Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos Or Community? Martin Luther King Jr

Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? Martin Luther King Jr

…’And one day we must ask the question, Why are there forty million poor people in America? And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth. When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy. And I’m simply saying that more and more, we’ve got to begin to ask questions about the whole society’… MLK

About 3 years before his death Malcolm became more aware of certain realities, started to speak out on them and was murdered.

This book is A favorite of mine the best of all the books King has written and probably the least read. In it, Dr. King critiques himself for giving the then youthful leaders of the Black Power Movement too overly optimistic views of the progress of integration. He also presents the pros and cons of Black Power. He states the need for America to do much more to improve race relations other than declaring racism to be wrong. He calls for the teaching of African-American history, and for the nation to focus more on helping the poor over military spending.

today's reading

TODAY'S READING

Gillette, Jr., Howard. Between Justice and Beauty: Race, Planning, and the Failure of Urban Policy in Washington, D.C. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995.

Keeley, Robert V. D.C. Governance: It’s Always Been a Matter of Race and Money. Washington: Five and Ten Press, 1995.

Taylor, Duane R. Home Rule in the District of Columbia: The First 500 Days. Washington: University Press of America, 1977.

BOOKS TO GET

Barras, Jonetta Rose. The Last of the Black Emperors: The Hollow Comeback of Marion Barry in a New Age of Black Leaders. Baltimore: Bancroft Press, 1998.

*Barry, Marion with Van Whitfield. Mayor for Life: The Marion S. Barry Story. Simon & Schuster, 2007.

Edmonds, Thomas N. and Raymond J. Keating. D.C. by the Numbers: A State of Failure. Washington: University Press of America, 1995.

Jaffe, Harry and Tom Sherwood. Dream City: Race, Power and the Decline of Washington. Simon and Schuster, 1994.

Keeley, Sr., James Hugh. Democracy or Despotism in the American Capital. Riverdale, Maryland: Jessie Lane Keeley, 1939.

Walters, Ronald W. and Toni-Michelle Travis. Democratic Destiny and the District of Columbia: Federal Politics and Public Policy. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2010.

*A hand-made thank you card complete with a small trinket of some kind to anyone who can find this book for me.

quick thought on the long civil rights movement

Let's say that historians actually did subscribe to the notion of a traditional civil rights movement, lasting from 1955-1965. What that means is that Brown and its companion cases wouldn't be considered part of the civil rights movement, since they were decided in 1954, and initially brought before lower courts as early as 1949.

That doesn't sound right to me.

Just saying.

Back to day one of comps.

1. Fucking DUH.

2. I'm fine with the title. I literally have to see a counselor every week to make sure that I am not actually hallucinating this shit. I've never hated school before.

[not sure how i feel abt the title and it being ableist as this experience speaks to that of acquiring or assessing one’s mental health from an introspective space….]

full text here.

The graduate school experience for students of color has been theorized as...

Charles Wesley Harris, Congress and the Governance of the Nation's Capital

Donald Rowat, a Canadian political scientist, and Charles Wesley Harris both study federal capital cities worldwide. Apparently there is a literature surrounding the tension between local and federal political power in these cities. I also need to get my hands on Harris' Perspectives of Political Power in the District of Columbia : the Views and Opinions of 110 Members of the Local Political Elite.

Definitely a sub-field worth looking into.

Jackpot. Why didn't I think of this before?!