Episode 5: A Deeper Look at Martin Luther King Jr.
Dr. N.J. Akbar
Hello and welcome to Flashes of DEI, a podcast where we explore topics and ideas related to diversity, equity and inclusion. I am Dr. N.J Akbar, the associate vice president for diversity equity inclusion at Kent State University. And I'm excited to be here today. I'm excited to be with my colleague Katie.
Katie Mattise
Yeah. Hey N.J and spoiler alert, Hey Dr. Smith-Pryor. My name is Katie Mattise. I use They/Them pronouns and I serve as director here in DEI.
Dr. N.J. Akbar
Yes, In January colleges, universities in the United States in general, are celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day today. We wanted to take some time to talk and learn a little bit more about who he was and have a special guest and fellow golden flash. Dr. Smith-Pryor, who's amazing. You just join us and share a little bit about yourself.
Dr. Liz Smith-Pryor
Sure. Thank you so much for having me here today. I really appreciate it now. My name is Liz Smith-Pryor I've been a professor of African American History. at Kent State since 2001. So for more than 20 years, I've been here a long time. A golden flash. Yeah, and I teach courses both to undergraduates and graduate students, again, African American history right now I'm teaching this semester and upper division undergraduate class on the history of the civil rights and Black Power movements, where we're gonna actually be exploring some of that history and what happened here on our campus. So I'm really excited about that class.
Dr. N.J. Akbar
I feel like I need to like sit in the back of your class one day
Dr. Liz Smith-Pryor
We're gonna be doing - our class is going to do a really cool digital history project.
Katie Mattise
Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for being here and to share your your time and your expertise with us. And especially talk about Dr. King. We have a list of questions that we've come up with and we would love to get right into it if you are ready to start answering some of those questions.
Dr. Liz Smith-Pryor
Ready to go.
Katie Mattise
Awesome. Alright, so one of the biggest things around Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. That gets like brought up is his I Have a Dream speech. It's pretty much the token thing that folks pull from his repertoire. And that seems like a solid place to start, especially because there appears at least from my perspective, to be a pattern of people using intentionally or unintentionally the speech in ways that flatten who he was and and what he was advocating for. So could you talk a little bit about that, and what we should actually be remembering or taking away from that speech?
Dr. Liz Smith-Pryor
Sure, though. That's a great question. And I think you're right. That is a lot of what has happened in the decade since 1963. And I Have a Dream speech is that in many ways people have cherry picked to fit their own particular agenda. And when I think about the I Have a Dream speech, I like to think about the context in which that speech was given. Right? That speech was given at the 1963 march on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. That's the full title of that event. Broad. This is an event that King was involved in organizing with a lot of other people too. And when you look at photographs, from that day, you will see protesters and marchers who are carrying wide variety of signs, carrying signs that are calling out for the end of discrimination in job hiring, carrying signs calling for voting rights for African Americans, calling for the end of police brutality in the United States. Again, all things that we tend to kind of ride out of our memory of the moment where king gives a speech. And we also have to know to King was just one of a number of people who gave speeches during the March on Washington, though, his became the most famous in part because he was such a wonderful speaker. I think the other thing that happens too with his speech, as I mentioned earlier, people cherry pick from it, what they want to hear and they forget, for example, I went back to the speech, I usually go back to it to kind of you know, reread it remind myself of what's actually in there. He starts off first talking about Lincoln because part of the March on Washington, it's 100 years since the Emancipation Proclamation. Right. And one of the things he says and you don't see this too much on cute little mugs, you know, or other things that people, tchotchkes that people sell. You know, one of the things he points out I'm going to quote him, "100 years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation, and the chains of discrimination. 100 years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity." And what are they talking about there? He's obviously talking about the continuation of Jim Crow and segregation, but he's also talking about racialized economic inequality. That's a big part of who he is about and who he was about throughout his entire career. But we'll leave that out. You know, we also leave out some other things that he says in the speech to quote where he says, you know, we've come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Again, we don't tend to hear that language coming out when people tweet on, you know, MLK day again, they mostly just focus on the language which comes towards the end, where he's really engaging in this beautiful rhetorical imagining of the future. And he's making it clear it's not here yet. You know, when he says he has that dream that his four children will one day live in a nation where they won't be judged by the color of their skin, by the content of their character. Now, his four children are grown up, you know, he's children are grown up. And my guess is if you ask them today, you know, I've seen you know, Bernice King's tweets and things like that. Yeah, they know that that was, you know, a dream that he had. He saw that as something that was the possibility in the future. But he wasn't saying it was here. And they would argue today, it's still not here. Yeah. So to continue to quote that is the only thing that matters in this speech, just strikes me as perhaps a little kind of perverse understanding of what King was about that day. So I think, for me, those are the things that are really important in in kind of trying to, to enrich our understanding of who King was about, and even again to take that speech which we so often as you so nicely put it flattened him into a caricature of who he was.
Dr. N.J. Akbar
I love what you said. It's really just profound, because if you think about his speech, also, he says that, you know, black people in America was, you know, basically left in the corners. And in this same speech, and the I Have a Dream part wasn't even originally a part of his speech. He wasn't gonna talk about that. That was a speech that he gave it Detroit in honor of the 20th anniversary of the Detroit race riots. That happened in 1943. You know, he talked about him having a dream that one day people will be able to buy a house wherever they want, you know, and they can get a job wherever they want. And so the there even though it was an exact replica of it's very interesting that that that's cherry picked and flattened.
Dr. Liz Smith-Pryor
Yeah, that's a really excellent point. You're right. He started speaking from his prepared speech, and then he did kind of move into a lot of great speakers can being able to kind of draw on really wonderful rhetoric from earlier speeches, but no, that's that's a great point. A lot of that came from an earlier in earlier speech.
Katie Mattise
This is awesome. The first question and I'm already learning so much and it is really interesting to Dr. Smith-Pryor when you were talking about like the, you know, the parts that are put on mugs like there are like the urgency of now is something I've seen, like tweeted out but then the rest of the sentence gets dropped off, at least based on my basic knowledge of MLK and what you shared people who are doing things that he would actively oppose, taking those sentiments and tweeting that and being like, here's a piece of MLK speech that resonates with me, and I'm getting ignore the rest of it. It's so interesting, like, why would I take him totally out of context?
Dr. Liz Smith-Pryor
Yeah, one of the reasons I suspect we flatten him is it makes it easier for all Americans to find him acceptable. We like to we like to not remember that during the times that he was active. Most white Americans did not like Martin Luther King, Jr. You know, when he was assassinated, many white Americans weren't too sad about it. Again, it's become easier over time to by kind of creating this caricature of what he was about to put them in advertisements to put them on mugs or whatever. It is, or you know, cute little sayings and totally decontextualize them, who he was, what he was about what part what larger movements he was part of, because he was you know, he's, he's one person in the civil rights. But again, he wasn't the only speech maker that day there were a variety of different activists. Yeah,
Katie Mattise
important stuff that like the notion of like flattening them to make them more palatable to wider audiences and more realistically wider audiences.
Dr. N.J. Akbar
yes. I want some more so. Talk to us about something that people may not know about Dr. King in his work. You talked about him being flattened to be palatable. Talk to us about what it is that may not be as palatable.
Dr. Liz Smith-Pryor
Good question. Yeah, there's a lot about him that I think particularly in the current moment, we're living through where we're seeing it, for example, at school boards and a variety of maybe state legislatures, being very concerned about what they call CRT being taught in the classroom and those sorts of things. And there's a lot of backlash against what I would really argue is kind of an accurate depiction of American history and African American industry. And I think one of the things that that we don't know enough about King, and that I think, again, would help us if this is a word unflattering, our caricature of him is again, a really key part of his activism. For the entire time he was active, as in the civil rights movement was his concern about addressing economic injustice. And King also was well aware that this wasn't something that was just going to change by magic, that in fact, it was going to require a deep structural change in 1964. So a year after the march in Washington, he publishes a book called Why We Can't Wait. And in that book, he calls for things that, in many ways are still considered really radical to call for today in terms of changes in public policy to address structural inequality. He calls for full employment. He calls for that there should be basically guaranteed income for families, you know, so that people wouldn't fall into poverty. You know, he basically makes clear in a number of the things that he writes between, you know, again, March on Washington through the time of his assassination, you know, again that what's needed is yes, we do need voting rights. Yes, we do need to be and discrimination and things like public accommodations with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But again, we also need to have structural change. And he was well aware that that was leading back that call for structural change, housing, economics, I mean, jobs, education, all those sorts of things was actually generating a white backlash, but again, he still thought the only way the United States would actually ever really achieve what it had said it was supposed to be, was through that kind of massive structural change. Another thing I was thinking recently that I think, you know, it was very timely for January of 2022. Only maybe a month before the March on Washington. He was being asked a bunch of questions in a press conference. And in that press conference, he was being asked about the possibility of a civil rights act being passed. And one of the things that that King said was he was concerned that it might not pass. And he said, Well, quote, I think the tragedy is that we have a Congress with a Senate that has a minority of misguided senators who will use the filibuster to keep the majority of people from even voting. So he was very well aware right now we're living through a moment in 2022 of the filibuster has returned to public attention in this moment. Is Congress going to do something about voting rights? And again, almost 60 years ago, King was well aware of how the filibuster was being used in the Senate to make it much more difficult for African Americans to have access to their rights. Own panoply of rights as American citizens. And finally, the last thing is connected to the economic justice. You know, when kings assassinated he's assassinated a moment where it's not part of a civil rights march. He's supporting a strike the sanitation workers strike in Memphis which was a workers who were Premier, particularly all African American men who were you know, in being sanitation workers in Memphis were being treated horrifically and they decided to go on strike, and that that's working its kings with working people, kings with poor people. He starts the Poor People's Campaign, which, you know, unfortunately, is assassinated before he can leave that, but he's on the side of people who are trying in many ways to speak truth to power. And I think that's we have to kind of hang on to that as part of what's really important. What we need to know about King you know, beyond the the little sound bites from I Have a Dream
Dr. N.J. Akbar
Yeah, you really dropping some great pilots. Oh, my God. I'm so inspired. But you you brought up the book Why We Can't Wait one. It's one of my personal favorites. Right? So he uses the depiction of this boy and girl as examples to show what's happening in America. And specifically, you know, talks about, you know, the history books, depicting them. So I think that that's perfect kind of dovetail or display for what we're dealing with today. Right. So I appreciate that kind of, you know, bringing it full circle and making them a little more 3d If instead of flattening.
Dr. Liz Smith-Pryor
that's a great way of putting it Yeah, I mean, I think for me, the heartbreaking thing in so many ways, it's like, like, I'm a historian. So, you know, I deal mostly with things from the past. You know, one hand I'm glad when it's relevant to our present, but I wish in some ways, this wasn't relevant to our present.
Katie Mattise
That's the thing that struck me the most like as you're talking about all these things, like oh my gosh, this is exactly what's happening right now. Right issues of labor and unionizing issues of poverty and access to resources. Issues around voting, right like all these things that right well relevant and needed to change right are still relevant and the thing to change today, right now. We need to know the hard truths so that we can be motivated to to learn more and to take action. So it's just like a reminder that we still have a lot of work to do. Yes, but one of the things that we're interested in hearing a little bit more about So this concept of legacy gets tossed around a lot based on your knowledge based on your expertise. There are definitely multiple components to his legacy, but what would you say makes up part of Dr. King's legacy?
Dr. Liz Smith-Pryor
I think in some ways, you're right this is a question that could have multiple answers. And some of those answers may depend on kind of your own particular stance. When I think about King as a historian of African American History and American history. When I think about King as an African American woman when I think about his legacy, what really comes to mind is I think about him as someone who has left us a legacy of the importance of having a very fierce and unyielding commitment to justice. Having a very fierce and unyielding commitment to addressing poverty, to addressing inequality. I'm always particularly when I think about some of the histories of King that I've I've read. Some of the ones I find most empowering in many ways to read is when I read about, you know, the ideas he had about addressing poverty and particularly with the with his his sort of final idea, this Poor People's Campaign, the poor people's march, and that's something where you can even you can almost you can literally see the legacy of it today. The Reverend Dr. William Barber in North Carolina is still carrying on that poor people campaign to make. In the same way King wanted to make the issues of poverty and inequality to bring them to greater public awareness to make us recognize as a nation that these are choices that we've decided to make in terms of allowing inequality growing that way, allowing people to live in poverty. And I think I think the legacy of King speaking about these issues for me leaves me feeling like that, that those are some of his most important legacies for us.
Dr. N.J. Akbar
I think you hit the nail on the head I found one, keep listening to you. Certainly. Maybe we'll go to that question. I you know, sometimes I think about Dr. King and even some of the role mentalization that we do in America with a lot of fakers. And you're really bringing I think, points that we should discuss and the next question is really thinking about who in the community we don't really hear about so when you think about Dr. King's work, you know, is there anything or anyone you'd like to highlight doesn't get talked about a lot and I know I have one person I specifically that that ticks me off when people don't mention that person but
Dr. Liz Smith-Pryor
No, no for sure. I think that is really important. We do tend to put people on pedestals, and we think of someone as Oh, they were a leader. And I think some of the dangers of that is that we end up feeling like you know, for someone who's interested in social justice issues or those sorts of things that we need to wait for some leader to mobilize us to engage us. King was always part of a community. King's work came out of grassroots activism, and I'm going to point to one group. That's really important, and it mentioned a few specific people, black women we forget the role of black women in the civil rights movement. And you can't do that. You really want to understand any aspect of the of the civil rights struggle, any aspect you can go back to the Montgomery Bus Boycott when you know King first gained, kind of a national platform. Okay, maybe we do know about Rosa Parks, but do we know about all the work done by all those women in Montgomery? Probably not. You know, a lot of women gave King a hard time because he was a man of his time. You know, he was he could be a bit of a, you know, sexist. Women were, you know, even with a march on Washington, there were important black women who were part of kind of organizing and thinking about it, but they didn't really want to have them up there on the state. You know, because again, this was supposed to be a male led organization. But when I think about like someone who I think left out of these conversations about kind of the particularly when we think about the 50s and 60s Civil Rights Movement, one person who I think is really important for people to know about and again, I don't know NJ if this is the person you're thinking about, but I I really think people ought to know something about Fannie Lou Hamer. Fannie Lou Hamer was someone who was heavily involved in grassroots organizing and Mississippi, grew up for the the child of sharecroppers got involved with voting rights activism, and you know, just just was inspired lots of young people. In 1964. She spoke at the Democratic National Convention, calling for the Democratic Party to not let the white Mississippi Democrats not let their people sit in the Democratic National Convention, but in fact to let the African American groups Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, and she spoke to the entire nation and she was so amazing. She spoke about her own experiences as a black woman growing up in poverty in Mississippi, being part of the movement, how she was treated during the movement, how she was sexually assaulted, how she was beaten, all these things, apparently lit the President Lyndon Johnson was really upset at the time because like, people were watching it and he was afraid the ratings were gonna go up for people to watch her. And she was just an incredible activist and she's just one of a number of really important African American women who are part of the civil rights movement, and she knew about them. But again, given the time period, black women's activism didn't get as much attention, as it should have. We're really lucky now is that a lot of scholars have over the last 10 or 15 years said, Yeah, let's look at the women. Yeah,
Dr. N.J. Akbar
yeah, I agree. Fannie Lou Hamer is a is a great person to talk about. I mean, just with her work with snick but I I think it left out more often than not, they are less than a you know, a lot of it has guests because he was gay, but he organize march on Washington. And you're right about the women to the I mean, none of the civil rights movement will happen without a platform,
Dr. Liz Smith-Pryor
but I'm glad you're going to bed resting because No, you're right. He is. He played an incredibly important part in the civil rights movement from the 1940s. He was active very early and yes, he was amazing and what he could pull together to get that march on Washington going along with a Philip Randolph, and you're exactly right. He doesn't get included as much in the discussions in part because he was a gay man at a time when, you know, you could get arrested for a penny for being gay man. I mean, again, I think over the last 10 or 15 or even 20 years, there's been a lot of really good work that's been done on him. There's a wonderful documentary about Ruston that was done maybe about 15 years ago. So yeah, he is incredibly important and particularly for King, particularly king he was he was always kind of an advisor to King one of kings, many advisors so yeah, that's, I think he's a great person.
Katie Mattise
So you mentioned a documentary you mentioned Dr. King's book, which isn't I'm embarrassed to say I had no idea he even had a book
Dr. Liz Smith-Pryor
got a couple of books
Katie Mattise
I have so much reading to do. Every time I do one of these. I'm like I have 1000 things I need to read and watch. Because there's so much that I just didn't know about so for other folks like me who maybe don't know as much, are there any other resources or things that you'd like to shout out? that folks can explore?
Dr. Liz Smith-Pryor
Sure. Yeah, I thought about that. So yeah, so King wrote a number of books again in 1964. He published Why We Can't Wait. And in 1967 he published his final book, which is a really important book to read to there's a lot of I just said, it's all I can say is read it, and it's called, uh, where do we go from here? Chaos or Community? Solid title? Yeah. And I have other things to recommend to you ask a professor to recommend things
Katie Mattise
Here's this little list.
Dr. Liz Smith-Pryor
Again, I think the Memphis sanitation strike, where King was assassinated because he was he was involved in that. There's a wonderful book by a guy named Michael honey called going down Jericho Road. The Memphis sanitation strike Martin Luther King's last campaign. And it's a well written narrative history of that final campaign of King and really gets give you a sense of what was going on with the movement at that point. And again, about this this strike in Memphis, what else? Oh, you know, again, there's a brand new book out about Fannie Lou Hamer, which is probably why she's been on my mind recently to by a historian named Keisha Blaine. And it's called until I am free. Fannie Lou Hamer's enduring message to America. So I'd recommend that and I'll stop because otherwise I'll add too many things. But yeah, just, you know, search out a few of these things. I think it's worth deepening our understanding of, of King and the larger movement that he was that he was part of. Yeah, I'm definitely gonna do that. Right. Well,
Dr. N.J. Akbar
Thank you. Very much for just following us today and really opening our minds and expanding our understanding. Is there anything else you would like to share?
Dr. Liz Smith-Pryor
I think that maybe my final point is again, I think part of why it's important to celebrate the King Day. It's important to think about him again, as one part of a larger movement. You know, particularly as we head towards the end of January and start heading into Black History Month. And I think we also need to keep in mind that understanding what King was about understanding that history is not something that we should push into just one month a year or one day but this is something that if we really want to be fully engaged participants in our society, I think we need to study up 12 months a year. So I guess, you know, because again, I think that legacy of King and the work he did and the people you work with, it still matters today. still matters for politics. For our country today.
Katie Mattise
That's definitely one of my biggest takeaways from you're sharing with us is that, that legacy of learning about and addressing and helping other folks to see the issues that were relevant 60 years ago and still are today so a good reminder that putting our knowledge into action and making systemic changes that you mentioned earlier lectures,
Dr. Liz Smith-Pryor
right, what we're all about. That's right, those systemic structural changes are really important if we really want to achieve the goals that you know, King and many others have said, appear to be part of what's supposed to be what this country is all about.
Dr. N.J. Akbar
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So just amazing. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being here and sharing so much with us today and with our listeners, and as a person who was a history major and undergrad. I wish I had your class.
Katie Mattise
Take care and still take.
Dr. N.J. Akbar
right I might, but yes, thank you and everyone for tuning in and listening. If you're interested in learning more, feel free to check out our website Kent.EDU/diversity. Also, feel free to look up. Dr. Liz Smith-Pryor as well.
Dr. Liz Smith-Pryor
Yeah, thanks. Thanks for having me. I appreciate being here today, and great questions and good conversation.
Katie Mattise
Thank you. Got a topic you'd like us to discuss either the listeners or I mean, Dr. Smith-Pryor, you know, we mentioned bringing it back to talk about voting rights. Alright, that's not a deal. Yeah. Thank you again. Dr. Smith prior it was sincerely a pleasure to get to listen to you. Anyone can email us at diversity@kent.edu or connect with us across social media @DEIkentstate and we'll be back in February with another episode. Thank you all and have a good day.
Dr. N.J. Akbar
Thank you, everyone.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai