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REP. TIM RUDD VS. MLK’S POOR PEOPLE’S CAMPAIGN

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With Martin Luther King Jr. Day approaching this weekend, Representative London Lamar (D-Memphis) introduced a resolution honoring him at the Tennessee legislature today. One would think a resolution honoring a man every Republican will claim to appreciate come Monday would sail through – but this being Tennessee, you would be wrong.

Rep. Tim Rudd (R-Murfreesboro) objected to some of the language in the resolution – specifically the language that talked about the Poor People’s Campaign, which Reverend Dr. William Barber now leads to continue the work of Dr. King.

You can read the initial draft of the Lamar resolution HERE.

And the adjusted version HERE.

Both versions include many facts and statistics about poverty in America, and Tennessee specifically, including the fact that 19.5 percent of Black people in the U.S. live in poverty, that Black Americans had the highest rate of poverty across the racial groups, and that Tennessee has one of the highest poverty rates in America.

Below is the language that was removed because Rep. Rudd objected to it – keep in mind Tennessee Republicans also blocked a resolution honoring Dr. Barber not long ago. (Here’s our interview with Dr. Barber, who is a great man, and who is fighting as hard for America’s poor as anyone).

WHEREAS, in order to observe, reflect, and celebrate the fullness of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s legacy, we must take up and reckon with Dr. King’s rejection of the economic status quo and his shift toward economic justice in the later years of his life; and

WHEREAS, Dr. King believed that without economic justice it would be impossible to achieve the full citizenship that was promised to all marginalized people by the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act; and

WHEREAS, Dr. King, Marion Wright, and the SCLC launched the Poor People’s Campaign as the beginning of a new co-operation, an understanding, and a determination by poor people of all colors and backgrounds to assert and win their right to a decent life and respect for their culture and dignity; and

WHEREAS, at the Campaign’s conception, Dr. King sought to organize 2,000 poor people to go to Washington, D.C., southern states, and northern cities to meet with government officials to demand jobs, unemployment insurance, a fair minimum wage, and education for poor adults and children; and

WHEREAS, on May 12, 1968, roughly one month after the assassination of Dr. King, his widow, Coretta Scott King, led thousands of women to activate the Poor People’s Campaign. On May 13, 1968, Resurrection City was erected on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and – 3 – 011285 over the course of the next month, demonstrators outlasted the staggering heat to demand economic opportunity at different federal agencies; and

WHEREAS, as a result of the 1968 leg of the Poor People’s Campaign, 200 counties received free surplus food distribution, and some federal agencies agreed to hire poor people to lead poverty programs; and

WHEREAS, the Poor People’s Campaign continues today, advocating for its Declaration of Rights and the Poor People’s Moral Agenda, which tackles systemic racism, poverty and inequality, ecological devastation, national morality, and war economy and militarism; and

WHEREAS, according to the Institute for Economic and Racial Equity at the The Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University, “policy drives the racial wealth gap.” This means that “policy changes rather than behavioral changes” are the key in closing the wealth gap across racial groups. As legislators who craft state policy, legislators must ensure that the policies they create do not exacerbate but rather work to shrink the existing disparities; and

WHEREAS, the COVID-19 pandemic amplified and worsened the existing wealth inequalities across racial groups; and

WHEREAS, Dr. King’s economic justice work remains unfinished today. State legislatures must commit to and reaffirm their commitment to manifesting and actualizing the fullness of Dr. King’s dream; and

As a reminder, here’s Rev. Dr. Barber calling out Governor Lee to his face on MLK Day a few years back. One of our favorite clips ever:

Kanew on TNGOP’s MLK Hypocrisy

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“IT’S A DISGRACE.”

Holler Founder Justin Kanew joined NewsTalkWTN to talk about the hypocrisy of politicians praising MLK while they block health care for poor folks, and why working people coming together across racial lines is their real fear.
Listen to the full show here.

TNGOP Hypocrites Outdo Themselves on MLK Day

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Few things are more disgraceful than Tennessee Republican Party legislators claiming to appreciate MLK on this day every year when they spend the other 364 fighting against everything he stood for. Here are some examples of their glaring hypocrisy and some quotes reflecting what MLK actually stood for.

One of our all-time favorites, Rev. Dr. William Barber calls out Governor Lee…with Lee sitting right behind him:

 

 

Governor Bill Lee:

 

 

Rep. Mark Green:

 

 

Senator Blackburn:

 

 

Rep. John Rose:

 

 

State Rep. Lamberth:

 

 

Rep. Faison:

 

 

Rep. Kelsey:

 

 

Here are a couple of quotes that you’ll never see Republicans use in their disingenuous tributes:

 

OP-ED: GOP REP. MIKE SPARKS Distorts MLK’s Words to Justify A Racist, Oppressive Agenda

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Mike Sparks is facing an extremely difficult election this cycle.  Brandon Thomas is a young, black man with a progressive platform and widespread support, particularly among young people. He’s energetic and has put in the work to make personal connections with a huge swath of the district’s electorate.

Sparks, by contrast, has spent much of his time defending the bust of KKK Grand Wizard Nathan Bedford Forest in the state’s capital and claiming to the Tennessee Holler that he doesn’t know why the civil war was fought.

He even took some time out of this busy schedule to pen an Op-Ed for the Murfreesboro Voice in defense of Trump loving Ex-Democrat John DeBerry.

In it, he claims that DeBerry is some kind of victim for having been ousted from the Democratic ticket over his litany of absurd statements and positions. This is, of course, absurd, as the Democratic Party is a political organization with every right to decide not to lend its apparatus to a candidate who does not fit with their values. Unlike Sparks’ Republican Party, which seems to jump frantically from one ideology to another in pursuit of power, the Democrats seem to have at least some standards.

I don’t find myself overly disturbed by Sparks’ defense of DeBerry, however. This is run-of-the-mill culture war nonsense that Republicans always gin up a month or so before an election to drive out their base. It’s ridiculous, but it comes with the territory. I do take issue with Sparks’ appropriation of the language of resistance, which he does so brazenly that I can only assume that he is as ignorant of its context as he is of our own state’s Confederate history.

The absurdity begins as he mentions the iconic anti-fascist poem by German pastor Martin Niemoller, “First They Came…” Sparks doesn’t actually quote any lines from the poem, likely because the very first line of the poem’s most famous form is “first they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out- because I was not a socialist.”

This isn’t a poem about a wealthy, longtime state representative being removed from his party for supporting a fascist president. It’s about the ways in which authoritarian governments divide their population and attack those in the political, religious, and racial minorities while assuring all others that they’re safe as part of the majority.

It’s a critique of the “Us versus Them” mentality.

Does this sound familiar? One example might be an authoritarian president building a campaign on the claim that a large portion of Mexican immigrants are dangerous criminals, or banning a religious minority from entering the country.

Another example could be a clownish Governor and entrenched supermajority passing laws that target protestors and strip them of their voting rights for the crime of daring to speak up in defense of black life. I wonder what Mike Sparks would have to say about events like that?

It’s the excerpt from Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” which is the most egregious, however. Unlike the poem, of which one could give Sparks the benefit of assuming ignorance, he adamantly claims to have read this document, and yet his understanding of it seems to be on the level of someone who skimmed Dr. King’s work for quotes that could be construed to agree with him.

He goes with the oft-quoted warning that “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” This is a remarkably convenient line for Sparks, and is so removed from its context as to be nearly meaningless. However, to find this line, he was forced to sift through a mountain of criticism for laws that look identical to the anti-protest bill that he just voted for!

For an obvious example, Dr. King says that “there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade. But such an ordinance becomes unjust when it is used to maintain segregation and to deny citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest.”

This speaks to a greater tendency among the right to quote Dr. King while categorically refusing his key claim that all actions must be viewed within the context which has given rise to them. This is what Dr. King meant when he said that “riots are the language of the unheard,” and it is absolutely central to his brilliant understanding of opposition to hierarchy and oppression.

While Brandon Thomas travels the district meeting constituents and accepting endorsements from workers unions and activist groups, Mike Sparks spends his time defending the racist authoritarians of the past like Nathan Bedford Forest, and the racist authoritarians of today like Donald Trump.

He is a voice for the powerful against the powerless, an advocate for order at the expense of justice.

He is what Dr. King would call “the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action.’”

No man who votes to protect a bust honoring a KKK Grand Wizard or strip voting rights from peaceful protestors for “camping” should be using the words of Dr. King or Pastor Niemoller. We cannot allow the defenders of power and authoritarianism to co-opt the language of true, profound resistance to such horrors.

We should learn from our history, so that men like Mike Sparks aren’t able to distort it for their own agenda.

 

Brendon Donoho is a student at MTSU, president of MTSU Young Democratic Socialists of America, and a resident of Rutherford County

Rev. Barber Welcomes Lee To Office

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On MLK Day, Governor Lee decided to pay his respects by going to Tennessee State and sharing the stage with Reverend Barber.

Now we’re guessing he probably wishes he hadn’t.

Lee was the first Tennessee Governor to show up at the event in 30 years, and it seems that was no coincidence. Barber made the most of the occasion, making it clear that politicians who claim to love MLK but fight against what he actually stood for will no longer get a free pass on his watch.

Check out the amazingness in a glorious thread here.