Brother Salim Kujitawala: THE OTHER SIDE OF KING

Dr. Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., a frontline freedom fighter in the fight to uplift the Black community. He is often quoted, referenced to and honored, but was he ever understood? Many people will remember Dr. King for his position on non-violence and his speech I Have a Dream. However, contradictions in White America's treatment towards Blacks, which were exposed by the Black Power Movement, fashioned another side of King, a side that accelerated Dr. King's inevitable assassination. In Dr. King's book Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community, he wrote, Black Power, in its broad and positive meaning, is a call to Black people to amass the political and economic strength to achieve their legitimate goals. No one can deny that the negro is in dire need of this kind of legitimate power. Dr. King also wrote, Black Power is also a call for the pooling of Black financial resources to achieve economic security¦.Through the pooling of such resources and the development of habits of thrift and techniques of wise investments, the negro will be doing his share to grapple with his problem of economic deprivation. If Black Power means the development of this kind of strength within the negro community, then it is a quest for basic, necessary, legitimate power. It is important to note, these ideas that Dr. King had on Black politics and economics, are the same positions that Malcolm X communicated in his definition on the political and economic aspects of Black Nationalism. [more]