January 21, 2013

Previously unreleased interviews with Dr. Martin Luther King

Great article on PBS- with tapes previously unreleased. Worth listening to!

Thank you MLK!
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WNYC Archives & Preservation
Previously Unreleased Interviews with The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
WNYC History Notes

By Eleanor Sandra Fischer / Andy Lanset : Director of Archives, New York Public Radio

On November 22, 1961 a radio reporter named Eleanor Fischer* interviewed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Atlanta. She was producing a documentary series on Dr. King and that southern city for the CBC called Project 62. She spoke to him again in late 1966 and early 1967. Fischer's raw interviews were given to the New York Public Radio Archives by her estate after she died in 2008 at the age of 73. As far as we know, these unedited interviews have never been presented in their entirety until now.

In this first interview tape above, Dr. King talks about growing up in Atlanta and the reasons for his decision (after considering medicine) to join the ministry. He recounts his first awareness of racism at the age of five and his mother's efforts to explain why things were this way without conveying a sense of inferiority or loss of dignity. King describes how he arrived in Montgomery, Alabama. He had long been concerned about racial injustice and wanted to be part of solving this problem in the South. He details his church's efforts to combat the clergy's prevailing political apathy by setting up political action committees, encouraging membership in the NAACP and other civil rights organizations, and trying to increase awareness of the "social gospel."

The 32-year-old civil rights leader tells Fischer how he came to embrace non-violent resistance, first through Jesus and then by reading about Gandhi. He explains that it was with the beginning of the Montgomery bus boycott in December, 1955 that he felt he could put the theory of non-violent resistance into practice. Dr. King views Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 as a legal and psychological turning point for the civil rights movement, which he considers a part of a worldwide struggle.

Listen here:
http://www.wnyc.org/blogs/archives/2013/jan/15/previously-unreleased-interviews-reverend-dr-martin-luther-king-jr/

January 9, 2013

Is right-to-work Pure Michigan? New Pure Michigan ad says so

Disgusting- the State of Michigan is now running a new ad touting the new "right-to-work" law passed and just signed into law.

No- it's not "Pure Michigan", but lots of folks are angry tax-payer dollars are being used to advertise right-to-work.

The state of Michigan wasted no time in touting its upcoming status as a right-to-work state in a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday. The ad declares that Michigan has made history, and goes on to say:

“Michigan is the newest Right-to-Work state. This once-in-a generation transformation has Michigan poised to become a preferred place to do business.”

Although it throws salt into a pretty raw wound, the decision to buy the ad certainly makes sense -- get in front of a global audience making business decisions. The state waves low business taxes, the end of the personal property tax, and its move to neutralize unions in front of CEOs in hopes that they’ll bite. We’re all watching that process closely to see if they do.

And it would have been just fine if the state stopped there. But it placed the “Pure Michigan,” logo at the bottom of the ad, and ends its pitch with this sentiment: “The perfect storm of opportunity, resources and passion is Pure Michigan.”

Pure Michigan highlights many great things about Michigan including our lakes, the Detroit auto show and the tourist destinations across our state. Things we can all agree are good for Michigan. That’s one of the reasons why the campaign is so popular. It has more than 420,000 Facebook fans and more than 43,000 followers on Twitter, where the #puremichigan hashtag, for the most part, is synonymous with beauty.

Right-to-work advocates may argue that the WSJ ad features one positive on top of another. But this issue has divided our state, and by connecting right-to-work to Pure Michigan, it politicizes a distinctly positive, politically neutral campaign that encourages state pride. It’s disappointing that the state decided to tie Pure Michigan to an issue that has torn Michigan apart.

What do you think. Is right-to-work Pure Michigan?

Read the article here:

http://www.freep.com/article/20130109/BLOG2509/130108116
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Or make your OWN FACEBOOK COMMENT On the Pure Michigan facebook page here:

https://www.facebook.com/puremichigan