A Thought to Consider: Martin Luther King Jr. Day
By Dawaune Lamont Hayes
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was photographed by The World-Herald standing and waving after being elected vice president of the National Sunday School and Baptist Training Union Congress. The 1958 convention, a week long event at the City Auditorium in Omaha that was attended by 15,000 delegates, was at the time the second largest in Omaha history. At left is Dr. O. Clay Maxwell, who was elected president of the congress. – Archives of The Omaha World-Herald
On this day we celebrate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
A man known around the world as a champion for civil rights and social equality. His legacy even extends to Omaha where he visited in 1958 for the National Sunday School and Baptist Training Union Congress. (Photo from Omaha World-Herald Archive)
Yet on this day, as politicians and government offices post images and quotes of Dr. King, in the 1960s, the same entities wanted nothing to do with King and actively conspired to undermine his social influence and the civil rights movement.
In 1968 the FBI coordinated a nationwide counterintelligence effort called COINTELPRO to bring down what they called “militant Black Nationalist-hate groups.” Documents revealed that the bureau coordinated with several police departments, including Omaha, to hinder and ultimately eliminate the mobilization of Black organizers, civil rights activists, and their allies.
In a memo that went out to the over 40 offices in COINTELPRO, the goals of the program included:
1. Prevent the coalition of militant Black nationalist groups.
2. Prevent the rise of a “messiah” who could unify, and electrify.
3. Prevent Violence on the part of Black nationalist groups.
4. Prevent militant Black nationalist groups and leaders from gaining respectability.
5. Prevent the long-range growth of militant Black nationalist groups, especially among youth.
In goal item #2, Dr. King is listed as “a very real contender for this position should he abandon his supposed ‘obedience’ to ‘white, liberal doctrines’ (nonviolence) and embrace Black nationalism.”
The irony of these documents is that in 2019, a Trump Administration United States Department of Justice official wrote in a New York Times op-ed that said, “white supremacy and far-right extremism are among the greatest domestic-security threats facing the United States. Regrettably, over the past 25 years, law enforcement, at both the Federal and State levels, has been slow to respond. … Killings committed by individuals and groups associated with far-right extremist groups have risen significantly.”
In 2020, we saw millions mobilize in the name of Black Lives met with overwhelming police force, court cases, and incarceration. Starkly contrasted by the thousands who were successfully able to storm the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 despite the FBI having ample evidence of possible white nationalist militant groups inciting violence.
The Washington Post, shared a report from the FBI office in Virginia that was passed around one day before the attack, that warned of the following:
“As of 5 January 2021, FBI Norfolk received information indicating calls for violence in response to ‘unlawful lockdowns’ to begin on 6 January 2021 in Washington. D.C. An online thread discussed specific calls for violence to include stating ‘Be ready to fight. Congress needs to hear glass breaking, doors being kicked in, and blood from their BLM and Pantifa slave soldiers being spilled. Get violent. Stop calling this a march, or rally, or a protest. Go there ready for war. We get our President or we die. NOTHING else will achieve this goal.”
This comparison reveals many things to me:
1. The FBI had less technology in 1968 and was able to successfully break up groups committed to Black civil rights.
2. Despite years of evidence, advanced technology, and informants, the FBI was still somehow unable to anticipate and prevent the attack at the Capitol.
3. The explicit difference between these two cases is Race and that cannot be ignored.
This photo was submitted by the Haynes family. It shows King with Paul Hayes during a June 1958 visit to Omaha – Photo: Archives of the Omaha World-Herald
Which begs the question, on this national holiday where government workers get the day off to commemorate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., what are the true values of America and who do we rely on to uplift and protect those values?
“We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
- Martin Luther King Jr.