Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was WOKE!!! I want to take you on a journey that will surprise you in terms of how the past and the present have been similarly oppressed and misled.

On March 25, 1965, King marched along with 3,200 black and white demonstrators, 54 miles from Selma to Montgomery in support of voting rights. The trip took them 5 days. At the conclusion, King gave a speech, and it is from this speech that I want to share some important points.

Read this statement from King: “Racial segregation as a way of life did not come about as a natural result of hatred between the races immediately after the Civil War. ….

..THE SEGREGATION OF THE RACES WAS REALLY A POLITICAL STRATEGEM EMPLOYED BY THE EMERGING BOURBON INTERESTS IN THE SOUTH TO KEEP THE SOUTHERN MASSES DIVIDED…”. WAIT!!! MLK recognized a political strategy to keep the masses divided?

What did King mean by “Bourbon interests in the South”? Bourbon Democrats was a term used from 1872-1904 to refer to members of the Democratic Party who were aligned with what many today would consider conservative beliefs. Economic freedom, individual rights, etc.

The term may also have ties to the Bourbon Dynasty of France, aka House of Bourbon. This family line originated in 1272 and led to King Henry IV (assassinated in 1610). Overthrow happened in 1830 but a ‘Cadet’ branch lived on. This would be worth a dig.

Anyways, King goes on to say that “..it was a simple thing to keep the poor white masses working for near-starvation wages…”. He continues to explain that if the poor white man became dissatisfied with low wages, the plantation or mill owner would threaten to fire him...

..and hire former Negro slaves. Sound familiar? King continues with talking about a “Populist Movement”: “Toward the end of the Reconstruction era, something VERY SIGNIFICANT happened. That is what was known as the Populist Movement.”

Let’s discuss what this was before we get to the big BOOM that MLK delivered in his speech. The Populist movement, aka The Populist Party, was a revolt by farmers in the South and Midwest against both the Democratic and Republican Parties.

The farmers were suffering, and felt they were getting screwed by the railroads, banks, elite owners of grain-elevators, etc. This would be an interesting dig in itself.
https://www.thirteen.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_org_populist.html

Let’s look at MLK’s next words: “The leaders of this movement began awakening the poor white masses and the former Negro slaves to the fact that they were being fleeced by the emerging Bourbon interests. (cont.)

.....”Not only that, but they began uniting the Negro and white masses into a voting bloc that threatened to drive the Bourbon interests from the command posts of political power in the South.”

Let that sink in… unity between the working class white and black voters was a threat to the political establishment. MLK’s next words are staggering: “To meet this threat, the southern aristocracy began immediately to engineer this development of a segregated society.”

MLK just said that this whole racism thing was engineered!!! Ready for the BOOM?? Here are MLK’s next words: “Through their control of MASS MEDIA, they revised the doctrine of white supremacy. They saturated the thinking of the poor white masses with it…”

He goes on to say how “That crippled and eventually destroyed the Populist Movement of the nineteenth century.” There is so much more to this speech… MLK calls for a united society through non-violent protest, and the awakening of people.

I love these words from MLK: “The only normalcy that we will settle for is the normalcy of brotherhood, the normalcy of true peace, the normalcy of justice”.

In conclusion, I would like to end with accolades to MLK that he understood that this entire racist agenda has been just that for DECADES… a DESIGNED agenda! He understood how the ‘mass media’ was being used to foster this agenda.

I will leave you with a link to his original speech, but also a Word Doc of that speech where I have highlighted some of the most pertinent points. The entire speech is great, and I encourage you to read it.

https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/address-conclusion-selma-montgomery-march

https://tinyurl.com/rbnnqbl 

WWG1WGA...