Sojourner Truth Radio: January 19, 2021 – Honoring MLK & Inauguration News
Monday, January 18, was the hard fought for Martin Luther King National Holiday. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, but the holiday is marked on the 3rd Monday of January. Donald Trump, in his final days in the White House, marked the holiday by issuing a “racist school curriculum report,” according to CNN. Meanwhile, in Southern California, and around the nation, car caravans in socially distanced events took place to celebrate the Radical King, not the sanitized version of him that many politicians put forward. The commission overseeing Trump’s proposed overhaul of how history is taught in the United States justified their racist report that was issued on Martin Luther King Day. It claimed that what they call “identity politics” are the opposite of the vision of Dr. King. It especially attacks affirmative action. But, Dr. King was a critic of capitalism. He once said: “We all too often have socialism for the rich, and rugged free market capitalism for the poor.” He also offered a critique of Marxism, saying it only offered a partial truth. He added that “while capitalism failed to discern the truth in collective enterprise, Marxism failed to discern the truth in individual enterprise.” He thought the path lay between the two. Today, we honor the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and we also look at concerns of violence in Washington, D.C. at tomorrow’s inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.
Our guests are Katea Stitt and Kwazi N’Khrumah. Katea Stitt is the Program Director of WPFW/Pacifica Radio in Washington D.C. Kwazi N’Khrumah became active in the Civil Rights Movement at a very early age. He was primarily influenced by Dr. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. During the late 1960’s he became a leader in student movements in Washington, D.C. In the 1970’s and 1980’s, he became a well-known tenant and community organizer in both Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, Maryland. Kwazi was a labor activist and organizer for various local and national unions for 35 years, and has been a major figure in environmental justice movements for several decades. He has served as the Co-Chair of the Martin Luther King Coalition of Greater Los Angeles for more than 10 ten years.
LISTEN | January 19, 2021 – Honoring MLK & Inauguration News