Monday, January 19, 2009 at 8:30am | 2 Comments | 0 Recommendations

A Black US President was my Father’s Dream: Exclusive Interview with Martin Luther King III

By Janelle Oswald

Exclusive Interview with Martin Luther King III

The first month of the year has always been a significant date in black history especially in the United States of America.  The first African American child was born January 3rd 1624 known as William Tucker.   President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1st 1863 stating: “if slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong,” followed by Congress passing the 13th Amendment on January 24, 1865 which, abolished slavery.


The first African American to serve in the United States Senate and in the U.S. Congress, was Hiram Rhodes Revels who died January 16, 1901 and it was his legacy that heavily influenced Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. who was born January 15, 1929.


King’s most famous sermon during the civil rights movements in 1960, where he stated that he had a dream where men and women in America would be judged not on the colour of their skin but on the content of their character, inspired Democratic presidential candidate Barack Hussein Obama II to deliver one of his most famed speeches, ironically from the same pulpit where King spoke from in Atlanta, Georgia at Ebenezer Baptist Church on Martin Luther King Day last January.


Having won the American presidency and the hearts of millions around the world, Obama who is hailed as the “new King” will be sworn in as the 44th new president of America and due to an interesting fluke in the calendar this year, his inauguration on Tuesday the 20th January will follow the three-day Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend.


In an exclusive interview with the second child and first son of the late Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. II Black Power speaks to Martin Luther King III on what his father’s thoughts may be on the new president of America.


“A black US president was my father’s dream, he told Black Power.  “At last America has turned my father’s dream into a reality and my siblings and I are blessed to be alive to witness this most magnificent moment in not only black and American history but world history.”


Four decades after Dr. King II was murdered he is still considered as the most effective black leader for black equality.   In death he became a martyr in the civil rights struggle, but in life he was a charismatic hero battling for racial equality.


Speaking of his father’s influence on the new President, King III said: “It would not have be possible to have a Senator Obama had it not been for my father let alone as President. 


“To watch Obama and his family walk into the great White House would be a proportion of that dream fulfilled.  He is part of the manifestation of my father’s dream although he is not the whole dream as the dream is so much more.”


With the same sing-song voice as his famous father, Martin Luther King III tells Black Power that his father’s aspirations lives on both in the shape of Obama and in the modern politics in the US where black people and other non-white minorities can live equally beside their white counterparts.


In 1964, Dr. King II became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to end racial segregation and racial discrimination through civil disobedience and other non-violent means. By the time of his death in 1968, he had refocused his efforts on ending poverty and opposing the Vietnam War, both from a religious perspective.


Recalling his father’s great triumphs, King III said: “I am so excited about the prospect of Obama and I hope he is victorious being President.   Obama can bring our nation together and unite us with other nations around the world that have fallen out of love with America due to past Presidential predecessors.  Like my father Obama is a great orator and uniter,  ” said King III.


Interviewing King III is as if time has stood still.  His facial features mirrors his father’s. 


“January 20th 2008 is a day that nobody who is alive will forget in their life time, just like those who are still able to remember the great marches and speeches my father made in history.”


 King III explains that he was only 10 years old when his “hero” was killed.  “My siblings and I always played with our father.  He was like our playmate,” he remembers.


” My brother Dexter and I travelled with him two or three times when he campaigned around the country. We had incredible quality of time with him, even if the quantity was not so long.”


Remembering how his mother, the late civil rights activist Coretta Scott King who passed away in January 2006, broke the news of their father’s death to him and his three siblings, he told Black Power: “My mother was speaking to Jesse Jackson on the phone and we knew it wasn’t great. She told us that our dad has gone home to live with God and when a person serves God well, they are rewarded and He brings the person home to live with Him.”


Continuing he added: “When I saw Jesse Jackson cry after Obama won the Presidential elections, I knew what those tears stood for.  Jesse’s tears symbolised hope and change.  Jesse was instrumental in my father’s campaign for racial equality so witnessing Obama being chosen by the American population to be their President despite his skin colour was witnessing my father’s ‘I Have A Dream’ speech come true.


Hearing the names of people that came around to show their respect, King III recited a list that personified his father’s status.  ” Richard Nixon, Robert Kennedy and his wife Ethel, Teddy Kennedy and his wife Joan, Jackie Onassis, Aretha Franklin, Harry Belafonte, Sammy Davis Jr, Sydney Poitier, Marlon Brando and Charlton Heston,” all came to King’s home to support his family.


“Bill Cosby looked after us,” told King III.   ” It was a very bad time, but somehow he gave us strength and made us feel better. I’ll always be grateful to him for that.


Like father, like son, King III works as a consummate human rights activist.  Commenting on how he felt when his father was assassinated 41 years ago, he revealed: “I was so overwhelmed with loss and grief. I remember how I couldn’t understand why a man so peaceful was gunned down.”


The 51 year-old father of one told Black Power that his mother’s strength after the assassination of his father was a “testament to their marriage,” and can be compared to the strength that Michelle Obama has shown her family.


“She was an incredible woman,” said King III.  “My daddy died on April 4 and five days later my mum was already leading a civil rights march.  It was the demonstration my father was supposed to have led.”


Continuing he added: “Many people know how my daddy died but not many know that six years later, my grandmother was killed by an assassin’s bullet playing the organ in church or that my father’s brother - who was investigating my father’s murder - mysteriously drowned.”


Surprised by his revelation, Black Power asked what social and racial equality issues the black community in America want changed?”


 ” There are too many black men in jailhouses. As a race we have lost a whole generation of black men and it boils down to poverty and a lack opportunity.  In America blacks make up 13 percent of the population yet black men make up 40 percent of the prison population and I know the statistics are the same here.   Another prevailing issue is lack of education and social housing. All these things have to change especially if we are going to unite the whole black community.”


Concluding, King III told Black Power that the world could only have peace if they embrace love and unite.  Quoting Obama referring to his father, King III said: “Unity is the great need of the hour. Unity is how we shall overcome.


He finished: “Be ashamed to die until you’ve done something to make this land a little better.  Never give up. Never give in. Never give out.”


And as the son spoke, his father’s dream lived on.









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This story is filed under: Politics

  • 1

    Isnt unity more than a one way street or “dream”?

    I continue to be skeptical regarding mainstream America and its heavy promotion of MLK. Appeasing a group is fine, dreaming and hopes are one thing, stark reality is another

    > 437

    Posted 01.20.09 at 1:02pm PST
  • 2

    Dr. Martin Luther King’s Dream
    Is it really Barack Obama or has the dream yet to come?
    Who are the Negro People?

    As the new U.S President B. Obama touts about being the embodiment of the late DR. Martin Luther King dream for America, I can‘t help but wonder, who are the people DR. King is talking about when he speaks of the Negro People? Who are the Negro people?

    Has anyone taken the time to read and comprehend Dr. Martin Luther Kings I HAVE A DREAM speech, if they did they will notice there is no mention of African people, African struggle, African Americans.

    I Have a Dream states “One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.”

    He only mentions the condition of the Negro people in their homeland of America and their relationship with the new nation of the United States. At some point in time a person reading this speech should want to clarify, “Who are the Negro People- the blacks as they are identified?” To answer these questions one needs to identify some facts.

    What does the term Negro signify? The term Negro people signify the Indigenous American people or Amerindians the colonial term used to represent them is Negro The Negro American race or black Americans represent the continuation of the remaining natural linage and bloodlines of the indigenous American People belonging the land of America before European invasion born from American Indian women. The founding father of the U.S established a new form of society on American soil. In this new society American Indian women and her descendants are used to SERVE as human commodity (slaves) people living in freedom(without their natural rights to self determination) but not being free (collective self determination) in the United States. Negro people represent the descendants from American Indian women or enslaved American Indians of America.

    He continues and speaks about the full citizenship promised by the U.S to all Negro people in their homeland, and reveals the fact the U.S has not kept its promise; he states the Negro People have received a “Bad Check”.

    “It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds”

    What is the deal the United States made with the Negro leadership for the Negro people 1868. The U.S. promised “Citizenship” to the Negro people? If a person would do their research, they would find that the 1868 treaty with Abe Lincoln established the Union of the American Indian people as Negros with the United States and the continent of land belonging to the American Indian people was put in a land trust to be governed by the United States in exchange for American Indian people born from American Indian women were to receive full citizenship meaning the same rights as the people who enslaved them and self determination to develop themselves under this new nation umbrella.

    Understanding past U.S history explains why Dr. King ‘s dream of seeing an integrated society’s Negro and Euro-American people working as equals in this nation? The big secret is - The Negro People are the people who are allowing the Nation to exist, without their land there is no Nation, with out there peace there is “no prosperity of this Nation” He also threatened the Negro race of people will not rest until they have justice. In other words “NO Justice, NO Peace” All black American people can attest we are not treated equal nor are we treated equally or regarded as citizens,. In 2009 our people still languish on the out skirts of Euro-American society and the Marjory are captured and living in Prisons, our children live in extreme poverty, we lack collective employment as a nation we are on the brink of extinction. The difference today is Negro people as black American for generations have been forced and influence to assimilate into European attitudes and culture they have lost their connection to their ancestral American Indian culture and connection to their Natural homeland. As a result they lack respect, dignity, hope or direction.

    Now that some facts have been revealed, the question to ponder is how did the new elected African president become the ideal of DR. Martin Luther King and the Negro People? Or better yet Why is President Barack Obama a European and African decent immigrant being used to personify the dream of Martin Luther King for the Negro people in the Negro Homeland instead of a Negro president for the country that has yet to give them a GOOD check, Wouldn’t a Negro president show the world, the dream of Martin Luther King has for his people finally came to pass? The answer is President B. Obama does not represent Dr. King’s dream he had for the Negro People. President, B Obama represents a distortion of the Dream, and the Negro people are being Con out of their pants again by the Euro- American (U.S) society and (U.S) media at large.

    So exactly what is the semantics around Barack Obama? A European and African decent immigrant who is now a Negro Person, or are Negro people becoming Africa immigrants to their homeland thru identifying themselves with Barack Obama. Is there a national identity switch going on? Are the Negro people being duped out of the dept the United States owes them, the one DR. Martin Luther King spoke about? Are today’s Negro people being setup to be permmentily homeless people, with no place to be fruitful and multiply on the planet? If Negro or black American people become immigrants don’t they lose all there human and inalienable rights to live in the U.S, and lose their civil privileges by becoming immigrants to there homeland through identifying President Barack Obama as one of them? Yet he is a Kenyan African not an American Negro? Will this enable the U.S to destroy the dream of Martin Luther King and remove any claim the Negro people have in the Negro Homeland?

    LET’S SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT
    As a result, Negro people are being bamboozled again with a new perception that racism has stop in America against them, when in fact the systematic extermination of Negro people are filling up the jails and the graves, the only difference now is that they have a man named Barack Obama to cover over the crimes being committed against them and keep the people invisible and confused. It is a fact most black/Negro people lack education in their heritage, history, and most Negro women have been educated to have little respect for understanding their collective purpose as creators of the race and the sacred Grace we hold- it is woman that nature in trusts to continue their humanity as a valuable part of nature to the planet If they did they would not say they are black and they would understand B Obama is not the first Negro president and recognize and respect Michelle Obama is the first Negro woman in the White house and stand proud because her presence in the White House is a huge strike against the stigma from colonialism of Negro women as inferior woman, while our people understand that the struggle of equality represented by a Negro Man as president has yet to come part of Dr. Kings dream has started but yet to be completely fulfilled. It is up to us not to lose site of who we are and represent, our struggle is not over. It is time to recognize your indigenous identity.

    Don’t be fooled by the Hype

    > Dr. RaDine Amen-ra Harrison-Pitts

    Posted 02.10.09 at 7:09pm PST

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