LDH2BM - MLK, Jr. Assignment - Belatedly Posted

On Friday of last week I lectured on the distorted and excluded history surrounding Martin Luther King, Jr. Essentially I argued that he had been transformed into a plastic postage stamp saint rather than a complex, radical, and flawed participant in movements. This elite coopation of a radical voice of dissent into self-flattering evidence of the greatness of our culture functions through simplification, distortion, and exclusion of information. Howard Zinn (or was it Jon Kozol? maybe both) used the example of Helen Keller to demonstrate the generic process.

I assigned students to read an article re: this distorted history - and King's advocacy for radical economic change in the U.S. and allowed students to choose a speech to read for further evidence and insight including;
Letter From A Birmingham Jail
Where Do We Go From Here (1967 SCLC Speech)
Beyond Vietnam

The assignment was to consider the lecture, the article, the speech, and the coverage of MLK, Jr on the official holiday to ascertain whether we are being fed a false or distorted image of King and how that false image distorts our understanding of the AWOL or the good and meaningful life.

This assignment was mandatory for LDH2BM but optional for AWOL students.