ATLANTA: Long-tenured members of Martin Luther King Jr.’s church have some advice for today’s social justice activists: You’re on the right side, but get organized, never use or condone violence, and always use the power to vote that earlier generations secured.
Howard King, a World War II veteran who joined Ebenezer Baptist Church during the civil rights movement, understands the tensions laid bare by police killings of black men in Louisiana and Minnesota and a sniper’s retaliatory killings of five Dallas officers.
“Racists didn’t drop off into the earth, they just changed their tactics” after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, said the 91-year-old King, no relation to the civil rights leader he considered a personal friend.
“They took off their sheets and put on three-piece suits, and a few wear badges,” he said Sunday, “but there is no justification for taking life — black, white, green or yellow.”
Lifetime Ebenezer parishioner Thelma McClendon, 76, said, “young people now are just angry about so many things. What is their aim? What is their purpose? What specifically do they want? They better get a little better organized, and they need to vote.”
Martin Luther King Jr. became the obvious choice to lead the nationwide civil rights movement in the 1950s and 60s, but there’s no focal point yet to this 21st century version.
(Sourced from Agencies, Feature Image Courtesy: www.theblaze.com)
