In Black America; Yolanda King: Understanding The Black Struggle

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despite the gains made by blacks in the civil rights movement dr martin luther king jr is a true multi party is still only a dream since you know it came late civil rights leader although a father was a routine with ocean floor seeking got lots and other americans are still living under a system of government is perpetuating the chain of poverty spending more money on the military and education this week he learned a chain in black american communications center university of texas at austin this is in black americans discussions of the black experience in contemporary american society owe with this week's programme hears your producer and host john devens of delight again actress

teacher and now civil rights activists as a door of the late dr martin luther king jr as king is also a director of the martin luther king center for social change in atlanta and black america as you like it was you became involved in the civil rights movement i really feel like that i've been involved in these vicariously since i was born i was came into this world about two weeks before rosa parks so i refuse to give up her seat on the bus in montgomery which really triggered the ear to be the civil rights movement as we know no it and the present generation and i even though i was not an activist they need maine's nine shades of imagination my father felt since he was putting his life on the line that we deserve protection and a better shelter and so we did not dissipate as much as as i now the animal and i would have like two in various

demonstrations and marches and boycotts and so forth but because he was so close to it and so many of my friends their parents were as well he and it was very hard to be separated from it and then since his death i have made a mine one of my many concerns to make sure that the work that he did and end his philosophy would not that i would not cheer that simply because he was my father a because i really believed in what he the same side i've studied and i've read and i've made sure that i know it and accepted from where i am and who i am as separate from the daughter of so that out so that i can convey so that indeed it is it is an organic natural part of my beliefs and my progression and so i have been quite active over the last ten years is sold in a variety of different

issues and causes and dissipating and rallies and demonstrations until ford's supporting a number of issues and just trying to do what i can to to continue that to continue the work to continue to and steel to try to attempt to instill in people that the open ended does iran and hopefully the commitment to get up and do something that's really what the bottom line is as a very difficult being the daughter of the late dr martin luther king well there's certainly some difficulties just as there are certainly some lessons in advantages on people there certain expectations that people do have a view certain images that they would love for you to fit into no boxes that they'd like to slide very neatly into our i spent a few years trying to are eighty two to stay away from it

in fact to go in the opposite direction from anything that i knew people expected i had to do that just for fun to fire myself i am really glad that i did it i being anti them at the hatch quietest by profession i am i enjoyed playing roles so i did that was a brief time of diversion but it's interesting that i've come back to very much to work on my father get to feeling and believe in very strongly many of the things that my father billy and down and though i am it heading in the same direction and i'm definitely trying very well i have to try can't walk in his footsteps and images to bait and i break my neck of every july so on what i'm trying to do is to to and my own way to to continue the work in to continue to train and they are they serenaded difficulties

but that is life as some difficulties director travels have the condition for black america's chances to the end of the civil rights movement in the early sixties about names many people feel that we've addressed and perhaps to some extent we have stagnated stagnated in the last ten years on the last decade but that the south is a completely different world now than when i was a child and out there david doesn't take much to to see that they're certainly more black faces and high places and that is very good and we cannot not acknowledged that or we have to affirm that and an end the very proud about that but the fact of the matter is that the masses of people about people are still locked out of the system and i've that is is where the work

is still left to be done with the flying minorities strictly blacks understand the political power that they have that no means it's a it just saddens me to hear and young people old people will ever say they proudly that i don't go because it'll make a difference reason and the thing is that it's so sad about a not only did people give their lives so that we could vote and have that option but did the math fact of the matter is the reason why doesn't make any differences because we don't dissipate not in that in the numbers that that we have in this country and as long as we don't we will continue to to struggle and barely make it in and continue to be handed to the leftovers because the fact of the matter is as long as we're in this country and we're not going is no i'm not going to be a violent revolution it's gonna

change saying this is not what happened in nineteen eighty its just as simple as the heck are we don't we do not we do not at the power of an end in terms of any kind of violent confrontation setting foolish to even begin talk about a servant leader then talk about making some real change that means that you have to become involved in the process and get in and begin to change it from the ground up in the only way we can get in is batiste paid and the traditional political system where we have done that there has been a great deal of progress georgia uses one place in particular you know when we have a half now with children in terms of power and that community in a real kind of cheering davis is our aid exist very strongly and part of the reason why is because we have dissipated in the traditional political system and they are people are on all levels representing us in representing of this dangerous be

fine young black americans concerned himself with civil rights and black history unfortunately no one to find your family district of columbia is saying there and like a hole in it he talks about us it's a young blacks being able to talk their top but we don't walk they walk and it's true we can talk and we were very articulate out even more so in nineteen eighty that ever before but the fact of the matter is simply are not following that with any kind of active commitment we're still very much into a kind of individualism and a kind of acceptance and x kate is on there it's a constant source of frustration for me as as a young black person trying and hoping to motivate people aren't particularly young people and also because of the fact that of the matter is that if indeed

we're not they had to pick up the time and keep it molting then everything that people have to have suffered and died for will be lost and it will be our fault i think part of what is happening is because it affected young people in my generation have not had to struggle as our parents did they don't have really a conception of what it means on sony racism still exists and they have to deal with it in in many forms but it is as not as blatant it is not is over and and so there is a very easy kind of tendency and it's very easy to just say well it's all right and i can get my name he'll be slung as i do okay i'll be all right and not to worry about the masses of four and not to be concerned about the very real issue that indeed if we do not stay that in everything that we have want to have fought for and won can very easily and very quickly be taken from us

do you find out what's a troubled two of the black constituents was certainly there are sun and palm an end there's they are all over this country there are others that i think that you always find that i mean just because we we happened to be put in those positions does not mean that we will always do the job that that we were that we are elected to do we have the same kinds of foibles in n n n n n problems in and kind of inconsistency is in any other free some people have but i am i actually i know the day people of the country that are on in terms of integrity in terms of their commitment terms of the energy that they didn't that they devote to trying to make a difference and to really use that office in that arena as a way of helping people i know of of a changing

of bringing about social change that are people of this country so that that isn't part of the reason why i believe in the system if we can get more flow like they are now all five then again we can we will begin to see some some real change in this country should americans degree black americans were concerned and so what the resurgence of cooper's client will be as soon hand of course we really our a way it's imperative that we don't see it just is something that is happening because whatever and i don't know what the various reasons people may be given to it i think we mustn't furs of our realize it they lend their economic problems in the country because of the clever manipulation that has been that has been a constant in this country are the manipulation of of black

versus white and then the middle class against a lower class economically speaking are that bought what will happen is that when the country is in a crutch then the deal with the white reactionary still racist elements work was blamed on us and then you will have many marriages re emergence of the ku klux klan so we have to understand that and work against the kind of of conditioning that has gone on i in this country it's a difficult process because it gets ingrained now i and it's been like that for centuries we have to begin to to try to to redirect some of that energy into correct they're lies that have been that have been sporadic that have kept us fighting for nothing fight fighting over scraps i mean that's really where it boils down to a voicemail was not any real power on and on

but but we must be concerned and we must not online deal with that simply from a hostile viewpoint that they are doing this and they are terrorize innocent and so forth and sought to use is well two to inform that response whatever it may be to eight an hour understanding of why indeed it happens and it will continue to happen as long as we are pitted against each other as we are but the problems that happened in miami last year do you see a return of street violence civil disorders that we had in the sixties what i think is a real possibility and i was speaking to someone recently who is from miami works very closely with their community who feels like any day now it could happen again that nothing has changed it did not make a bitter different primarily because even though there is that the violence a confrontation happened there was not an organized kind of effort that came out

of it so it was really just a kind of getting off a lot of frustrations and not not anything that was positive on helpful and which is often the fact in the end and in those kinds of violent confrontations and um i think it's a real possibility i think things are going to get tighter and the country economically and it's definitely not good barrett worse before it gets better and as a result i think people are going to out of their own sense of despair and hopelessness and frustration is a possibility that they will be more that my hope is that before that happens that we people various leaders in local communities can can begin to organize that frustration into something that will be positive something that will will result in some ground as opposed to just frustrated at the dead ends in a lot of

wasted lives an end and wasted to harm property and a no no real benefit you think there is a void of national black leadership not really i think that what what is all is is unfortunately the problem is there we as black people have a tendency to wait and see was going to happen to wait for someone else to come along and stand up for us i don't know if that's that's peculiar only to black people i think that may be the case that people generally also don't want to put themselves on the line simply was there and so we wait around for somebody else come along and do it for us i think that they are people who are in leadership nationally known leadership positions that are doing what they came and they are serving variously needs there's not one person who

as my father was able to embody at all and bring everybody together but they are people who are doing specific jobs and saving money the problem is that we as individuals are doing nothing and moises is in the art and that's where the problem and i don't think it's the leadership i think is on the bottom is an end and the fact that people who are in there in their communities local communities are are sitting back in and waiting for something to happen and down when you do that unfortunately that what happens is that you do something desperate because of the way in reaction to whatever happens and it's not always organize it and it is not always helpful a beneficial so i'm my hope again part of my message is that if indeed anything about after is gonna be it's gonna be individuals whose who say okay i can do everything i cannot be in mind is again doing i cannot be really of

the day is something that i can do and want to do it that means taking a risk on my job when i see something going on discrimination what every the analysts say something about and i'm not going to sit back and they continue to happen on if if if that is something in indian schools as young people and they injustices going on when they are needs that i'm not being addressed young people along a massive solar and say look this is what mimi we pay tuition here and this is his as bizarre that we deserve whatever this data thus and so because we we must remember was not the good we all of president johnson a prison kennedy that gave us the civil rights bill in the voting rights act it was because people put their lives on the air and out in the streets and that's what made it different it was not because pizza dough way i started to do right that these black people because folk demanded and they can't hit are you satisfied with the investigation

and your father's death can do and i think in a very very honestly i would like to i i do believe that that was not the hat active just one person that there was some kind of conspiracy i don't know if it was the governmental of the cia a wedding these people have i know that there was a climate in this country that certainly contributed to it and dom and which was perpetuated by the reactionary forces that exist on and as i would like for the truth to come out and i know that the truth is more than a single individual well as christian longo was becoming so difficult to make your father's birthday a national holiday well part of it is that is the fact that the way we use a convenient excuse to rearm undergoing the most absurd the inflation and we haven't

had to experience as a nation in that it is inflation which is actually just an excuse when the fat that to set that to make that move is it is still very revolutionary in this country and they are still a large number of people who feels to this day their mandate it was the communists that he was a troublemaker ended and those bills folk would do and just and he became a stir them up and die and as long as it exists is gonna continue to be a problem but i think i really do believe that it can do is what happened but any maybe more difficult with president ministration but i i think that as a result of what stevie wonder's died as a result of a lot of what people are doing all over this country in their various communities it's gonna make a difference we got to impact on our various congresspersons are senators just to sign a petition or the march is not

among the people who make the final ultimate decision other ones that we have to touch base with you happily see him on an elevator and build and say look how you do it senator whenever i look around baghdad bill is coming up and i want you to vote for them in your district or whatever the case may be and die if you want my vote then you vote for this and that iran teasing but seriously that is the kind of direct contact that we won't have to have with with our legislators and our and that's really what's gonna make a different mafia very honestly is there was we get it he was they only got in there we go to the beach in both parties and that will mean a thing and so when i say and with martin luther king jr center which is based in ireland my mother's prayers and he is too is that this will not just be a holiday on a place busted a time for us to just have a free day off from work and go off into alignment miscellaneous things that are

not helpful that they will be all over the country will be a day when people take time to stop to affirm the principles that he stood for and to two come together and hopefully as a result to use that as a springboard to inspire us and to motivate us to continue doing the world that he gave his life for that was you i became actress teacher and durable a silver wise leader dr martin luther king junior i'm john d hansen join us next week you've been listening to in latin america discussions of the black experience in contemporary american society has sent copies of this program are available immediately by writing university of texas in austin is a seventy seven wanted in black america