“I don’t think that any black person can speak of
Malcolm [X] and Martin [Luther King Jr.] without wishing that they were here.
It is not possible for me to speak of them without a sense of loss and grief
and rage; and with the sense, furthermore, of having been forced to undergo an
unforgivable indignity, both personal and vast. Our children need them, which
is, indeed, the reason that they are not here: and now we, the blacks, must
make certain that our children never forget them. For the American republic has
always done everything in its power to destroy our children’s heroes, with the
clear (and sometimes clearly stated) intention of destroying our children’s
hope. This endeavor has doomed the American nation: mark my words.”—African-American
novelist-essayist James Baldwin (1924-1987), “Malcolm and Martin,” in No Name in the Street (1972)
(I took the image accompanying this post over four
years ago, while visiting the memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in
Washington, DC.)
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