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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s words still relevant: Journalist

Monday, 15 June 2020 2:22 PM [ Last Update: Monday, 15 June 2020 2:22 PM ]

American civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

African American journalist and activist Abayomi Azikiwe says American civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s words are still relevant today more than 50 years after his assassination in Memphis, Tennessee.

In a speech titled the “Other America” in 1967, Dr. King condemned the racially-driven riots unfolding in America as “socially destructive,” but he warned that “a riot is the language of the unheard.”

The message holds water more than half a century later. America is still gripped by unprecedented level of unrest resulting from a sad and long history of racial inequality.

Dr. King predicted that as America postponed justice, it could only expect recurrences of violence and riots.

“People have been re-quoting that statement by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the mid-1960s because he was an advocate of non-violence. He understood the pain, the suffering of the African American people, and he said that the riots, which then were rebellions, were the voice of the unheard and the majority of African American people in this country are unheard,” said Azikiwe, editor at the Pan-African News Wire.

“So I think his statement rightfully so has been resurrected today. And when we see what happened in Atlanta on Friday, with the killing of Mr. Brooks who was unarmed. He was sleeping in his vehicle. And he was interrogated. The video is available now and he was basically shot dead, shot in the back. He was unarmed and the police killed him,” he stated.

“So, these repeated cases proved that the police that have their origin in the slave patrols of the 17, 1800s need to be defunded and dismantled and public safety should be rethought and restructured in the United States, particularly among those who are patrolling African American communities and after people,” he noted.

“So I think Dr. Martin Luther King, his words, his struggles are still relevant today more than 50 years later,” the analyst observed.

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Martin Luther King