![]()
‘Martin Luther King Jr.’s Unfinished Work on Earth Must Truly Be Our Own’
Five days after King was assassinated, his “spiritual mentor” Benjamin Mays delivered a eulogy for his former student
‘Martin Luther King Jr.’s Unfinished Work on Earth Must Truly Be Our Own’
Five days after King was assassinated, his “spiritual mentor” Benjamin Mays delivered a eulogy for his former student
Benjamin Mays was the president of Morehouse College, in Atlanta, while Martin Luther King Jr. was a student there, and the two became friends. King considered Mays his “spiritual mentor” and “intellectual father.” Mays was 70 years old—no longer the college’s president but a civil-rights leader—when he delivered King’s eulogy, at Morehouse, on April 9, 1968. It was later published in Born to Rebel: An Autobiography, by the University of Georgia Press.
TO BE HONORED by being requested to give the eulogy at the funeral of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is like being asked to eulogize a deceased son—so close and so precious was he to me. Our friendship goes back to his student days at Morehouse College. It is not an easy task; nevertheless, I accept it, with a sad heart, and with full knowledge of my inadequacy to do justice to this man. It was my desire that if I pre-deceased Dr. King he would pay tribute to me on my final day. It was his wish that if he pre-deceased me I would deliver the homily at his funeral. Fate has decreed that I eulogize him. I wish it might have been otherwise, for, after all, I am three score years and ten and Martin Luther is dead at thirty-nine.
Although there are some who rejoice in his death, there are millions across the length and breadth of this world who are smitten with grief that this friend of mankind—all mankind—has been cut down in the flower of his youth. So multitudes here and in foreign lands, queens, kings, heads of governments, the clergy of the world, and the common man every-where are praying that God will be with the family, the American people, and the President of the United States in this tragic hour. We hope that this universal concern will bring comfort to the family—for grief is like a heavy load: when shared it is easier to bear. We come today to help the family carry the load.
We have assembled here from every section of this great nation and from other parts of the world to give thanks to God that he gave to America, at this moment in history, Martin Luther King Jr. Truly God is no respecter of persons. How strange! God called the grandson of a slave on his father’s side, and the grandson of a man born during the Civil War on his mother’s side, and said to him: Martin Luther, speak to America about war and peace; about social justice and racial discrimination; about its obligation to the poor; and about nonviolence as a way of perfecting social change in a world of brutality and war.
Here was a man who believed with all of his might that the pursuit of violence at any time is ethically and morally wrong; that God and the moral weight of the universe are against it; that violence is self-defeating; and that only love and forgiveness can break the vicious circle of revenge. He believed that nonviolence would prove effective in the abolition of in-justice in politics, in economics, in education, and in race relations. He was convinced also that people could not be moved to abolish voluntarily the in-humanity of man to man by mere persuasion and pleading, but that they could be moved to do so by dramatizing the evil through massive nonviolent resistance. He believed that nonviolent direct action was necessary to supplement the nonviolent victories won in federal courts. He believed that the nonviolent approach to solving social problems would ultimately prove to be redemptive. …
50 years since his death, Martin Luther King Jr.’s philosophical work is all but forgotten
King was both an activist and a philosopher.
In the 50 years since the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., the memory of the transformative civil rights leader has undergone a “Disneyfication.” Textbooks, movies, and TV shows often suggest that King’s quest for racial and economic equality was ultimately successful. Yet half a century since his assassination, King would be dismayed by the ongoing inequality and racism in the US. And the complexities of his ideas are often overlooked.
King was not simply a compelling speaker, but a deeply philosophical intellectual. The syllabus from his social and political philosophy course while he was a visiting professor at Morehouse College includes works by Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Bentham, and Mill. King’s own writing engages with Nietzsche and Marx extensively; Hegel was one of his favorite thinkers.
Brandon Terry, a professor of African American studies and social studies at Harvard University, says that even King’s “I have a dream” speech needs his philosophical context to be understood as King intended it. Terry, who co-edited To Shape a New World, a collection of essays on King’s political philosophy, notes that some figures, such as Supreme Court justice John Roberts, have used the line “we want to judge people not by the color of their skin but the content of their character” to suggest that the government should not focus on or highlight race.
In reality, King had deeper theory on how race should be considered in public policy. …
King ‘Inspired Me to Get in Trouble’
A Q&A with Georgia Congressman John Lewis on how King recruited him into the civil-rights movement, what it was like to know the iconic activist, and how King’s legacy has shaped the world today.
Ralph Abernathy, James Forman, Martin Luther King Jr., Jesse Douglas, and John Lewis. King leads the five-day, 54-mile march for voting rights in 1965, from Selma, Alabama, to Montgomery. Lewis was 25 years old at the time.
John Lewis, now a Georgia congressman, was the teenage son of Alabama sharecroppers when he first met Martin Luther King Jr., 60 years ago. One of the last surviving members of King’s inner circle, the 78-year-old Lewis is an icon of the movement. Here, he recalls what it was like to know King and to hear the messages that shape the world today.
This interview has been edited and shortened for clarity.
Vann R. Newkirk II: Especially for young folks, who know him only from history books, tell us what it was like to know Dr. King.
John Lewis: I grew up about 50 miles from Montgomery. Growing up there as a young child, I tasted the bitter fruits of racism. I saw the signs that said white men, colored men; white women, colored women; white waiting, colored waiting. And I would ask my mother, my father, my grandparents, and my great-grandparents why. They would say, “That’s the way it is. Don’t go getting in trouble.”
But in 1955, at 15 years old, I heard of Dr. King, and I heard of Rosa Parks. They inspired me to get in trouble. I remember meeting Rosa Parks as a student. In 1957, I wrote Dr. King a letter and told him that I wanted to attend a little [whites-only] college 10 miles from my home—Troy State College, known today as Troy University. I submitted my application and my high-school transcript. I never heard a word from the school, so that gave me the idea that I should write Dr. King.
In the meantime, I had been accepted to a little college in Nashville, Tennessee, so I went off to school there. King heard that I was there and got in touch with me. He told me that when I was back home for spring break, to go and see him in Montgomery. …
DEGREE OF HOPEFULNESS: “He taught me to be hopeful, to be optimistic, to never get lost in despair, to never become bitter, and to never hate.”
I DIDN’T MAKE IT UP: HOPEFUL:
adjective
- full of hope; expressing hope : His hopeful words stimulated optimism.
- exciting hope; promising advantage or success : a hopeful prospect.
noun
- a person who shows promise or aspires to success :the Democratic presidential hopeful.
First recorded in 1560-70; hope + -ful
Related forms
The Opioid Crisis Isn’t A Metaphor
Drug users don’t take heroin because of postindustrial despair — they do it because withdrawal feels worse than anything you can imagine.
Firefighters help an overdose victim on July 14, 2017, in Rockford, Illinois.
There is a tendency, among those lucky enough to not be personally affected, to speak about the opioid epidemic in sweeping cultural and political language, declaring it a symptom of all that ails the country. People invoke shuttered factories and jobless towns, turning nationwide addiction to a deadly chemical into another front in the culture wars.
This penchant reached its peak in a recent New York magazine story about the opioid crisis. “The scale and darkness of this phenomenon is a sign of a civilization in a more acute crisis than we knew, a nation overwhelmed by a warp-speed, post-industrial world, a culture yearning to give up, indifferent to life and death, enraptured by withdrawal and nothingness,” Andrew Sullivan warned. “America, having pioneered the modern way of life, is now in the midst of trying to escape it.”
Wait a second. What?
Opioid addiction isn’t a metaphor for the ills of modern life. It is not a medieval morality play. It is an affliction that leads to real people — about 42,000 a year in the US — dying because of the brutal biochemistry of the drugs they’re addicted to: the opioid compounds found in painkillers, heroin, and fentanyl.
People end up with an opioid use disorder because human beings like to get high and they like to avoid pain — two things that opioids are great for, at least in the beginning. …
Seth Meyers point-counterpoint segment devolves into an on-point action movie brawl
THANKS to NBC and Late Night with Seth Meyers for making this program available on YouTube.
“It’s important to remember there are two sides to every news story,” Seth Meyers said on Tuesday’s Late Night, and “to make sure you get to see important issues from all sides, we’ve invited two of our writers who have very different points of view; we will examine their opinions in a segment we call ‘Point-Counterpoint.'” The writers, Ally Hord and Amber Ruffin, didn’t so much have differing opinions as different ways of framing issues. Hord, for example, found Trump’s transgender military ban “another one of Trump’s distracting stunts,” while Ruffin said she loves stunts, describing an action-movie stunt fight. That description became germane after Hord threw up her hands at the end of the next issue, the banal violence of our political leaders. …
Stunned Investors Reap 95% Gains on Defaulted Puerto Rico Bonds
• Debt once worth 21 cents on the dollar now trades for 41 cents
• Some have doubts: ‘The numbers are still pretty ugly.’
Of all the wild, head-scratching moves in financial markets this year, there are few that have surprised investors quite as much as the rally in defaulted Puerto Rico bonds. “It just blows my mind,” says Matt Dalton, chief executive officer of Belle Haven Investments.
Since sinking to a mere 20.8 cents on the dollar in December, prices on the island’s most frequently traded securities have climbed steadily and reached a high of 45 cents last week before paring gains during the past few days. Not only are Puerto Rico’s bonds the top performer in the $3.9 trillion municipal market, they’ve gained more than any other dollar-denominated debt in the world, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The rally started inconspicuously enough back in late December, with a penny gain here and there that analysts chalked up to bottom fishing after prices collapsed in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.
But then the increases started coming in bigger chunks as word spread that the island may emerge from the devastation with more money on hand than anticipated, a development that creditors bet would translate into better debt-restructuring terms. …
5 Ridiculous Ways Rich People Are Wasting Their Money
Everyone wants to be rich, because when you’re rich, you can afford luxurious things like moon mansions and Lobsterfest. Thing about being rich, though, is that it doesn’t seem to come with an instruction book. So sometimes rich people fall into the same trap every other human on Earth falls into: They hop on the bandwagon of a dumb trendy thing. Except when they do it, it’s way more expensive. And dumb. Dumbspensive.
5. Raising Pampered Chickens
Chickens are gaining popularity among rich folk not as pets, per se, but as swanky little egg factories they can keep in the yard as feathery status symbols. Some Silicon Valley millionaires are paying up to $350 per chicken.
It isn’t all about quick access to eggs for these people, which you can get if you’re within walking distance of a 7-11, generally speaking. It’s a connection to nature for some, as these guys want huggable, resplendent, well-bred, diaper-wearing birds that their kids can play with. Birds that are going to produce majestic eggs in hues that Whole Foods wishes they could slap on a shelf for $30 a dozen. And at least one of these people is alleged to have a personal chef for their chickens, based solely around the logic that if you eat the egg of the chicken, you need to control what the chicken eats. You’ll really be able to taste those artisanal grains after they become scrambled into a breakfast burrito. …
The Man Who Spent $100K To Remove A Lie From Google
Jeff Ervine poses for a portrait in the office of his home on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. In 2010, Ervine searched his name on Google and discovered a website with defamatory content labeling him as a con artist.
In Europe, if there’s a webpage with information about you that you don’t like — because it’s either inaccurate or just too personal — you can make Google hide it from search results. Google has done exactly that with more than 1 million pages in Europe. It’s part of a growing legal movement in Europe that grants people “a right to be forgotten” on the Internet.
In the U.S., however, even in the most dire cases, the law doesn’t protect people that way.
Jeff Ervine had a great career. He was chief operating officer of a hedge fund that managed over $1 billion, and then he started his own fund.
But in 2010, things took a dark turn. After some professional contacts overseas told him to check out Google search results about him, he was shocked by what he discovered: The first result when he searched his name was a website called Con v. Con. He clicked on it and saw a picture of himself, dressed in a tuxedo, standing beside his wife, who was in an evening gown.
The site warned that Ervine was actually a con artist who tried to trick a “know nothing” kid into a “sweet heart deal.”
“It was very dark,” he recalls. …
This might be the fastest delivery drone in the world
BLOOD DRIVE
ipline’s new drone, zipping along.
Some drone-delivery startups are trying to revolutionize the way we get pizza or packages. Others are trying to save lives.
Zipline, the California-based startup that has been flying delivery drones in Rwanda since October 2016, announced today (April 3) that it’s launching a new fleet of drones that it says are likely the fastest in the world. The autonomous, fixed-wing devices have a top speed of 121 kmph (75 mph), can fly 160 km (99 miles) in one round trip, and can carry 1.75 kg (roughly 4 lbs.) of cargo. The company’s CEO, Keller Rinaudo, told Quartz that the new drones will allow each of the company’s distribution centers in Rwanda to increase the number of deliveries they can make from 50 to 500 per day.
Rwanda is about 10,000 sq. mi., roughly the size of the US state of Massachusetts. Zipline’s drones provide access to urgent medical supplies to many of the country’s millions of residents who live outside of the more densely populated area around the capital of Kigali. Rinaudo says Zipline is now delivering 20% of the country’s blood supply outside of the capital, having so far completed over 4,000 flights, delivering around 7,000 units of blood. Roughly one-third of those deliveries have been life-saving missions, he adds. “Rwanda is basically writing the history books of showing what’s possible,” he says.
Zipline’s new drones will likely help it expand further afield. The company announced in August that it planned to expand into neighboring Tanzania, and Rinaudo has discussed the possibility of moving into even larger, more populated countries, including the US. “Even in the US, hospital services are closing at a record rate,” he notes. “But you’ve got to start somewhere—the US is a big country.” …
INSTAGRAM IS BUILDING A TEAM TO STOP PEOPLE FROM FEELING BAD ON INSTAGRAM
CURRENT MOOD: SADZ
Last year, a widely-publicized survey by Britain’s Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH), a health education charity, ranked Instagram as the #1 worst social media network for mental health and wellbeing.
While the photo-sharing platform got some points for self-expression and self-identity, they were outweighed by its association with anxiety and depression, as well as bullying and negative body image. Its net impact on young people’s overall health landed it well below Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube—the latter being the only platform reported to have a positive effect on wellbeing.
But rather than avoid the problem, Instagram is apparently tackling it head-on. Indeed, the Facebook-owned platform has an entire team dedicated to making people feel better while using Instagram—and it’s literally called the “Wellbeing Team,” according to comments given by Eva Chen at Bloomberg last week.
“[The team’s] entire focus is focusing on the wellbeing of the community,” said Chen, who heads up fashion partnerships at Instagram, in response to a question about its parent company, Facebook, and its effects on mental health. “Making the community a safer place, a place where people feel good, is a huge priority for Instagram,” Chen added, “I would say one of the top priorities.” …
Presidents Used To Ride Around The Country In A Bulletproof Railcar
Air Force One is one of the most recognizable and most mysterious planes flying today, specifically designed to securely shepherd the President around the world. Things used to be a lot different 75 years ago when Franklin. D. Roosevelt was riding around on a bulletproof train.
The latest video from Tom Scott on YouTube features Ferdinand Magellan, later designated US Car Number 1, which is the heaviest American railcar ever built, specifically for presidential travel.
The train was built to be exactly 285,000 pounds, which was the weight limit of a railcar designed for the rail system at the time. A large section of the car features bulletproof steel plating and three-inch thick glass. …
There are a lot of great band names in the 58-page list of Chinese products targeted for US import tariffs
TORQUE CONVERTERS
A scene from Tariffest 2018, featuring Torpedo Tubes and The Transceivers.
The nascent trade war between the United States and China continues to escalate. A few days ago, China announced tariffs on 128 American products, covering close to $3 billion worth of US exports. Now, the Trump administration is preparing to retaliate, proposing import tariffs on 1,300 categories of Chinese products worth some $50 billion.
Trade wars are no good. But there is something positive to come out of this: hidden in the more obscure corners of the the 1,300 industrial products targeted by Trump are some of the best band names we’ve seen in a while. Who wouldn’t be intrigued by a black metal band called “Salts of Triethanolamine”? Or what about “Parts of Flange”, which we imagine is a sprawling, 10-member prog rock group, or maybe one of those silly jam bands where all the lyrics are about fictional animals.
Here is a selection of killer band names in the list of proposed tariffs (pdf), including some ideas about what the groups would sound like. …
TL;DR
Watch this Russian postal drone smash into a wall on its inaugural flight
Within seconds.
:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/59255509/Screen_Shot_2013-12-12_at_3.57.15_PM.0.png)
Following in the steps of a DC-based security robot that ran into a water fountain is a Russian postal drone that crashed into a building mere seconds after its inaugural liftoff, as reported by Reuters.
The test, which occurred in the Siberian city of Ulan-Ude, was meant to carry a package to a nearby village in order to demonstrate a new way to deliver mail. Video captured by Reuters shows the drone taking off from a launchpad, with the package emblazoned with the Russian Post’s blue-and-white logo. Everything seems initially fine, and then it can be seen tipping sideways. It’s the beginning of a r/nononono moment. It then careens at full speed into a three-story residential brick building. There’s an audible “GAH!” from someone in the audience, and when the camera shows the drone again, it’s absolutely shattered. The video ends on a somber note, with a lone piece of paper blowing by the drone’s remains.
Russia's first postal drone takes its maiden flight – and crashes straight into a wall. More from @ReutersTV: https://t.co/4WEQdacXFY pic.twitter.com/StcBC1DKJ1
— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) April 3, 2018
…
Oops…
ANOTHER r/nononono moment:
Video Goodnesses
and not-so-goodnesses
and not-so-goodnesses
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr’s death, the Guardian asked nine students from his former school in Atlanta – Booker T Washington high school – to recite ‘I Have A Dream’
When John Bolton becomes Donald Trump’s national security advisor later this month, he’ll assume more influence over U.S foreign policy than he’s ever had before.
That has a lot of people nervous: Bolton has rarely seen a military intervention he didn’t like — he supported the war in Iraq (and still does), regime change in Iran, and a first strike against North Korea’s nuclear program.
But the last time Bolton was up for a big job — his 2005 nomination for ambassador to the United Nations — what tripped him up wasn’t his policies; it was testimony about his penchant for berating subordinates, and a refusal to listen to information that countered his personal beliefs.
Carl Ford, Jr., was the director of the State Department bureau responsible for intelligence analysis in 2002, when Bolton was under secretary of state for Arms Control. At the time, the Bush administration was building up evidence of a nuclear weapons program in Iraq — wrongfully, as it turned out — and Bolton was seeking to make the case that another country, Cuba, was working on its own biological weapons program. (It wasn’t.)
Ford’s analysts disagreed, and Bolton, Ford says, didn’t want to hear it. He called the analyst into his office, and threatened to have him fired. Ford fought back.
“I was steaming,” Ford recalled. “I explained to him… ‘John, if you want to say this, that you believe it — be our guest. But you cannot say that it’s the intelligence community’s view.”
The drama that ensued followed Bolton for years, and nearly kept him out of the UN job. He was later granted a recess appointment by the president. But more than a decade later, former colleagues say it’s much more worrisome as a sign of how Bolton might deal with intelligence that contradicts his views in his much more powerful position.
“It is the best evidence we have of how he will behave in the future,” said Greg Thielmann, another former State Department intel analyst who worked with Bolton. “These things might be academic but this is how you build the case for war.”
As hundreds of thousands of people marched on Washington and local state legislatures, exercising their rights to vocally protest the gun lobby, advocates across the country have also been toiling away on a less visible plan for gun reform, taking it state by state.
In Colorado, three gun rights activists who lost family members in Columbine, Aurora, and Sandy Hook testified for lawmakers at two hearings. At the first, they spoke in support of legislation that proposed a ban on bump stocks — the accessory used in the 2017 Las Vegas shooting that allows semi-automatic weapons to fire faster. In the second hearing, they fought against a bill to repeal the current ban on high-capacity magazines.
Colorado is generally a pro-gun state, and so far, activists like Tom Mauser, Tom Sullivan, Jane Daugherty and other mass shooting survivors have had more losses than wins.
Though they believed their chances might be better this time around with the renewed momentum behind the national gun debate, state lawmakers didn’t take the bait. And even among those directly touched by gun violence, a consensus remains elusive: Patrick Neville, a Columbine survivor and lawmaker, tells us he doesn’t buy the idea that increased gun control will create safer schools or communities — and he’s far from alone.
THANKS to HBO and VICE News for making this program available on YouTube.
Actor and author Sean Penn discusses his novel “Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff” and reflects on his controversial friendship with the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
THANKS to Comedy Central and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah for making this program available on YouTube.
Max wandering around looking for things to do.
FINALLY . . .
A British museum is considering returning Ethiopia’s looted art treasures—on loan
HOMEBOUND?
Victoria and Albert Museum, current home of looted Ethiopian art.
More than a century after they were looted by British forces, some of Ethiopia’s long-lost treasures could be returning home soon—but only on loan.
In the build-up to a display of some the Ethiopian artifacts this week at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Tristram Hunt, the museum director, says a “long-term loan” can be arranged to allow the items be displayed in Ethiopia, The Guardian UK reports. The Ethiopian artifacts were plundered by British forces on a mission to rescue British hostages in Maqdala, the capital of the ancient Abyssinia kingdom, now part of modern-day Ethiopia, in 1868. Hundreds of the artifacts taken remain in the hold of British institutions like the V&A museum and the Royal Library at Windsor Castle.
Several campaigns for the repatriation of African art looted before and during the colonial era have been carried out with middling results. Since the mid-1990s, movements have lobbied British institutions for the return of Nigerian bronze artifacts looted from the Benin kingdom in 1897. The British Museum was in talks to return some last year. Repatriation causes appear to have gained a formidable European ally though as Emmanuel Macron, president of France, said during a trip to Burkina Faso last November that the return of African artifacts will become “a top priority” his country over the next five years. …
Ed. More tomorrow? Probably. Possibly. Maybe. Not?