MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. DAY

IN THE NEWS....

• Martin Luther King, Jr. - Beyond Vietnam - A Time To Break The Silence: Starting in 1965, King began to express doubts about the United States' role in the Vietnam War. In an April 4, 1967 appearance at the New York City Riverside Church—exactly one year before his death—King delivered a speech titled"Beyond Vietnam".[80] In the speech, he spoke strongly against the U.S.'s role in the war, insisting that the U.S. was in Vietnam"to occupy it as an American colony"[81] and calling the U.S. government"the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today".[82] He also argued that the country needed larger and broader moral changes... - Salem News, 1-18-10
• King papers have reach beyond library walls: In the years since the city of Atlanta acquired more than 10,000 of Dr. Martin Luther King's personal papers, the collection has been pored over by researchers and used in groundbreaking history courses at Morehouse College. Come February, the writings of Dr. King will be fully available to the public at the Robert W. Woodruff Library of the Atlanta University Center. - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 1-15-10
• Rallies, parades honor King's legacy: "I don't want to sanitize Martin Luther King Jr.," Cornel West said."Even with your foot on the brake, there are too many precious brothers and sisters under the bus," West said of Obama."Where is the talk about poverty? We've got to protect him and respect him, but we've also got to correct him if the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. is going to stay alive." - San Francisco Chronicle, 1-18-10

PRESIDENT OBAMA

• Obama to America's youth: Civil rights struggle isn't old news: The president hosts a group of African American 'elders' at the White House, hoping to remind young people that the battles Martin Luther King Jr. fought weren't that long ago.... - LAT, 1-18-10
• Service and Dr. King: In honor of Martin Luther King Day, President Barack Obama serves lunch in the dining room at So Others Might Eat, a soup kitchen in Washington January 18, 2010... - WH, 1-18-10
• Emancipation Proclam. on display at WH: During an event to mark the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, President Obama said the Emancipation Proclamation -- the 1863 document that marked the beginning of the process to free the slaves -- would be on loan to the White House. It is being displayed in the Oval Office.
  This copy of the document is one of the authorized copies that was made in 1864, according to the White House press office. The original -- signed Jan. 1, 1863 -- is in the National Archives. This one may hang in the Oval for six months after which it will be placed in the Lincoln Bedroom where the original was signed.... - MSNBC, 1-18-10
• Obama Takes to the Pulpit: President Obama told a black church in the nation's capital today that the promise inherent in his election as the nation’s first African-American president has yet to be fully realized, acknowledging that partisan Washington politics continued to play a big role in governance.
  But Mr. Obama promised that his health reform package — now hanging in the balance because of the Massachusetts Senate race — will soon become law."Under the legislation I plan to sign into law, insurance companies won't be able to drop you," he said, to murmurs from the congregation at the Vermont Avenue Baptist Church, which was founded by freed slaves. - NYT, 1-17-10

HISTORIANS

• Freedom singer delivers civil-rights lessons in Seattle: Freedom singer Bernice Johnson Reagon was the featured speaker at a celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. at Mount Zion Baptist Church in Seattle. In a speech at Mount Zion that was part history lesson, part performance and part message about nonviolence, Reagon, a cultural historian and civil-rights activist, spoke about the era when she established herself as a freedom singer.... - Seatle Times, 1-15-10
• Peniel E. Joseph"Many say U.S. race relations have improved under Obama, but divides remain": "Light-skinned is equated with good, an ability to pass, to fit in the mainstream," said Peniel E. Joseph, a Tufts University historian and author of a new book about the shifting racial attitudes that allowed for Obama's election as the nation's first black president."He's light enough and mainstream enough to appeal to a broad audience. Those who are not really stand out in a conspicuous way as 'the other.'"... - WaPo, 1-12-10
• Peniel E. Joseph, From 'Dark Days' to 'Bright Nights,' Reexamining the Civil Rights Era: Dark Days, Bright Nights: From Black Power to Barack Obama - Well, it's a phrase coming out of the 1960s and really coming out of the civil rights era. Stokely Carmichael was a civil rights activist who first used the term in Greenwood, Mississippi, on June 16, 1966. And for Carmichael, he really was referring to political self-determination. He felt that black people needed political, social, economic self-determination if they were going to really exercise their democratic rights in the country.
  As soon as Carmichael says it, it becomes a racial controversy. It becomes a national controversy. It's going to be perceived as fomenting violence, as anti-white, as really the opposite of civil rights and Dr. King's dream of a beloved community.
  Well, Carmichael was really one of the few civil rights activists who becomes a black power militant. So, Carmichael had been a grassroots organizer in Mississippi and Alabama. And for him, black power meant actually exercising the voting rights and exercising the citizenship rights that he had struggled to organize, along with many other civil rights activists, during the first half of the 1960s. So, it meant black elected officials. It meant black political leaders, but it also meant community control of schools. It meant a different definition of black identity. Before this period, African- Americans were really called Negroes or referred to as people of color. It's after the black power period that they're referred to as black or Afro-American, and, by the 1980s, African-American.
  When we think about our civil rights history and the history of the 1960s and '70s, in a way, we flatten that story to a story about Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, the Voting Rights Act, and the"I Have a Dream" speech.
  People like Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael added their voices to that period of time. And they were really voices of trying to transform American democracy, but in militant and, at times, combative ways.... - PBS Newhour, 1-18-10

• From Wars to Recession, a Review of Decade's Politics: MICHAEL BESCHLOSS, Presidential Historian: It would have to be the attack of Sept.11, 2001, because, you know, not only has that caused all sorts of obvious changes in American society, but look at the kind of events that led to.
  George W. Bush declared a war on terrorism, led us into war in Afghanistan, Iraq, used very harsh measures against terrorism. In 2004 -- I think Andrew -- Andy would agree with this -- George Bush was reelected largely by people who may have been concerned about his other policies, but were worried about terrorism.
  2008, it's very unlikely that Barack Obama would have been nominated by the Democrats if he were not so against the war in Iraq, able to benefit from an anti-war sentiment. So, if 2001, if those attacks had not happened, our decade would have been very different.... - PBS Newshour, 12-31-09
• Julian Zelizer: Five turning points of the decade: The first decade of the 21st century in the United States was defined by terrorism, crisis and uncertainty. The exuberance of the 1990s, with its strong economic growth and the sense of American military omnipotence, came to an end.
  Most Americans have been left reeling from nine very difficult years, even though the decade neared its close with a presidential election that spoke to the promise and potential of the nation.
  We must remember that any"most important" list should be seen as the beginning of a conversation, not a definitive judgment.
  Historians learn that it is extraordinarily difficult to discern exactly which events will be transitory and which will have the most long-lasting effects.... September 11, 2001...
  Iraq War...
  Hurricane Katrina...
  Financial crisis of 2008...
  Election of 2008...
  Any most important list is inherently incomplete, and only captures a small part of what the nation experienced. Should Congress pass health care reform, which seems likely, that could become a crucial moment in the history of our government. Nonetheless, these five events will certainly be ones that historians will look back to for years to come.... - CNN, 12-21-09
• Gil Troy"Name That Decade: the '00s, the Whatever Decade": As we enter the last few weeks of the first decade of the twenty-first century, if we had a better name for this period, we might have a firmer fix on its identity. Modern Americans are decade-focused, packaging our historical memories in easily-labeled ten-year chunks: the Sixties, the Seventies, the Eighties, the Nineties. Yet neither the"oh-ohs" nor the"oughts" has stuck as a label, making this decade's character elusive. With 2010 fast approaching, branding our trying times can help us understand them better....
  Great pessimism during economic busts is as characteristically American as great optimism during boom times. The oh-ohs' whateverism is less fleeting and thus more dangerous. A culture of denial, disengagement, dissociation is dysfunctional. We need a culture of engagement and responsibility, even with all our traumas, distractions and high-tech toys. - HNN, 12-15-09
• Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman"9/11 to climate change: Historians look back on the decade": "The new century began on a bang, and it was a shot heard 'round the world," Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman, a history professor at San Diego State University, said, speaking of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001..."It's something that's really solidified in the past decade," noted Hoffman, who's also the author of"In the Lion's Den: A Novel of the Civil War.""All kinds of people who were either eager to believe or eager to disbelieve all came to stand at the same spot to realize this is something we have to take seriously." - AP, 12-7-09
• Bruce Schulman"9/11 to climate change: Historians look back on the decade": "People are going to think that 9/11 is a significant historical turning point no matter what happens, because it certainly altered the international order," said Bruce Schulman, who teaches history at Boston University...."If in 2004 you told me that in the next election we would elect a black president, I would have said, 'You're crazy. That’s not happening maybe for my lifetime,'" Schulman said."Now...could you imagine that ever again, at least ever again at least in the next 16 or 20 years, we would have two tickets that would be all white males? I don't think we'll ever see that again." - AP, 12-7-09
• Brian Balogh"9/11 to climate change: Historians look back on the decade": Brian Balogh, a history professor at the University of Virginia, pointed out that 9/11 demonstrated the power of non-state actors and has kept us talking about"homeland security," a term not widely used before the attacks. Hoffman said 9/11 revealed that the U.S. didn't have a post-Cold War strategic vision.... Balogh added that the 2000 election contributed to political partisanship because the close race caused each side to use"any weapon in their arsenal." Nowadays there are fewer political moderates and fewer legislative compromises — a trend exemplified in the current debate over health care reform. Bills emerged from Congress with the support of just one Republican. In the 1960s, Balogh noted, Democrats got more GOP support to pass landmark civil-rights legislation...."The most dramatic change [of the decade] is, in essence, expecting to have all the information in the world at our fingertips and to be constantly in touch with people whenever we want to be, however we want to be," said Balogh, who also cohosts a radio show called"BackStory with the American History Guys.""We're increasingly connected by what we buy, by what we read, by lifestyles. I think we're less connected by geography and by our allegiances and attachments to nations.".... - AP, 12-7-09
• Julian Zelizer"9/11 to climate change: Historians look back on the decade": As a result of 9/11, the political polarization was amplified, said Julian Zelizer, a history professor at Princeton University and author of"Arsenal of Democracy: The Politics of National Security — From World War II to the War on Terrorism." Zelizer said he thinks evolving media technology — and the development of the 24/7 news cycle, thanks in part to the rise of Internet blogging and social-networking sites — has helped increase partisan bickering this decade.... - AP, 12-7-09
• Daryl Michael Scott"9/11 to climate change: Historians look back on the decade": "Diversity is leading to a different America," said Daryl Michael Scott, a history professor at Howard University."African-Americans have been the largest minority in the country since its founding, and I think it takes place within the 2000s, this formal passing of the guard."... - AP, 12-7-09
• The '00s: Goodbye (at Last) to the Decade From Hell: Instead, it was the American Dream that was about to dim. Bookended by 9/11 at the start and a financial wipeout at the end, the first 10 years of this century will very likely go down as the most dispiriting and disillusioning decade Americans have lived through in the post–World War II era. We're still weeks away from the end of '09, but it's not too early to pass judgment. Call it the Decade from Hell, or the Reckoning, or the Decade of Broken Dreams, or the Lost Decade. Call it whatever you want — just give thanks that it is nearly over.... - Time, 11-24-09
• 100 Notable Books of 2009: The New York Times Book Review selects outstanding works from the last year - NYT, 11-09
• The 10 Best Books of 2009: By THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW - NYT, 12-09