Pursuing Justice

A statement that was made about MLK was new to me yesterday.  MLK had people around him with guns.  I always thought of him as a pacifist.  I suppose he was still considered a pacifist because he didn’t use violence in his speeches, but still.  I understand that he took chances by speaking about a controversial subject:  black rights and maybe felt like he needed the protection.  As evident when he was assassinated.  The next time I teach the Civil Rights Movement (still going on today), I’ll have to mention this to my students and see their response.  I’d be interested to know what they think about this and if they’re as surprised as I was.  This is one of those topics that needs to go into the book Lies My Teacher Told Me.  Another topic I’d like to touch upon are the Black Panthers. Davarian posed the question, were they radical/violent?  I think the fact that they were holding guns make them appear violent.  Although apparently, this was not their intention.  They seemed to have ignored that many would view them in this manor.  They were doing good, but this was not publicized the way their firm stance was.  We have to think about the media in this case and their influence on the public.  Pictures of Black Panthers holding guns are more appealing than pictures of them helping the community.  At this time many people were against the movement and this picture only added fuel to the flame.  If they didn’t want to be seen as violent, they shouldn’t have held the un-loaded guns.  They had to have understood that the media would misrepresent them.  Or, that the media similar to today's paparazzi, want to catch good people doing bad things.  Again, I wonder what they were thinking.