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I cannot close without stressing the urgent need for strong, courageous and intelligent leadership from the Negro community. We need a leadership that is calm and yet positive. This is no day for the rabble-rouser, whether he be Negro or white. (All right) We must realize that we are grappling with the most weighty social problem of this nation, and in grappling with such a complex problem there is no place for misguided emotionalism. (All right, That’s right) We must work passionately and unrelentingly for the goal of freedom, but we must be sure that our hands are clean in the struggle. We must never struggle with falsehood, hate, or malice. We must never become bitter. I know how we feel sometime. There is the danger that those of us who have been forced so long to stand amid the tragic midnight of oppression—those of us who have been trampled over, those of us who have been kicked about—there is the danger that we will become bitter. But if we will become bitter and indulge in hate campaigns, the new order which is emerging will be nothing but a duplication of the old order. (Yeah, That's all right)
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As we look over the civil rights work done in the LGBT community, does it meet the following tests:
1) Is it strong, courageous and intelligent?
2) Is it calm and yet positive?
3) Is it free of rabble-rousing and misguided emotionalism?
4) Are we working passionately and unrelentingly for the goal of freedom?
5) Is our struggle free of falsehood, hate, and malice?
6) Are our hearts free of bitterness?
7) Are we avoiding indulgence in hate campaigns?
If you look at
Americans for Truth, it fails on all seven counts. Unfortunately, if you look at the LGBT blogosphere that responds to organizations like Americans for Truth, it also fails many of the tests above. We just can't stoop to doing civil rights like AFT.
And then there was the recent debacle by the HRC. Did they show strong, courageous and intelligent leadership in flip-flopping about the "T" in LGBT (ENDA)? Now the transgender community is splintering from the LGB and attempting to form their own organizations.
I think this is why we need to listen to MLK. We need the sustained, intelligent, disciplined perspective he brought to civil rights activism.