Taylor Marsh – TaylorMarsh.com – News, Opinion and Weblog on Progressive Politics

We knew it would come. The swiftboating of Reverend
Lowery, who witnessed the Montgomery
bus boycott, a black man who today dared to speak the unvarnished truth
to power. Power that was front and center and who just so happened to be the
president of the United States, a white man seated behind the black leader raling.
Republicans control Congress, but they didn't have any control over the mourners
in Coretta's church today.

The headlines screamed, as the wingnuts went wild.

Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King, \”the First Lady of Civil Rights,\” gave and committed their lives to make civil rights a reality.

Today's memorial service for civil rights
activist Coretta Scott King — billed as a \”celebration\” of her life
— turned suddenly political as one former president took a
swipe at the current president, who was also lashed by an outspoken black pastor!
The outspoken Rev. Joseph Lowery, co-founder of Southern Christian Leadership
Conference, ripped into President Bush during his short speech, ostensibly about
the wife of Martin Luther King Jr. \”She extended Martin's message against
poverty, racism and war. She deplored the terror inflicted by our smart bombs
on missions way afar. We know now that there were no weapons of mass destruction
over there,\” Lowery said. The mostly black crowd applauded, then rose to
its feet and cheered in a two-minute-long standing ovation. A closed-circuit
television in the mega-church outside Atlanta showed the president smiling uncomfortably.
\”But Coretta knew, and we know,\” Lowery continued, \”That there
are weapons of misdirection right down here,\” he said, nodding his head
toward the row of presidents past and present. \”For war, billions more,
but no more for the poor!\” The crowd again cheered wildly. DRUDGE
(emphasis added)

\”Turned suddenly
political\”? Coretta
Scott King was considered \”the First Lady of the Civil Rights movement.\”

Drudge needs to open a history book, and he'd be advised to share
it with his friends. Oh, one that actually offers black history. Everything
in the King family life was political, from Martin Luther King, Jr. to Coretta
Scott King taking on King's
work as her own, all the way to Bernice King, who let it rip today in a
sermon that lit the place on fire (link of transcript to follow when I find
one).

Talking about what actually killed Mrs. King, Reverend Bernice
King made metaphorical references to her mother's ovarian cancer in stark detail,
which had to make anyone listening wonder where the reverend was going. But
go she did, all the way into the reproductive organs of her mother to the rebirth
of the world, to Mrs. King choosing to die so a new world could be born. The newly
delivered head of the King legacy, it would seem to me listening to her today, is Reverend Bernice King. She talked about the disease
of war, poverty and that this world is more into making money than taking care
of people. Her whole speech was about faith, God's guidance and our duty to
do more than mourn. That is to say everything Reverend King talked about was political, it was about taking action.

Lest we forget…

But Coretta Scott King's memorial today has got the plantation owners
pissed, really pissed, because they're embarrassed at the story screaming forth.
Mrs. King's politics were remembered today, because it's what she gave her life
to, taking on the journey, the dream that Martin Luther King, Jr. began. That
story, Coretta Scott King's story, is not a Republican story.

Coretta Scott King's story is, in part, the story of
the modern Democratic Party, starting with candidate John
F. Kennedy's call of comfort to her, as Dr. King sat in jail; into Bobby
Kennedy's phone call to the judge who ended up freeing Dr. King on bail. The
following quote is legend, from one of his supporters, once Dr. King was out
on bail.

\”I've got a suitcase of votes,
and I'm going to take them to Mr. Kennedy and dump them in his lap.\”
(source)

It is the story of the maturation of a political party, especially the southern wing, once wrong on race, turning inside out and getting it right. It is Harry S. Truman working to integrate the U.S.
Armed Forces, as well as L.B.J. pushing through Kennedy's legislation on the
Voting Rights Act.

So, you obviously know what today's
podcast (also found here)
is about. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King, welcome to history
in the digital age.

Coretta Scott King would have been proud today. We should be proud,
but we also know we have a lot more work to do. If Reverend Bernice King is
the woman I think she is, she'll be on our case to make sure it gets done.

As for President Bush, as others have offered, life can be
hell when you don't have a hand-picked crowd.

NOTE: To all my
podcast listeners, new sound is coming, baby, and it's going to be good.
Thanks for bearing with me while we get it done.