Jackson column: King's concepts shape today's movements

“What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again: there is nothing new under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:9 )

As 2010 ended and 2011 began, the world witnessed the birth of uprisings in the Middle East known as the Arab-Spring or Arab Awakening. This paradigm shift commenced on Saturday, Dec. 18, 2010 and continues today in Syria, Yemen, and Egypt. The people of these nations are standing together to demand an end to the tyrannical rule of ruthless dictators.

Nationally the Occupy Movement emerged in New York City’s Zuccotti Park last September and spread across the United States. While no clear cut agenda is yet evident, the protesters have embraced the slogan, “We are the 99 percent,” in reference to the imbalance of capital between the wealthiest one percent of America and the middle class and poorest citizens.

Eighty-three years after the birth of Martin Luther King Jr. I’m reminded of the movements of the previous century that give momentum to the current climate of civil protest. So much of what we witness in real time today can be linked to the great labor union uprisings like the Battle of Blair Mountain in Logan County, West Virginia in 1921.

The Occupy Movement also reminds me of Pan Africanism or Garveyism led by Jamaican born Marcus Mosiah Garvey. The United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) was embraced by up to 4 million blacks who took to the streets of Americas’ urban centers in 1922, demanding the redemption of the Mother Land by her African diaspora.

The international ground swell of the proletariat standing united against the status quo is fueled by the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1954, led by the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA). The Occupy Wall Street campaign this fall is the grandson of the Greensboro Lunch Counter sit-ins led by students at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical University (NCAT) in 1960.

The mass arrest of peaceful protesters practicing civil disobedience in New York, Philadelphia, Charlotte, and Oakland take me to Selma, Alabama and Albany, Georgia in the spring of 1965. Freedom Riders crowding on to Greyhound buses riding into the segregated south remind me of the citizens of Wisconsin who had to be carried out of the State House at Madison last summer.

History connects generations with a seemingly endless thread of similar events. We sometime refer to this as deja vu or a dream once known.

Can we compare the messages of todays’ social uprisings with the timeless, prophetic oratory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.? Of course we can. There is nothing new under the sun. This generation of technological, savvy social activist, are vicariously standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in the hot August sunshine with Martin declaring, “We too have a dream. A dream of equality, physically, socially, and economically.”

The same message that the sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee shouted to the world in April, 1968 is being replayed and echoed by organizers, occupiers, and the downtrodden of our communities. “We want our nation to rise up and live out the true meaning of her creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.”

Dr. George B. Jackson is founder and chairman of the Martin Luther King Social Action Committee.