The Wrong Side of History

 Watching the candidacy of Barak Obama one can't help but wonder what Dr. King would have thought of this man.  Is this the King Dream come true?  I have heard many compare Obama to Dr. King, to John F. Kennedy and if you believe some Jesus or even a great prophet. 

 As a student of the Civil Rights Movement one thing I was surprised to discover was that although Dr. King gained worldly recognition and acclaim for the civil rights movement there was still a huge number of Black clergy and leaders in Atlanta that refused to support him.  They saw Dr. King as being a negative influence on lower class Negros.  He was called a rebel-rouser, an agitator, and predicted his sit-ins and protests would endanger the lives of law abiding Negros. His stance against the Vietnam War  and his pending Poor Peoples Campaign only helped to alienate him further from those leaders.  I imagine J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI rejoiced when these same leaders preached the lies and propaganda about King being a Communist.   

 It is easy now, to look back and see that Dr. King was in fact a visionary. A man whose vision was broader and deeper than many of those old preachers and leaders could believe possible.  And for that, they will forever remain on the wrong side of history.

 My Mother always says, "Hindsight is 20/20"  a saying we've all heard before that means after the fact it's much easier to judge the proper course of action.  I believe some of those leaders really thought they were doing the right thing.  They truly believed the civil rights movement was not well thought out,  that it couldn't work, and that there would be a severe White backlash.  Remember many of these men had spent 30 to 60 years in a society where  lynching and Jim Crow was the norm. 

 So, with that in mind, I do not condemn those Blacks that didn't side with Dr. King. The fact is, there was a reason many of the civil rights leaders, workers and volunteers of that era were young.  They were the ones with almost nothing to loose.  If you have a family and a good job, or a business, or a growing church would you risk it all for a civil rights movement that may never materialize and in fact may blow up in your face? I wonder how many of my generation would have volunteered to be a freedom rider and spend a month in a Mississippi prison.  How many of my generation would have risked loosing a good paying job to organize and register people to vote, keeping in mind, there would be no assurances, guarantees about the future.  Would you have been on the right side of history?

 If you think about it, I mean really consider it, it's not an easy question.

 Now, it's my time to decide which side of history I will be on.   I have heard people tell me not to vote for Obama just cause he is Black.  Others call him a socialist. He will raise my taxes. He is a Muslim. He is an appeaser. He will destroy this country.  Believe me, I have heard it all.  (I will address all these in future blogs)

 But in reality my choice is much easier than the Black leaders in King's day.   I don't have to face police lines with vicious dogs.  There are no country sheriffs waiting to pull my car over on a dark dirt road.  Supporting Obama "probably" won't cost me my job (grin-we will see).  The FBI is  not going to wire tap my phones and spread lies about me to the media.  

 That's not to say my support for Obama doesn't have it's negative consequences.  I know who I work for and I know who our listeners are.  I have already received too many "disappointed in you Royal" emails.  Actually, I don't even bother to read them anymore.  Those emailers are of the same category as the fearful and short sighted leaders that opposed Dr. King.   I do not expect them to understand.  As the campaign draws on I expect the rhetoric to heat up and the "disappointment" emails will stack up, but I will stand with Obama win or loose. 

 Obama has already made history by becoming the presumptive nominee for the 2008 Democratic Party Presidential Campaign.  There are those that will vote for  him simply because he is Black, but there are also many in this country (see W. Virgina) who would never vote for a Black Man.  There is ignorance in both points of view. But the fact is, Obama is more than just a Black Man.  He is THE  Man.  If he wins in November, I want so say I was with him from the start. 

 I'm voting for Obama  for many reasons, but the main reason is so that 20 years from now, when my daughter is old enough to understand history, I can look her in the eyes and say,

"Yes,  I was on the right side of history"