=?x-unknown?q?29853=3A__Saint-Vil_=28comment=29_Dr=2E_King_an?==?x-unknown?q?d_the_Man_on_the_Road_to_Cit=E9_Soleil_?==?x-unknown?q?=28Haiti=29_=28fwd=29?=

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Jean Saint-Vil <jafrikayiti@hotmail.com>

Martin Luther King and the Man on the Road to Cité Soleil
The cry is always the same "we want to be free" !

________________________________________________________________________________
The masses of people are rising up. And wherever they are assembled
today, whether they are in Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya:
Accra, Ghana; New York City; Atlanta, Georgia; Jackson, Mississippi; or
Memphis, Tennessee--the cry is always the same--"We want to be free"  Dr.
M.L.King

As it has become fashionable for the criminals who assassinated Martin
Luther King as well as a host of African leaders in America during the
sixties to be in front row of celebrations pertaining to honour the good
pastor, I find it important today to highlight a few inspiring statements
made by Dr. King while he was still alive.

Brother Martin Luther King was not killed because of his dream but
because of his actions.

May his words and actions continue to inspire us today....

Quote:
«We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-
given rights…Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the
stinging dark of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen
vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your
sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen
curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see
the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an
airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society... There
comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer
willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can
understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. » Dr. King in
LETTER FROM BIRMINGHAM JAIL, April 16, 1963
http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html
The day before the U.S. Government murdered him, Dr. King spoke up to
denounce a number of hypocrites.... in so-called good old
"Christianity"...

Quote:
It's alright to talk about "long white robes over yonder," in all of its
symbolism. But ultimately people want some suits and dresses and shoes to
wear down here. It's alright to talk about "streets flowing with milk and
honey," but God has commanded us to be concerned about the slums down
here, and his children who can't eat three square meals a day. It's
alright to talk about the new Jerusalem, but one day, God's preacher must
talk about the New York, the new Atlanta, the new Philadelphia, the new
Los Angeles, the new Memphis, Tennessee. This is what we have to do.

And I see God working in this period of the twentieth century in a way
that men, in some strange way, are responding--something is happening in
our world. The masses of people are rising up. And wherever they are
assembled today, whether they are in Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi,
Kenya: Accra, Ghana; New York City; Atlanta, Georgia; Jackson,
Mississippi; or Memphis, Tennessee--the cry is always the same--"We want
to be free."

A man of peace until the end, he admonished us all to always choose live
over death...

Quote:
It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world;
it's nonviolence or nonexistence.

He also spoke to the Africans in America about their responsibility to
FIGHT THE POWER WHERE IT COUNTS:

Quote:
Now the other thing we'll have to do is this: Always anchor our external
direct action with the power of economic withdrawal. Now, we are poor
people, individually, we are poor when you compare us with white society
in America. We are poor. Never stop and forget that collectively, that
means all of us together, collectively we are richer than all the nation
in the world, with theexception of nine. Did you ever think about that?
After you leave the United States, Soviet Russia, Great Britain, West
Germany, France, and I could name the others, the Negro collectively is
richer than most nations of the world. We have an annual income of more
than thirty billion dollars a year, which is more than all of the exports
of the United States, and more than the national budget of Canada. Did
you know that? That's power right there, if we know how to pool it.

We don't have to argue with anybody. We don't have to curse and go around
acting bad with our words. We don't need any bricks and bottles, we don't
need any Molotov cocktails, we just need to go around to these stores,
and to these massive industries in our country, and say, "God sent us by
here, to say to you that you're not treating his children right. And
we've come by here to ask you to make the first item on your agenda--fair
treatment, where God's children are concerned. Now, if you are not
prepared to do that, we do have an agenda that we must follow. And our
agenda calls for withdrawing economic support from you. And so, as a
result of this, we are asking you tonight, to go out and tell your
neighbors not to buy Coca-Cola in Memphis. Go by and tell them not to buy
Sealtest milk. Tell them not to buy--what is the other bread?--Wonder
Bread…"


Reading the above, I wonder what it will take fo Haitians to heed Dr.
King's call? Whose rice, whose cooking oil, whose tomato paste are our
people consumming in Apartheid Haiti today? Whose three piece suit, whose
perfume, whose money transfer company are we using?.... what does Dr.
King's "economic withdrawal" mean to us today, in Haiti, in Canada, in
the U.S., in South-Africa.....in 2007?

Dr. King, on the eve of his assassination by the government of Amerikkka,
wrote:

Quote:
But not only that, we've got to strengthen black institutions. I call
upon you to take you money out of the banks downtown and deposit you
money in Tri-State Bank--we want a "bank-in" movement in Memphis. So go
by the savings and loan association. I'm not asking you something that we
don't do ourselves at SCLC. Judge Hooks and others will tell you that we
have an account here in the savings and loan association from the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference. We're just telling you to
follow what we're doing. Put your money there. You have six or seven
black insurance companies in Memphis. Take out your insurance there. We
want to have an "insurance-in."

But, it also seems to me that Dr. Martin Luther King had the ability to
see into the future, as he wrote... about the man on the road to ..

Quote:
Let us develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness. One day a man came to
Jesus; and he wanted to raise some questions about some vital matters in
life. At points, he wanted to trick Jesus, and show him that he knew a
little more than Jesus knew, and through this, throw him off base. Now
that question could have easily ended up in a philosophical and
theological debate. But Jesus immediately pulled that question from
mid-air, and placed it on a dangerous curve between Jerusalem and
Jericho. And he talked about a certain man, who fell among thieves. You
remember that a Levite and a priest passed by on the other side. They
didn't stop to help him. And finally a man of another race came by. He
got down from his beast, decided not to be compassionate by proxy. But
with him, administered first aid, and helped the man in need. Jesus ended
up saying, this was the good man, because he had the capacity to project
the "I" into the "thou," and to be concerned about his brother. Now you
know, we use our imagination a great deal to try to determine why the
priest and the Levite didn't stop. At times we say they were busy going
to church meetings--an ecclesiastical gathering--and they had to get on
down to Jerusalem so they wouldn't be late for their meeting. At other
times we would speculate that there was a religious law that "One who was
engaged in religious ceremonials was not to touch a human body
twenty-four hours before the ceremony." And every now and then we begin
to wonder whether maybe they were not going down to Jerusalem, or down to
Jericho, rather to organize a "Jericho Road Improvement Association."
That's a possibility. Maybe they felt that it was better to deal with the
problem from the casual root, rather than to get bogged down with an
individual effort.

But I'm going to tell you what my imagination tells me. It's possible
that these men were afraid.

You see, the Jericho road is a dangerous road. I remember when Mrs. King
and I were first in Jerusalem. We rented a car and drove from Jerusalem
down to Jericho. And as soon as we got on that road, I said to my wife,
"I can see why Jesus used this as a setting for his parable." It's a
winding, meandering road. It's really conducive for ambushing. You start
out in Jerusalem, which is about 1200 miles, or rather 1200 feet above
sea level. And by the time you get down to Jericho, fifteen or twenty
minutes later, you're about 2200 feet below sea level. That's a dangerous
road. In the day of Jesus it came to be known as the "Bloody Pass." And
you know, it's possible that the priest and the Levite looked over that
man on the ground and wondered if the robbers were still around. Or it's
possible that they felt that the man on the ground was merely faking. And
he was acting like hehad been robbed and hurt, in order to seize them
over there, lure them there for quick and easy seizure. And so the first
question that the Levite asked was, "If I stop to help this man, what
will happen to me?" But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed
the question: "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to
him?"

....Cité Soleil indeed ! This man of whom he speaks is, in 2007, ...my
and your brother in Cité Soleil. Has it not become too dangerous for me
to get off my beast and go and assist him, on that most dangerous
road....where he has been left to die, a sure death - isolated,
demonized, chimerized?  While my brother awakes to the roar of the
MINUSTAH helicopters dropping bullets at 3 in the morning on his abode,
who gets off their beast to help him and his 2 year old baby escape the
death sentence pronounced against them in absentia within the walls of
Hotel Montana - where the "good people meet" to hold court at night? WE
MUST KILL THE BANDITS ! such is the resolution of he high priests....and
the pharisees have all nodded in agreement...Dr. King invites the rest of
us to ask and answer the question: If I do not stop to help this man,
what will happen to him?"

Indeed, Dr. King wrote...

Quote:
That's the question before you tonight. Not, "If I stop to help the
sanitation workers, what will happen to all of the hours that I usually
spend in my office every day and every week as a pastor?" The question is
not, "If I stop to help this man in need, what will happen to me?" "If I
do no stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to them?"
That's the question.

The day before he was assassinated by the Government of the United States
of Amerikkka, brother Martin Luther King wrote:

Quote:
And some began to say that threats, or talk about the threats that were
out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers?

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days
ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the
mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long
life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I
just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain.
And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get
there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will
get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about
anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the
coming of the Lord."

http://www.swer.net/I.see.the.promise.land.html

So, on this January 15, 2007, I offer a special word of gratitude to
brother Stevie Wonder and all the brothers and sisters who stood up for
years along side Mrs. King struggling to force the hypocrites within the
Government of theUnited States of America to set aside a day of
remembrance in honour of our noble King.

A special word of thanks to all those who are still struggling today not
to allow the hypocrites to ursurp the messages of the King, and reduce
them to a mere "dream".

We've done dreaming. Now we, the displaced sons and daughters of
Africa, demand to have Ours on EARTH - And we will see to it that we do !

Ayibobo !


Jafrikayiti
«Depi nan Ginen bon nèg ap ede nèg!»

(Brotherhood is as ancient as Mother Africa - L'entraide fraternel date
du temps où, tous, nous fûmes encore dans les entrailles de
l'Afrique-mère)

http://www.jafrikayiti.com


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