Letter From Off The Plantation
(21st Century Letter From A Birmingham Jail)

In the past two weeks there has been an enormous amount of clamor, incrimination and condemnation by members of the community who were angry about the decision to protest the racism, bigotry and hypocrisy evident throughout Charlotte.

Even more atrocious is the disservice to the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. illustrated by the myopic, revisionist, plantation ravings about Dr. King as to who he was and what he would do.

The sad part about it is many of you really don’t know anything about Dr. King and his righteous crusade to end racial injustice and discrimination, to end segregation and separation of the masses for such reasons as race, religion, color or creed. All you know is what "Massa" promotes and what "Masssa" prefers.

King was a very bold, courageous and God-filled man, determined to fight the evil of racism in this country. Those of you espousing all of this sad and erroneous commentary about Dr. King have not a clue to the infinite dimensions of the man.

Though, relative to this incident, I've never uttered the word “boycott,” which was a sensational fabrication by the media, it is unbelievable how ignorant you are about Dr. King's beginnings.

The first official act by Dr. King and his supporters that hurled him into world history was the "Montgomery Bus Boycott." Yes, "Boycott." Get it, boycott. Dr. King wasn't trying to make friends or please Massa; he was trying to show the economic strength and effectiveness of African-American minorities when they come together in unity. Remember Psalm 133.

He was trying to demonstrate that we all must share in the sacrifice of self to receive the reward of freedom for the many. The Montgomery Bus Boycott (remember boycott) lasted a year, not a week, a year. People lost their jobs, their homes, their cars. They lost white friends and black friends. Some lost their lives, but they won the battle. They weren't concerned about the loss of a week of fun and games and mammon or Massa. Unlike some contemporary Negroes, the people of Montgomery were concerned about justice.

Some of our community, Negroes included, have lied and said that Dr. King would not want our children to stay out of school for any reason because he loved education. Yes, you are right; Dr. King was definitely for education. But he was against racist, separate, segregated, so-called "neighborhood school" education.

Do any of you remember Birmingham, Alabama? The children walked out of schools for days, went to jail for weeks (missing school) and enjoyed going to jail so much so often they over-filled the jails. And as soon as they got out they went right back to marching and going back to jail, saying, "I'm going to jail for my freedom." They understood the need for personal and group sacrifice, not like some of these Negro elected officials and modern Massa's.

Martin was there; he knew what was going on. Did you know some of those children not only missed school but were beaten by police, bitten by dogs, had their clothes torn off by fire hoses under full pressure as they were tossed into brick walls on sidewalks rolled up and down asphalt streets. And the only thing the Negroes in this community are concerned about is one week of fun and games and mammon and Massa.

Please, let us not forget the four little girls blown up in the church. That's shared sacrifice, nothing comparable to what we've asked of you, here in Charlotte.

Not only was Dr. King in Birmingham, he was on the frontline in all his marches, boycotts, pickets, protest and anything he did. Martin Luther King had guts; he didn't hide behind his title or scurry off like a little rat, like a lot of his contemporaries and modern preachers or so-called Negro Leaders who wouldn't stand up to a "junebug," not to mention this racist city. Dr. King stood up to George Wallace, Lester Maddox, Bull Connors and many others because he wasn't afraid of controversy. He said, "The measure of a man is not where he stands during the time of comfort and convenience but where he stands during conflict and confusion."

Do not any of you realize or recall that Dr. King faced death every day. Everyday he lived he stood up in a time where black men were killed for speaking out are speaking up. He not only spoke out, he stood up and stood out. During the era in which Dr. King began his involvement, Black men were killed for looking at white women. Remember Emmett Till or the Scottsborough Boys?

Dr. King understood and lived the Word of God that said give your body as a willing sacrifice holy unto God, and he did that, willingly and knowingly, twenty-four-seven. Don't you remember the call at midnight? They said to him, in substance, 'Nigggaahh, we're tired of your mess now. If you're not out-of-town in three days, we gonna blow your brains out and we gonna blow up your house."

He did not try to run. He did not try to hide He didn't back down. No, he was emboldened. He said, "I've seen the lightening flash, I've heard the thunder roll, I've felt sin breakers dashing against my soul, but I heard the voice of Jesus saying ‘Martin Luther King Jr., stand up for truth, stand up for justice, stand up for righteousness and low I will be with you even until the end of the world!’ “

Not only did Dr. King hear it and say it, he lived it. I know most of you Negro readers don't remember it, probably never heard it, and Massa doesn’t want you to know it. Dr. King lived in fear constantly, being faced with the possibility of his own death daily, and here we are today worried, mad, sick, not about the loss of life or liberty but worried about a week of fun and games, mammon and Massa.

It is obvious the only thing this country and the daily media want you to remember is his dream. But if you decide to live in his dream, that means, as is evident by the way some of you act, you're still asleep, or even worse, dead. Because his dream has not come true yet. We have more poverty than ever, the schools in Charlotte are just as segregated as they were 40 years ago, banks still won't give minority businesses any help, they won't modify mortgages for low/middle-income families, and there are still enormous gaps in housing with disgusting pockets of poverty and excessive pockets of affluence, no mixture of mixed and affordable housing hardly anywhere recognizable. Jerry Orr still wants to get rid of 144 minority cabbies for one white cabbie. That's not promoting small business.

Though we have had many successes, the current state of Charlotte, the state and the nation is upsetting. Congress threatening to challenge the 14th Amendment, most of the “civil rights bills," the General Assembly threatening to use voter ID, challenge the voting rights bill and health care – it makes the "Dream" sound more like we're living in a continuous relooping "Nightmare."

So people need to hone in on the first 16 lines of that speech. Dr. King wasn't dreaming; he was dealing with reality, the reality of the awful, abhorring, depressing and godless conditions in which we were living. Exposing this supposed land of freedom, justice and equality as one big diabolical contradiction.

Please make sure you study his discourse or speech on the Vietnam War. Many told him that the speech would be his death knell. But he was not worried or deterred. Remember, he said, “If a man has not found something he is willing to die for, he is not fit to live!”

So I would guess many of you in Charlotte are willing to die for a basketball game, but are not as zealously inclined to fight for your children being permanently, emotionally and academically scarred as they suffer in this racist school system!

During his long, 13-year journey, Dr. King lost many friends, acquaintances and allies, but he understood it was a small price to pay when looking at the bigger picture. He gave the Vietnam speech on April 4, 1967, at Riverside Church in New York, lambasting the heresy, racism and bigotry of America for the Vietnam War, delineating all the money wasted in that war, when the money could have been better used for schools and education. We had expanding ghettos and a rapidly growing underclass. Sounds familiar?

After King's speech, President Lyndon Johnson, who had become a good friend who signed the Civil Rights Bill, the Voting Rights Act and other such legislation, never spoke to Dr. King again. King was killed on Thursday evening, April 4, 1968, exactly one year after the Vietnam speech. Quite interesting.

Dr. King was truly a man's man. He didn't talk about putting on the armor of God and then hide behind the pulpit. He put on the armor of God and went to war.

It's so sad that we have forgotten how great Dr. King really was and all he really is spiritually. He has been reduced to a very ineffective monolithic sound bite, year after year after year. The masses really not caring to explore the real man, which has left us with some glaring realities that the tactics and teaching of Mr. Willie Lynch are alive and well and Mr. Lynch is probably dancing in hell, rejoicing in the fact that after 300 years, his plan is working perfectly and that many of Charlotte’s Negroes are the manifest personification of the Willie Lynch prototype.

In the last three weeks, I've come to realize some of our Negroes have earned their PhD in the WILLIE LYNCH SYNDROME. Thank God, King was more than talk, more than show. He lived what he said. Most of you keep running off at the mouth like you knew the man. You heard his word, you saw all his deeds, but you still failed to capture his essence, his heart.

I don’t have his demeanor, nor do I have his tact, but I do have his courage and heart and understand the “moral and spiritual constitution” that drove the man, not politics.

Thank you, and To God be the Glory. Na'Maste'

Reverend Brother Kojo Nantambu

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