On Monday, January 16, 2012 at 6:00 PM, the Occupy Boston People of Color Working Group will host Occupy Boston’s weekly Community Gathering at Arlington St. Church, 351 Bolyston Street in Boston. This MLK Day gathering will encourage participants to think about what Occupy Boston and the public can learn from the ideas, campaigns, and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“People of Color are disproportionately affected by the rule of the top 1%, in everything from housing, jobs, education, health, and prison incarceration,” said Brian Kwoba, an organizer of the event and a member of the People of Color Working Group of Occupy Boston. “That is why issues of race and racism must be taken seriously by the Occupy movement. The People of Color Working Group is excited to be hosting a community gathering on MLK Day to project more of our culture, our voices, and our stories into the forefront of the movement.”
Speakers include, Kwame Somburu, who helped to organize mass protests in the 1960’s and Harlem’s Freedom Now Party. The gathering will also feature a reading of excerpts from MLK’s beyond Vietnam speech, musical performances from Earthdrum Council, a presentation on the State of the Dream from by United for a Fair Economy, slam poets, a teach in on the 3-Strikes Bill, and a ‘fishbowl’ discussion with People of Color from Occupy Boston, and the Optimus of the Foundation Movement.
Occupy Boston’s Community Gatherings are held every Monday evening and are open to the public. The intention of these Community Gatherings is to build and strengthen the Occupy Boston community through ongoing dialogues, presentations, workshops, and facilitated conversations, in order to build a resilient, widespread and inclusive social movement.
This event is free and all are welcome to attend. For more information about this event, please email occupybostonmedia@gmail.com or visit https://www.occupyboston.org
6 Responses to “Martin Luther King Occupied: An Occupy Boston Community Gathering to Explore the Radical Legacy of Dr. King”
This event promises to be so excellent. Also note, there is a candle vigil Sunday night at 7pm at Boston Common bandstand. See the calendar on the right for the details about it.
Sprry but to have a seperate group called the People of Color working group? Are you serious? That is creating a hateful environment. Why do they need a seperate group? Why not be a member of the normal working groups why is there a need for racial distinction?
There is a People of Color working group, a Women’s Caucus, and a Queer and Trans Caucus, as well as an Anti-Oppression working group. These exist because these are some of the main dimensions of group-based “othering” and structural & cultural oppressions that exist in our society. We are not a post-racial society, racism exists and affects the lives of people, so people affected by racism created a space to focus and address racial issues. That is why there is a need, that is why “they” need a separate group instead of only working in the “normal” groups — even that language itself shows a normalization of whiteness, like the “normal” is what a “person” thinks with the too-often assumption of a white perspective. These are issues the Occupy movement recognizes, discusses, and addresses in a pro-active way when possible, from the perspective of people who experience oppression instead of the normalized dominant perspective.
I hope Jamarhl Crawford is there at this event. I took my wife and son to the police brutality rally behind the police station that Saturday the day after the Friday night rally in Dudley. He laid out the recent history of homicides committed by Boston Police and the situation with the civilian review board. My wife and I were extremely impressed. I wish we could find out what is going on with his situation with Occupy Boston without having to have joined secret email lists months ago or however it works.
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Scott I hope you are going. You need to have faith that if something is bothering you, it is bothering others too. I have not been to this church and I hope there is more space than the Community church. Last time I was at the Community church a week or two ago someone had positioned a table to block off the front of the room where the cool kids used to sit on the couch or lay on the floor reading their anarchy comics or whatever. The General assembly was laid out like a cage with rows of chairs and no way out except to leave. I was going to poetry readings at this church 20 years ago and at such events all over Boston and Cambridge people were never forced to sit and participate. Always there were people on the periphery doing something else.
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And after a while you may find that someone you did not like or fought against is now someone you wish you could help against others who are even more annoying. People do not believe in the internet or real openness so you can’t really find out what is going on except by visiting and being sensitive and perceptive.
They should have called this Civil Rights Day instead of MLK Day. What’s happened is the King has become white people’s ideal of what a black person should be. It’s a fantasy to say that this guy was a saint and yet that’s what we’re being asked to swallow every MLK Day and throughout Black History Month. Malcolm X lived a virtuous life after his conversion to that ridiculous “religion” (Nation of Islam) and later during his conversion to the true Islam. Malcolm X has the same right to a day as King-maybe even more so because it is separatism that drives the black community today. That and envy.
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Why not a separate group for everything from Little People to Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Occupy is so fractured that people have largely lost interest. Look at this message board. There used to be tons of posts. How quickly this movement is becoming obsolete.
Responding to the notes left: The issue is not color or race, although color and race have been used by the “ruling class” to impose their elitist inequity, exclusion and human sacrifice. The American Negro has a unique history in America, and every right to call their group whatever they want to call it, as do you. Having a million groups means having more than a million souls working together to end an evil and to implement good. All individuals and groups are invited to join to “Occupy America,” to establish, to restore and to maintain the legitimate egalitarian universally representative democratic government and natural viable society of natural peace, goodwill and cooperation among the people, social and economic equality, universal economy, full employment, full pay and full benefits and all human rights. The natural society of peace, goodwill and universal economy is ever at hand, within reach, attainable. Let no one convince you otherwise.