that I noticed at the storytelling event as well was the way in which Clarence Jones, Jesse Jackson, and James Lawson would talk about the importance of the youth. However, their were barely in any youth in the room. And when I say youth I do not mean the 30 year olds that were mostly present. I mean the high schoolers and the college students that are also very concerned about justice work in the United States. I think it is important that we criticize even the work that we think is honoring work of social justice and its methods of inclusion.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing this! I did not attend the commemoration, but your observations about it affirm some of the suspicions I had about MLK50 and the highly publicized nature of it all. Now that the more notable events of MLK50 are over, what did they really accomplish? This question has been burning in the back of my head for the last couple weeks. Furthermore, now that MLK50 is coming to a close, what happens next? It seems for the majority of the public, this huge event has just come and gone in the city. Of course we all know how much work there is to be done, and all of the speakers that have come to our class are continuing their activism, but what about everyone else? By the time MLK75 or MLK100 rolls around, will we all realize that there are still so many economic disparities that need to be addressed?
ReplyDeleteAll the ideas and themes you have written about are so important to consider, and I love how you make a big point over the affordability and accessibility of the events. I feel like the all the money that was pumped in to this celebration could have been spent in a more effective way elsewhere... perhaps by actually helping the people whom King spoke about in Memphis... Obviously commemorating King is important, but his message needs to be considered above anything else.
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