MLK Assassination - 50 Years Later
In reflection on the anniversary of Martin Luther Kings assassination this is a must read speech given just seven month before his death. The speech was given at the American Psychological Association's Annual Convention and resonates to this day.
The Role of the Behavioral Scientist in the Civil Rights Movement
- "White America is seeking to keep the walls of segregation substantially intact while the evolution of society and the Negro's desperation is causing them to crumble. The white majority, unprepared and unwilling to accept radical structural change, is resisting and producing chaos while complaining that if there were no chaos orderly change would come.
- "Negros want the social scientist to address the white community and 'tell it like it is.' White America has an appalling lack of knowledge concerning the reality of Negro life. One reason some advances were made in the South during the past decade was the discovery by norther whites of the brutal facts of southern segregated life.
- "Thus, it may well be that our world is in dire need of a new organization, The International Association for the Advancement of Creative Maladjustment. I am sure that we will recognize that there are some things in our society, some things in our world, to which we should never be adjusted. There are some things concerning which we must always be maladjusted if we are to be people of good will. We must never adjust ourselves to racial discrimination and racial segregation. We must never adjust ourselves to religious bigotry. We must never adjust ourselves to economic conditions that take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few. We must never adjust ourselves to the madness of militarism, and the self-defeating effects of violence. "
Related Read:
"The Race Beat: The Press, The Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation"
By: Gene Roberts & Hank Klibanoff
With all this talk today of whats real and "fake" news its a refreshing look at how journalists used to operate. This is the story of how the nation's press, after decades of ignoring the problem, came to recognize the importance of the civil rights struggle and turn it into the most significant domestic news event of the 20th century. It utilizes private correspondence, notes from secret meetings, unpublished articles, and interviews to show how a dedicated bunch of newsmen - first black reporters, then liberal southern editors, then reporters and photographers from the national press and the broadcast media - revealed to a nation its most shameful shortcomings and propelled its citizens to act.
