The Changed Ones

At an 1850 anti-slavery convention in Cazenovia, N.Y.,
from the left, Emily Edmonson; Theodosia Gilbert
(the fiance of William Chaplin, organizer of the
Pearl escape); Gerrit Smith, the abolitionist
who financed the Pearl escape; Frederick
Douglass, the anti-slavery orator and
chairman of the Fugitive Slave Law
Convention; and Mary Edmonson.

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure."

It was a difficult time for the nation. Once the subject of equality was in the public forum, the painful truth was there for all to see. Slavery was too wicked to ignore; people were being treated like farm animals. We engaged, head-on against those who would harness the lives of others exclusively for personal gain.

It's been 150 years since emancipation here, and that particular battle still isn't over.  Equality and justice are ancient principles, long contested. Lincoln's words point to the same struggle that ran like flood waters through Israel and Nazareth centuries before.

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

because he has anointed me

to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners

and recovery of sight for the blind,

to set the oppressed free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Radical words.  At the time, the land was held captive by Rome.  The people bore the Roman occupation as they had many others.  More than a thousand years had passed since the Kingdom of Israel was first established; conquerors and wars had come and gone and come again.  The proclamation recorded in Nazareth was made after nearly a century of Roman rule.  The years pass.  The diaspora begins ...

Misrepresentation

PRISM did not target US citizens, or so we're told by the NSA director. He said the program, authorized under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, targeted only Internet users outside of the U.S. “It cannot be used to intentionally target any U.S. citizen, any other U.S. person, or anyone located within the United States.”  Perhaps.  PRISM is just one of many programs.


Then we're told by the president and others that government surveillance targets only a small number of Americans, but that's not what the court order says.

The actual court order for just the Verizon probe says they are to deliver continually and on a daily basis all details for all calls (i) between the U.S. and abroad; or, (ii) wholly within the U.S.

That's ALL calls; every call.  If you have a Verizon phone or talk to someone who has a Verizon phone, you were part of the surveillance sample ordered by the court.  That's 144.8 millions customers, all day, every day.

That's just the Verizon case.  There will be similar court orders for AT&T and other carriers.

Responses are mixed.  The ALCU has filed a lawsuit.  Some folks are furious while others don't seem to mind being spied on.

This blog will be noticed by other government surveillance programs, I suppose.  But we knew that.

UPDATE JUL 4:  The French do the same thing.  It's illegal there too.  The operation is designed, say experts, to uncover terrorist cells. But the scale of it means that "anyone can be spied on, any time", Le Monde says.  Sound familiar?

Court order requiring Verizon to hand over all call data shows scale of domestic surveillance under Obama

Curious how it works?
You didn't know that there were secret collection centers installed by the government in the AT&T building and others.  They monitor pretty much everything including content.  Know what a fiber splitter is?
The battle in the courts (unnoticed, perhaps, by the media).

The Day of Fathers

The legacy we leave our children begins early with character, both ours and theirs.

Dad was a polite radical.  We lived in the south among old ideas about culture and race. Dad had been broadened a bit by the war, perhaps. He'd seen the real world before we settled in the south.  

Dad quietly refused the stereotypical role.  He pushed aside the cultural norms and made room emphatically for the marginalized folks.  We learned to love others by his example and instruction.  As a college professor, he had hundreds of students every year including a large a capella choir; he and mom were parents in situ to the lot of them, and groups of them were often in our home.  Young folks from every corner of the world were part of my life, thanks to him and his great heart.  I so hope to be like him.

Muito obrigado, papa.  :)

(He learned from his dad.  Help-bringers and world-changers start young.)

PRISM GOVERNMENT

Snowden's disclosure didn't surprise anyone who was paying attention. Anyone who wanted to know, did; and Snowden just confirmed a few troublesome details.  Emphasis on 'few'.  And Snowden is just the most recent NSA whistleblower.

Big data and data mining are not new.  The technology has been visible for a while, and attentive folks are aware that leading edge players in the world's industry and governments are pursuing the benefits thereof. No surprises there.  Next issue.

Whether you think spying is okay or not depends on if the spy is looking at you or somebody else.

Everyone in industry is aware of cybercrime, system hacking, identity misuse, account cracking.  We're aware that criminal cyber intrusion from outside the country occurs continuously, thousands of attempts per day conducted by individuals and groups.  What are the chances that intelligence agencies not doing their version of the same thing?  What are the chances you're not included in one data sample or another?

We know of NSA employees resigning formally for ethical reasons.  The actual number is classified, of course.  And as far as we know, their concerns are not addressed.  (Note the list in the top photo; look them up.)  That's troubling, of course.

Today, our concerns regarding the NSA are the agency's oversight, appropriate restraints, accountability and compliance.  The news is troubling, but it isn't 'new'.  The same questions have been with us for more than a decade.

We're told that there are sixteen federal agencies that collect data about citizens as part of this or that investigative initiative, by the way.  The NSA is just the one in the news today.  The concerns are perhaps national and law rather than agency centered.  Bloomberg reports, "U.S. Agencies Said to Swap Data With Thousands of Firms"

We long ago approved limits to our fourth amendment rights.  We are deliberately trading freedom for security.  We were warned against such creeping change a couple of centuries ago, but it appears that now is the time it gains some momentum.

What we find in NSA's activities are only frightening perhaps because of the scope and automation.  We know police can see our phone records if they have a reason to.  We know the feds can read our email if they run across it in the course of an investigation.  We don't worry that public security cameras can identify and track us.  We're ok with phone companies noting how many calls we make and putting our calling history on our bill.  What's spooked the masses, I suspect, is the 1984ish sense that large-scale, computerized processing brings to the picture.  Now, a robot can point at me.  Or you.

Remember the last time the government didn't overreach in such matters.  Me either.  Industry does the same, of course.  They can, so they do.

As unnerving as it might be that our multi-billion dollar semi-secret is spotlighted, finding that the U.S. citizenry is now broadly targeted for general surveillance is perhaps more so.  But not a surprise; not at all.

As Peter Christian Hall wrote in The Huffington Post in January 2010, a 1975 Senate committee investigating COINTELPRO found that the FBI, "...broke into homes and mailboxes; created bogus documents to frame targets as government informers; tried to break up marriages with anonymous letters, and jobs with secret tips to employers; sent letters encouraging violence between street gangs and the Black Panther Party; sought to stir up tax audits; and dispatched agents provocateurs to discredit antiwar groups with unpopular and unsuitable activities." 

And it was done to keep us safe.

Similar assaults have been perpetrated over the years on NSA whistleblowers.

If You're OK With Surveillance Because You Have "Nothing to Hide," Think Again

Using Metadata to Find Paul Revere

Excerpts from a tongue-in-cheek article on what metadata can reveal.  The suggestion that metadata is of little consequence when spying on citizens is, of course, a deliberate half-truth.  Either it is (1) significantly revealing, as has been emphasised by the government in its pursuit of criminals, or (2) it is not, as has been claimed by the government regarding the analysis of virtually all uninvolved and unsuspected citizens.

“Social Networke Analysis,” 

a small encroachment on freedom, identifies terrorists in the Colonies.

By Kieran Healy|Posted Monday, June 10, 2013, at 4:22 PM

The article originally appeared on Kieran Healy’s blog.

Read more on Slate about the NSA’s secret snooping programs.

London, 1772.

I have been asked by my superiors to give a brief demonstration of the surprising effectiveness of even the simplest techniques of the newfangled Social Networke Analysis in the pursuit of those who would seek to undermine the liberty enjoyed by His Majesty’s subjects. ... I shall also endeavour to show how these methods work in what might be called a relational manner.

...

Here is what the data look like.

...  So this Samuel Adams person (whoever he is) belongs to the North Caucus, the Long Room Club, the Boston Committee, and the London Enemies List. 

... I will simply start at the very beginning and follow a technique laid out in a beautiful paper by my brilliant former colleague, Mr Ron Breiger, called “The Duality of Persons and Groups.”...

At this point in the 18^th century, a 254x254 matrix is what we call Bigge Data.... Anyway:

...

Notice ... We did not start with a “social networke” as you might ordinarily think of it, where individuals are connected to other individuals. We started with a list of memberships in various organizations. But now suddenly we do have a social network of individuals, where a tie in the network is defined by co-membership in an organization. This is a powerful trick.

... This time, the result is a 7x7 “Organization by Organization” matrix, where the numbers in the cells represent how many people each organization has in common. ...

Again, interesting! (I beg to venture.) Instead of seeing how (and which) people are linked by their shared membership in organizations, we see which organizations are linked through the people that belong to them both. People are linked through the groups they belong to. Groups are linked through the people they share. ... Here’s what that looks like.

And, of course, we can also do that for the links between the people, using our 254x254 “Person by Person” table. Here is what that looks like.

 ... Look at that person right in the middle there. ... His name is Paul Revere.

Once again, I remind you that I know nothing of Mr Revere, .... All I know is this bit of metadata, based on membership in some organizations.  ... Here are the top betweenness scores for our list of suspected terrorists:

Perhaps I should not say terrorists so rashly. But you can see how tempting it is. ...  There is something called eigenvector centrality, ... Here are our top scorers on that measure:

Here our Mr Revere appears to score highly alongside a few other persons of interest. And for one last demonstration, a calculation of Bonacich Power Centrality, ....

And here again, Mr Revere—along with Messrs Urann, Proctor, and Barber—appear towards the top of our list.

The full article originally appeared on Kieran Healy’s blog.

Read more on Slate about the NSA’s secret snooping programs.

Motive?

Something is happening in Memphis; something is happening in our world. And you know, if I were standing at the beginning of time, with the possibility of taking a kind of general and panoramic view of the whole of human history up to now, and the Almighty said to me, "Martin Luther King, which age would you like to live in?" I would take my mental flight by Egypt and I would watch God's children in their magnificent trek from the dark dungeons of Egypt through, or rather across the Red Sea, through the wilderness on toward the promised land. And in spite of its magnificence, I wouldn't stop there.

I would go on, even to the great heyday of the Roman Empire. And I would see developments around there, through various emperors and leaders. But I wouldn't stop there.

I would even come up to the early thirties, and see a man grappling with the problems of the bankruptcy of his nation. And come with an eloquent cry that we have nothing to fear but "fear itself." But I wouldn't stop there.

And also in the human rights revolution, if something isn't done, and done in a hurry, to bring the colored peoples of the world out of their long years of poverty, their long years of hurt and neglect, the whole world is doomed. Now, I'm just happy that God has allowed me to live in this period to see what is unfolding. And I'm happy that He's allowed me to be in Memphis.

And also in the human rights revolution, if something isn't done, and done in a hurry, to bring the colored peoples of the world out of their long years of poverty, their long years of hurt and neglect, the whole world is doomed. Now, I'm just happy that God has allowed me to live in this period to see what is unfolding. And I'm happy that He's allowed me to be in Memphis.

I can remember -- I can remember when Negroes were just going around as Ralph has said, so often, scratching where they didn't itch, and laughing when they were not tickled. But that day is all over. We mean business now, and we are determined to gain our rightful place in God's world.
Secondly, let us keep the issues where they are. The issue is injustice. The issue is the refusal of Memphis to be fair and honest in its dealings with its public servants, who happen to be sanitation workers. Now, we've got to keep attention on that. That's always the problem with a little violence. You know what happened the other day, and the press dealt only with the window-breaking. I read the articles. They very seldom got around to mentioning the fact that one thousand, three hundred sanitation workers are on strike, and that Memphis is not being fair to them, and that Mayor Loeb is in dire need of a doctor. They didn't get around to that.

Now we're going to march again, and we've got to march again, in order to put the issue where it is supposed to be -- and force everybody to see that there are thirteen hundred of God's children here suffering, sometimes going hungry, going through dark and dreary nights wondering how this thing is going to come out. That's the issue. And we've got to say to the nation: We know how it's coming out. For when people get caught up with that which is right and they are willing to sacrifice for it, there is no stopping point short of victory.

Now we're going to march again, and we've got to march again, in order to put the issue where it is supposed to be -- and force everybody to see that there are thirteen hundred of God's children here suffering, sometimes going hungry, going through dark and dreary nights wondering how this thing is going to come out. That's the issue. And we've got to say to the nation: We know how it's coming out. For when people get caught up with that which is right and they are willing to sacrifice for it, there is no stopping point short of victory.

We need all of you. And you know what's beautiful to me is to see all of these ministers of the Gospel. It's a marvelous picture. Who is it that is supposed to articulate the longings and aspirations of the people more than the preacher? Somehow the preacher must have a kind of fire shut up in his bones. And whenever injustice is around he tell it. Somehow the preacher must be an Amos, and saith, "When God speaks who can but prophesy?" Again with Amos, "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." Somehow the preacher must say with Jesus, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me," and he's anointed me to deal with the problems of the poor."

We need all of you. And you know what's beautiful to me is to see all of these ministers of the Gospel. It's a marvelous picture. Who is it that is supposed to articulate the longings and aspirations of the people more than the preacher? Somehow the preacher must have a kind of fire shut up in his bones. And whenever injustice is around he tell it. Somehow the preacher must be an Amos, and saith, "When God speaks who can but prophesy?" Again with Amos, "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." Somehow the preacher must say with Jesus, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me," and he's anointed me to deal with the problems of the poor."Let us develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness. One day a man came to Jesus, and he wanted to raise some questions about some vital matters of life. At points he wanted to trick Jesus, and show him that he knew a little more than Jesus knew and throw him off base....

Let us develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness. One day a man came to Jesus, and he wanted to raise some questions about some vital matters of life. At points he wanted to trick Jesus, and show him that he knew a little more than Jesus knew and throw him off base....

Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation. And I want to thank God, once more, for allowing me to be here with you.

Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation. And I want to thank God, once more, for allowing me to be here with you.


We need all of you. And you know what's beautiful to me is to see all of these ministers of the Gospel. It's a marvelous picture. Who is it that is supposed to articulate the longings and aspirations of the people more than the preacher? Somehow the preacher must have a kind of fire shut up in his bones. And whenever injustice is around he tell it. Somehow the preacher must be an Amos, and saith, "When God speaks who can but prophesy?" Again with Amos, "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." Somehow the preacher must say with Jesus, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me," and he's anointed me to deal with the problems of the poor."


We need all of you. And you know what's beautiful to me is to see all of these ministers of the Gospel. It's a marvelous picture. Who is it that is supposed to articulate the longings and aspirations of the people more than the preacher? Somehow the preacher must have a kind of fire shut up in his bones. And whenever injustice is around he tell it. Somehow the preacher must be an Amos, and saith, "When God speaks who can but prophesy?" Again with Amos, "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." Somehow the preacher must say with Jesus, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me," and he's anointed me to deal with the problems of the poor."Let us develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness. One day a man came to Jesus, and he wanted to raise some questions about some vital matters of life. At points he wanted to trick Jesus, and show him that he knew a little more than Jesus knew and throw him off base....


Let us develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness. One day a man came to Jesus, and he wanted to raise some questions about some vital matters of life. At points he wanted to trick Jesus, and show him that he knew a little more than Jesus knew and throw him off base....


Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation. And I want to thank God, once more, for allowing me to be here with you.


Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation. And I want to thank God, once more, for allowing me to be here with you.


And then I got into Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers?
Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop.And then I got into Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers?Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop.Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop.  Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!

I would move on by Greece and take my mind to Mount Olympus. And I would see Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Euripides and Aristophanes assembled around the Parthenon. And I would watch them around the Parthenon as they discussed the great and eternal issues of reality. But I wouldn't stop there.

I would even come up to the day of the Renaissance, and get a quick picture of all that the Renaissance did for the cultural and aesthetic life of man. But I wouldn't stop there.

I would even go by the way that the man for whom I am named had his habitat. And I would watch Martin Luther as he tacked his ninety-five theses on the door at the church of Wittenberg. But I wouldn't stop there.

I would come on up even to 1863, and watch a vacillating President by the name of Abraham Lincoln finally come to the conclusion that he had to sign the Emancipation Proclamation. But I wouldn't stop there.

Strangely enough, I would turn to the Almighty, and say, "If you allow me to live just a few years in the second half of the 20th century, I will be happy."

Now that's a strange statement to make, because the world is all messed up. The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land; confusion all around. That's a strange statement. But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. And I see God working in this period of the twentieth century in a way that men, in some strange way, are responding.

Something is happening in our world. The masses of people are rising up. And wherever they are assembled today, whether they are in Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya; Accra, Ghana; New York City; Atlanta, Georgia; Jackson, Mississippi; or Memphis, Tennessee -- the cry is always the same: "We want to be free."

And another reason that I'm happy to live in this period is that we have been forced to a point where we are going to have to grapple with the problems that men have been trying to grapple with through history, but the demands didn't force them to do it. Survival demands that we grapple with them. Men, for years now, have been talking about war and peace. But now, no longer can they just talk about it. It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world; it's nonviolence or nonexistence. That is where we are today.

And that's all this whole thing is about. We aren't engaged in any negative protest and in any negative arguments with anybody. We are saying that we are determined to be men. We are determined to be people. We are saying -- We are saying that we are God's children. And that we are God's children, we don't have to live like we are forced to live.

Now, what does all of this mean in this great period of history? It means that we've got to stay together. We've got to stay together and maintain unity. You know, whenever Pharaoh wanted to prolong the period of slavery in Egypt, he had a favorite, favorite formula for doing it. What was that? He kept the slaves fighting among themselves. But whenever the slaves get together, something happens in Pharaoh's court, and he cannot hold the slaves in slavery. When the slaves get together, that's the beginning of getting out of slavery. Now let us maintain unity.

We aren't going to let any mace stop us. We are masters in our nonviolent movement in disarming police forces; they don't know what to do. I've seen them so often. I remember in Birmingham, Alabama, when we were in that majestic struggle there, we would move out of the 16th Street Baptist Church day after day; by the hundreds we would move out. And Bull Connor would tell them to send the dogs forth, and they did come; but we just went before the dogs singing, "Ain't gonna let nobody turn me around."

Bull Connor next would say, "Turn the fire hoses on." And as I said to you the other night, Bull Connor didn't know history. He knew a kind of physics that somehow didn't relate to the transphysics that we knew about. And that was the fact that there was a certain kind of fire that no water could put out. And we went before the fire hoses; we had known water. If we were Baptist or some other denominations, we had been immersed. If we were Methodist, and some others, we had been sprinkled, but we knew water. That couldn't stop us.

And we just went on before the dogs and we would look at them; and we'd go on before the water hoses and we would look at it, and we'd just go on singing "Over my head I see freedom in the air." And then we would be thrown in the paddy wagons, and sometimes we were stacked in there like sardines in a can. And they would throw us in, and old Bull would say, "Take 'em off," and they did; and we would just go in the paddy wagon singing, "We Shall Overcome." And every now and then we'd get in jail, and we'd see the jailers looking through the windows being moved by our prayers, and being moved by our words and our songs. And there was a power there which Bull Connor couldn't adjust to; and so we ended up transforming Bull into a steer, and we won our struggle in Birmingham. Now we've got to go on in Memphis just like that. I call upon you to be with us when we go out Monday.

Now about injunctions: We have an injunction and we're going into court tomorrow morning to fight this illegal, unconstitutional injunction. All we say to America is, "Be true to what you said on paper." If I lived in China or even Russia, or any totalitarian country, maybe I could understand some of these illegal injunctions. Maybe I could understand the denial of certain basic First Amendment privileges, because they hadn't committed themselves to that over there. But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right. And so just as I say, we aren't going to let dogs or water hoses turn us around, we aren't going to let any injunction turn us around. We are going on.

And I want to commend the preachers, under the leadership of these noble men: James Lawson, one who has been in this struggle for many years; he's been to jail for struggling; he's been kicked out of Vanderbilt University for this struggle, but he's still going on, fighting for the rights of his people. Reverend Ralph Jackson, Billy Kiles; I could just go right on down the list, but time will not permit. But I want to thank all of them. And I want you to thank them, because so often, preachers aren't concerned about anything but themselves. And I'm always happy to see a relevant ministry.

It's all right to talk about "long white robes over yonder," in all of its symbolism. But ultimately people want some suits and dresses and shoes to wear down here! It's all right to talk about "streets flowing with milk and honey," but God has commanded us to be concerned about the slums down here, and his children who can't eat three square meals a day. It's all right to talk about the new Jerusalem, but one day, God's preacher must talk about the new New York, the new Atlanta, the new Philadelphia, the new Los Angeles, the new Memphis, Tennessee. This is what we have to do.

Now the other thing we'll have to do is this: Always anchor our external direct action with the power of economic withdrawal. Now, we are poor people. Individually, we are poor when you compare us with white society in America. We are poor. Never stop and forget that collectively -- that means all of us together -- collectively we are richer than all the nations in the world, with the exception of nine. Did you ever think about that? After you leave the United States, Soviet Russia, Great Britain, West Germany, France, and I could name the others, the American Negro collectively is richer than most nations of the world. We have an annual income of more than thirty billion dollars a year, which is more than all of the exports of the United States, and more than the national budget of Canada. Did you know that? That's power right there, if we know how to pool it.

We don't have to argue with anybody. We don't have to curse and go around acting bad with our words. We don't need any bricks and bottles. We don't need any Molotov cocktails. We just need to go around to these stores, and to these massive industries in our country, and say, "God sent us by here, to say to you that you're not treating his children right. And we've come by here to ask you to make the first item on your agenda fair treatment, where God's children are concerned. Now, if you are not prepared to do that, we do have an agenda that we must follow. And our agenda calls for withdrawing economic support from you."

And so, as a result of this, we are asking you tonight, to go out and tell your neighbors not to buy Coca-Cola in Memphis. Go by and tell them not to buy Sealtest milk. Tell them not to buy -- what is the other bread? -- Wonder Bread. And what is the other bread company, Jesse? Tell them not to buy Hart's bread. As Jesse Jackson has said, up to now, only the garbage men have been feeling pain; now we must kind of redistribute the pain. We are choosing these companies because they haven't been fair in their hiring policies; and we are choosing them because they can begin the process of saying they are going to support the needs and the rights of these men who are on strike. And then they can move on town -- downtown and tell Mayor Loeb to do what is right.

But not only that, we've got to strengthen black institutions. I call upon you to take your money out of the banks downtown and deposit your money in Tri-State Bank. We want a "bank-in" movement in Memphis. Go by the savings and loan association. I'm not asking you something that we don't do ourselves at SCLC. Judge Hooks and others will tell you that we have an account here in the savings and loan association from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. We are telling you to follow what we are doing. Put your money there. You have six or seven black insurance companies here in the city of Memphis. Take out your insurance there. We want to have an "insurance-in."

Now these are some practical things that we can do. We begin the process of building a greater economic base. And at the same time, we are putting pressure where it really hurts. I ask you to follow through here.

Now, let me say as I move to my conclusion that we've got to give ourselves to this struggle until the end. Nothing would be more tragic than to stop at this point in Memphis. We've got to see it through. And when we have our march, you need to be there. If it means leaving work, if it means leaving school -- be there. Be concerned about your brother. You may not be on strike. But either we go up together, or we go down together.

Now that question could have easily ended up in a philosophical and theological debate. But Jesus immediately pulled that question from mid-air, and placed it on a dangerous curve between Jerusalem and Jericho. And he talked about a certain man, who fell among thieves. You remember that a Levite and a priest passed by on the other side. They didn't stop to help him. And finally a man of another race came by. He got down from his beast, decided not to be compassionate by proxy. But he got down with him, administered first aid, and helped the man in need. Jesus ended up saying, this was the good man, this was the great man, because he had the capacity to project the "I" into the "thou," and to be concerned about his brother.

Now you know, we use our imagination a great deal to try to determine why the priest and the Levite didn't stop. At times we say they were busy going to a church meeting, an ecclesiastical gathering, and they had to get on down to Jerusalem so they wouldn't be late for their meeting. At other times we would speculate that there was a religious law that "One who was engaged in religious ceremonials was not to touch a human body twenty-four hours before the ceremony." And every now and then we begin to wonder whether maybe they were not going down to Jerusalem -- or down to Jericho, rather to organize a "Jericho Road Improvement Association." That's a possibility. Maybe they felt that it was better to deal with the problem from the causal root, rather than to get bogged down with an individual effect.

But I'm going to tell you what my imagination tells me. It's possible that those men were afraid. You see, the Jericho road is a dangerous road. I remember when Mrs. King and I were first in Jerusalem. We rented a car and drove from Jerusalem down to Jericho. And as soon as we got on that road, I said to my wife, "I can see why Jesus used this as the setting for his parable." It's a winding, meandering road. It's really conducive for ambushing. You start out in Jerusalem, which is about 1200 miles -- or rather 1200 feet above sea level. And by the time you get down to Jericho, fifteen or twenty minutes later, you're about 2200 feet below sea level. That's a dangerous road. In the days of Jesus it came to be known as the "Bloody Pass." And you know, it's possible that the priest and the Levite looked over that man on the ground and wondered if the robbers were still around. Or it's possible that they felt that the man on the ground was merely faking. And he was acting like he had been robbed and hurt, in order to seize them over there, lure them there for quick and easy seizure. And so the first question that the priest asked -- the first question that the Levite asked was, "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?"

That's the question before you tonight. Not, "If I stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to my job. Not, "If I stop to help the sanitation workers what will happen to all of the hours that I usually spend in my office every day and every week as a pastor?" The question is not, "If I stop to help this man in need, what will happen to me?" The question is, "If I do not stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to them?" That's the question.

You know, several years ago, I was in New York City autographing the first book that I had written. And while sitting there autographing books, a demented black woman came up. The only question I heard from her was, "Are you Martin Luther King?" And I was looking down writing, and I said, "Yes." And the next minute I felt something beating on my chest. Before I knew it I had been stabbed by this demented woman. I was rushed to Harlem Hospital. It was a dark Saturday afternoon. And that blade had gone through, and the X-rays revealed that the tip of the blade was on the edge of my aorta, the main artery. And once that's punctured, your drowned in your own blood -- that's the end of you.

Well, about four days later, they allowed me, after the operation, after my chest had been opened, and the blade had been taken out, to move around in the wheel chair in the hospital. They allowed me to read some of the mail that came in, and from all over the states and the world, kind letters came in. I read a few, but one of them I will never forget. I had received one from the President and the Vice-President. I've forgotten what those telegrams said. I'd received a visit and a letter from the Governor of New York, but I've forgotten what that letter said. But there was another letter that came from a little girl, a young girl who was a student at the White Plains High School. And I looked at that letter, and I'll never forget it. It said simply,

Dear Dr. King,

I am a ninth-grade student at the White Plains High School."

And she said,

While it should not matter, I would like to mention that I'm a white girl. I read in the paper of your misfortune, and of your suffering. And I read that if you had sneezed, you would have died. And I'm simply writing you to say that I'm so happy that you didn't sneeze.

And I want to say tonight -- I want to say tonight that I too am happy that I didn't sneeze. Because if I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around here in 1960, when students all over the South started sitting-in at lunch counters. And I knew that as they were sitting in, they were really standing up for the best in the American dream, and taking the whole nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around here in 1961, when we decided to take a ride for freedom and ended segregation in inter-state travel.

If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around here in 1962, when Negroes in Albany, Georgia, decided to straighten their backs up. And whenever men and women straighten their backs up, they are going somewhere, because a man can't ride your back unless it is bent.

If I had sneezed -- If I had sneezed I wouldn't have been here in 1963, when the black people of Birmingham, Alabama, aroused the conscience of this nation, and brought into being the Civil Rights Bill.

If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have had a chance later that year, in August, to try to tell America about a dream that I had had.

If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been down in Selma, Alabama, to see the great movement there.

If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been in Memphis to see a community rally around those brothers and sisters who are suffering.

I'm so happy that I didn't sneeze.

And they were telling me --. Now, it doesn't matter, now. It really doesn't matter what happens now. I left Atlanta this morning, and as we got started on the plane, there were six of us. The pilot said over the public address system, "We are sorry for the delay, but we have Dr. Martin Luther King on the plane. And to be sure that all of the bags were checked, and to be sure that nothing would be wrong with on the plane, we had to check out everything carefully. And we've had the plane protected and guarded all night."

And I don't mind.
And so I'm happy, tonight.

I'm not worried about anything.
I'm not fearing any man!
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!!

King spoke on April 3, 1968.  He was murdered the next day.

If today were my last, what would be remembered?

Have I found my place and taken a stand?

Is my motive worth remembering?

Inhabit the land.

Courage to live comes with right thinking.

It's not for self; that's anger or perhaps greed.
It's not for vengeance; that's murder disguised.
It's not for judgement; that's a fool's self-righteousness.

It's right thinking that gives root to courage.  Real courage, anyway.

Jump in, we're told.  Set your heart on understanding, not winning.  If you make insight your priority and won't take no for an answer, pursuing it like a prospector panning for gold, you'll find it.  Understanding, insight, wisdom, real truth, bought at a price and worth it all.

Then, and perhaps only then, you can pick out what's true and just, and find all the good paths.  Wisdom will be your friend, and knowledge your brother as you make your way.  Good sense will scout the trail ahead for danger, and insight will keep an eye on things; they'll keep you from making the wrong turns.  They'll keep you from following the direction of those who themselves are lost and can't tell a trail from a trap, those losers who make a game of doing evil and throw parties to celebrate their corruption.  They travel paths that go nowhere, wandering a maze of detours and dead ends.  They'll see, and so will you.

So then - join the company of good men and women, stay on the true paths.  Pour out your life on that which is right and good.  It's the men who walk straight who will inhabit this land, and the women of integrity who will endure here.

The corrupt will lose their lives and everything else in the end, and be gone.

Pv.2.

Whatever it was that he saw, it was not a gentle occasion.

It makes sense in a distantly understandable way.

In the earliest years among the Abrahamic tribes, if you fell on hard times, you might lose your land and your family's livelihood.  The equivalent of modern bankruptcy, the legal process took title to your land and transferred it to a buyer.  You had the right to buy back your land, and the terms were recorded in a cover document that was attached to the deed, such as,  “Redemption requires payment of 10,000…” The deed and redemption document were rolled up and fastened with a seal of some sort.

Now if a relative of yours came to town and found you in bankruptcy, he might bail you out and restore your land by buying it back as described in the redemption document.  That kinsman would go to the keeper of records, probably at the temple, and make claim to the property by fulfilling the requirements.  The deed and redemption document could be unsealed if you or your kinsman came and claimed the land by paying the stated price.  Thus, the kinsman redeemer.

So later when the apostle John writes about seeing the sealed scroll, it makes a little more sense.  We can perhaps understand his weeping when no one could open the seals.  He saw the deed and redemption document for everything which mankind had lost, and it was all lost forever; and he wept.  

Then, this kinsman redeemer came to open the seals and pay the price for everything that had been taken from mankind so many years before.  In a practical, non-religious way, it does make sense.

The way John tells it … and you have to try visualize what he saw, all the way through ...

I saw a scroll in the right hand of the one seated on the throne. It was written on both sides and fastened with seven seals. I saw another who stood forward, calling out in a voice like thunder, "Is there anyone who can open the scroll, who can break its seals?” But there wasn't anyone able to break open the scroll and read it.

I wept in pain that no one was found to open the scroll, to break the seals.
I wept, until one of the elders said, “Don’t weep. Look - the lion from tribe Judah has conquered. He can open the scroll, he can break the seven seals.”

So I looked, and there was a lamb, slaughtered but standing tall. He came to the one seated on the throne and took the scroll from his right hand. In that moment, the four creatures and twenty-four elders bowed down and worshiped him. Each had an instrument and each had a gold bowl filled with incense, the prayers of holy people. Then with great voices, they sang:

Worthy! Take the scroll and open its seals.
Slain! Paying in blood, you bought men and women,
Bought them back from all over the earth,
Bought them back for God.
Then you made them a kingdom, priests for our God,
To rule the earth!

I looked again. I heard a company of angels around the throne, the creatures and the elders - ten thousand times ten thousand their number, thousand after thousand after thousand in great song:

The slain lamb is worthy!
Take the power, the wealth, the wisdom, the strength!
Take the honor, the glory, the blessing!

Then I heard every creature in heaven and earth and in underworld and sea, all joining in, all voices in all places, singing:

To the One on the Throne! To the Lamb!
The blessing,
The honor,
The glory,
The strength,
For age after age after age!

The four great creatures shouted out, “So It Is!” The elders fell to their knees and worshiped. 

So it is, in John’s describing of what he saw  ... everything that was lost is redeemed by the only one qualified, the only one who could pay the price.

That’s not so hard to grasp objectively, I guess. Huge, though. 

And as for what he actually saw ... we can hardly imagine. Whatever it was that he saw, it was not a gentle occasion.