13 Jan 2012 Black Conservatives Discuss Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Washington, D.C. – As the nation prepares to observe the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in conjunction with the national holiday in his honor, black conservatives affiliated with the Project 21 leadership network are speaking out about how Dr. King’s words and actions relate to today.
“In 1967, Dr. King declared that we must ‘undergo a radical revolution of values.’ Today, as America collapses under great division and debt, we need to embrace that call to national action,” said Project 21 spokesman Jerome Hudson. “Dr. King fought for a moral identity to parallel the promise of equal opportunity declared in our founding documents. I’m sure he would be heartbroken to see the erosion of the family and faith in our nation today. He would declare that we must repair our shattered values system, that men be fathers to their children and husbands to their wives. Indeed, Dr. King’s way forward would be that we stop bankrupting our children’s future and return to the values of family and faith that made America great.”
“Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is one of the greatest Americans in our history. Instead of complaining, he acted. Instead of asking someone else to hand him something, he mobilized the spirit of a nation and made society respond,” said Project 21 spokeswoman Shelby Emmett. “Dr. King reflected the power of ‘We the People’ to ensure a more perfect union for all Americans. The concept of judging one by their character rather than the color of their skin is as near and dear to our hearts as the slogan ‘Give me liberty or give me death.'”
Emmett added: “While we observe Dr. King’s special day on Monday, let’s also take a moment to reflect on ourselves, our future and our nation. What do ‘We the People’ demand? What can ‘We the People’ do as a community to improve ourselves instead of just pointing fingers and demand that someone give it to us? Are our policies based on the content of one’s character or are they still based in the pigment of one’s skin? Today’s civil rights ‘leaders’ love quoting Dr. King, but it seem that — at least for politics’ sake — they really don’t want them to come to fruition.”
“I think that promoting equality of opportunity would make Dr. King the most proud of us as a people right now. Unfortunately, there are too many of us — and so many of them being the ones claiming King’s mantle — who cling to a victim mentality and dwell upon what they don’t have instead of what opportunities that are available to them,” said Project 21 fellow Deneen Borelli. “In particular, former Obama advisor Van Jones is rallying militant elements such as the Occupy Wall Street protesters with claims that Dr. King was the ‘original Occupier’ and that we need to prepare to engage in a ‘turbulent’ 2012. But the divisiveness and lawlessness of Zuccotti Park and Occupy campsites across the nation seem to be about as far away from Dr. King’s promised land as one can get.”
Project 21 spokesman Stacy Swimp said: “I’m worried about the commercialization of Dr. King’s day, and of turning the man into a myth. He was real, and he was not complacent. Dr. King was a man who implored us to resist. Today, that sort of resistance is squandered in the hunt for the last vestiges of discriminatory policies of the past. I believe that Dr. King would instead want us to work against self-imposed limitations that we now put on ourselves, force upon others and teach to our children. We have to resist the excuses, the blame games and anything that keeps us from being responsible and accountable for our daily choices.”
Project 21, a leading voice of black conservatives since 1992, is sponsored by the National Center for Public Policy Research (https://nationalcenter.org).
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