On MLK and greatest leader list debate: This discussion has a sports feel to it with MLK’s use of “the media” taking the place of today’s athlete taking advantage of “better training and medicine”. If this is the case, then we might have to wonder what Marcus Garvey could have done had he had videotape of the huge crowds that he drew as well as video of the oppressive nature of the 1920s…

Mizzo, it doesn’t have to be a young Ralph Wiley. I just used “young” to mirror the time of Wiley’s hiring first by SI after the Oakland Tribune as opposed to a 40-something Wiley that ESPN hired in his latter years. My take on ESPN today is that his talent might have been a secondary commodity to his “vast readership”. I ask the question because ESPN is a vastly different animal then it used to be.

“It’s all about advancing thought for me personally.”

“Advancing thought” is a good way to put it.
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“The problem they face is that everyone is either a former player or a journalism major. This means no one has any content knowledge beyond the discipline of “the job.”

T3, Never quite thought of it that way, but that seems to make sense.

Thanks for the educational discussion. Made me go back and re-read some MLK Jr.

I believe I understand the point you’re making about Dr. King and I agree with it 100%. He is similar to Louis Armstrong. When most people, those who are not Jazz fans, think of Pops, they think of the ambassador, the old dude, grinnin’ and singing “Hello Dolly,” or “What a Wonderful World.” But those recordings don’t even register a blip in the real history and influence of Mr. Armstrong. His place in history as America’s Mozart was secured decades before, in about an 8 year period when he was virtually inventing Jazz and American singing all at once with his Hot 5′s and hot 7′s recordings. Louis was beyond cutting edge, beyond bluesy, beyond dangerous and beyond brilliant. His playing in those days had almost no relationship to his playing from about 1935 on.

So it is with Dr. King. MOST people remember him for the speech in Washington and for his dedication to non-violence. But as you correctly point out, his greatness transcended that and moved into the revolutionary. I won’t even argue the case that he wasn’t in many ways the descendent of Garvey and Muhammad because he cdearly was. I also won’t argue the case that his timing didn’t help make him.

Mr Randolph was a political figure and leader of the sort of Dr. King no doubt. And I take nothing away from him when I say that his timing was better thsn for instance Frederick Douglas, but worse than MLK’s. Still, I think Dr. Kings accomplishments as a political, social and spritual leader place him in a unique position unoccupied and unapproached by any American ever.

I will take issue to one aspect of your post and it’s only because one of my favorite topics is the legal history of the US regarding the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments, the useages of those amendments to achieve ends that the authors of those amendments never considered, to achieve protections for groups far outside the scope of the original intent and ultimately the history of the rulings that led to “Brown.”

I don’t think there is more than a parenthetical and temporal relationship between A. Philip Randolph’s extremely political Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters agitation and the extremely legally based assault on Plessy.

I look at that campign that has at it’s roots two lines that converged. The first being “The Garland Fund” leading to the “Margold Report” which not only outlined the broad general strategy to be used to tear down Plessy, but also urged the implementation of that assault. The second was the existence of Charles Houston, who, after re-invigorating Howard Law School, recruiting the cadre of young people who would fight the legal baltles for 2 decades, recommending Nathan Margold to the NAACP in order to design the strategy, eventually was recruited by Walter White to lead the LDF. It is the transection of those two lines of events, which I believe, set into motion the events that led to end of Jim Crow.

All in all, I think we agree on almost everything and disagree on superficial events and their relative importance, but agree philosophically to a high degree.

It’s always good to be challenged to re-consider long held beliefs.

Thanks.

1) Listen again to King’s speech in 1967 at Riverside Church re: the Vietnam War.

2) Listen and read his last public address. April 1968 – Memphis. Check my blog. I have a fairly detailed post on this speech. It’s called King’s Nationalist Moment.

3) Re-read “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?”

The man who delivered those speeches and wrote that book is not the same man who was on the podium in 1963. In fact, the reason the CRM was as successful as it was was in part because it hard the support of American big business. I’m glad you mentioned television – because it’s not as if A. Philip Randolph whose labor agitation (for grown folk) laid the foundation for the serial lawsuits vs. the Supreme Court (on behalf of children) would have eschewed television. It wasn’t an option for him in the early 1940′s — but it was enough for him to get a President to desegregate the armed forces of the United States of America — because he threatened to MARCH ON WASHINGTON.

When Rustin, Young and others (including Dr. King) actually conducted the march in 1963, the timing could not have been better. The world had seen images of white brutality — in the American South and in Africa, as well. The US was not the only place which was being subjected to a revolutionary time. In fact, the funding by corporations, leadership by non-blacks greatly circumscribed the movement…it’s why the unfinished agenda of the CRM is so vast. When King was killed, many of his former allies had deserted him.

When you think of his “influence,” are you thinking of the influence of his priorities as he expressed them after 1965…or are you thinking of what he said on the podium? If it’s the latter, I’m afraid he wasn’t nearly as influential as you imagine. King called for Black unity – especially with respect to economics…he wanted Black folk to strengthen Black financial institutions and also to avoid the moral pitfalls to which so much of white America had succumbed. That part of his agenda — the unfunded part — was not NEARLY as successful as the subsidized part…the part that enabled Democrats to create a viable Southern Strategy and allowed the nation to avert embarrassing images from home as they pitched “Democracy Colonialization” abroad.

King was a complex, dynamic leader whose greatest desires were very closely aligned to those of Marcus Garvey, Elijah Muhammad and others, but his legacy with respect to those wishes simply isn’t comparable. No television, no CRM. Now that people are so used to violence, even images of death and dying won’t galvanize a people to action. The CRM would have been like Darfur were it not for cameras.

James Baldwin wrote an excellent piece on Faulkner and Desegregation that is worth reading because he strips white Southerners butt-ass naked psychologically. It struck me quite clearly how the impact of an entirely new medium was essential to transforming the South. It wasn’t merely our struggling. We’d been doing that since the 1500′s (We were here LONG BEFORE 1620 and Jamestown.) We’re talking about Black Anti-Terrorism Strategies and Tactics. Dr. King exists along a continuum of activists and organizers — and he became the face of a movement he only assisted in orchestrating.

Check it out.

Finally, I’d say given where we are with the domestic challenges to US war hegemony, King would be saddened to say the least. The people have just been robbed of $700B and they’re smiling. The US military spends $623B; the rest of the world spends $500B (COMBINED). The US war machine is more advanced than ever.

Holla back.

I see and agree with your main thesis although we will continue to have to disagree with the analysis of effect of various figures.

I chose King Jr. because his use of the media and his ability to connect to that higher being in all of us reverberates to this day, in city after city, state after state and nation after nation, because he was able to unite black and white in a common cause of Justice and fairness and peace, which, despite my sometimes war-like stance, I still hope we can seek, because ultimately, he his vision is one that can possibly save the Human race if we’re smart enough to pursue it.

I chose DuBois because he is ultimately, the spiritual father to every single black American who has ever taken the path to higher learning, because his example in how we need to see ourselvess, I believe, influenced everyone that came after including virtually everyone in the discussion and because his work as an academician, institutional leader and intellectual father is overwhelming in it’s influence.

Houston for obvious reasons. The LDF, Taking Howard Law school from a night-time unaccredated school to the greatest constotutional law program in the nation, recruiting and training Thurgood Marshall, Spottswood Robinson, Oliver Hill et al, his 20 year assault on Plessy etc, justifies his position on my list.

At least you have a list and that’s a starting point.

I’d be interested to hear about why your list looks the way that it does and what criteria you applied. I feel like Mizzo did something on this awhile back…I forget the order that I had, but my criteria precluded King and DuBois from being in the top 3.

Mr Houston is indeed “The man who killed Jim Crow.” But so few know of him it’s pathetic and sad and simply wrong.

I’ve got him top 3 most influential black foks in America in the 20th Century. MLK Jr #1, Houston and DuBois 2A and 2B.

The fact that almost no one knows of him reminds me of the line by Bunk when he dressed down Omar…..

“Makes me sick, MF”er how far we done fell.”

I don’t know enough about Ralph Wiley on a personal level to know if he “could” work there or would even choose to work there. These are different times. “White people,” per se, don’t control distribution of anything the way they did 20 years ago. A young writer with the talent of a Ralph Wiley would need ESPN about as much as Keith Olbermann — not at all. ESPN is not the best corporate entity doing sports…it’s the largest. The level of writing, craft of production and the like are mass-production oriented and largely mediocre. The Sporting News still has better writers — they probably always will. Sportsonmymind has better writers. So, ESPN as a destination, should be classified to support the larger question.

In this respect, ESPN is perfect for people like Jemele Hill, Scoop, even Whitlock. When ESPN was hungry – when Tom Mees was alive, when Olbermann was there, when Ralph Wiley was still alive, when Hunter Thompson was there, it was a different animal altogether. Essentially, the network has moved from a great 24-hour classroom on sports journalism to Frat Row.

There is a grand illusion of excellence that I don’t believe RW would sanction. ESPN has some people who do a great job. I’d watch Kirk Herbstreit any day of the week. Lisa Salters is excellent. Steve Cyphers is very good. But, overall, the network has become a joke. Arguably the greatest cash cows on the network (PTI, Sunday Countdown, etc.) are all shows that are predicated on the MOST superficial introspection. Only Bob Lee’s OTL survived the growth spurt to DisneyDom-DumbDumb. The new sports magazine probably resulted from the profound embarrassment of the founders.

The problem they face is that everyone is either a former player or a journalism major. This means no one has any content knowledge beyond the discipline of “the job.” So few of these stories are enriched by a broader knowledge of life and the world…guess who does the best job of connecting the dots? — Kenny Mayne. That’s right, Kenny Mayne.

Nah, I don’t think Wiley would be impressed enough to want to work there. He’d probably be working for a FREE BLOG honing his craft preparing to tackle the beast — right after he pitched his new platform to some rich ballers with the nuts to buy some server farms and hire a few techs…yeah, probably something like that.

I basically agree with what Origin said.

KevDog:

Thanks. Yeah, I’m familiar with the architect of the CRM legal strategy and Dean of Howard’s Law School. That’s Thurgood’s “legal” daddy. I better know him. That’s the man that killed Jim Crow — with a law book and a shotgun.

Brotha Mizzo that’s just how it is when dealing with corporate america. I have worked on teams where a few black co workers would come up with an idea and preset it to their manager (who is white). The idea would be turned down. Then like 5 months later a white co worker in their team would come up with the same idea and present it to the same manager and the manager would claim how great of an idea it was and start to implement it.

In corporate america I have seen some black folks toe the line and deal with it when it came to discrimination. But then I have seen others fight it tooth and nail.

Sadly brotha Mizzo its the same everywhere.

Also Modi people said magazines like black enterprise wouldn’t be commercially viable because “black folks don’t save money or invest” or that story writers like Zane couldn’t make books because “black women don’t read”. He11 they even told Tyler perry that black folks that go to church don’t watch movies. All stupid and untrue.

I believe if the voice is real and genuine black folks will support it.

Why does it have to be a young Ralph Wiley?

Just asking.

He was so talented they couldn’t turn him away. His vast readership would make sure he was put on.

I wish Black publications were more read. Some have a wealth of information beneficial to everyone.

Anthony Gilbert and I were at Sixers media day recently and I was impressed with how many Black faces there were in the press room.

But…

I found it very disconcerting that we were the only writers asking questions of the athletes.

We raise the bar and that is what is needed.

Now in the context of writing the same attention should be given. There were four of us having a conversation on this issue and one writer pointed out we as Blacks shouldn’t be so exclusive in our opinions.

It’s a comfort thing. Whites are so used to reading their own that they aren’t cool with a straight no chaser mind. It’s like hide the kids or some shit.

It’s Blacks as well. I get into these discussions all the time with writers across the country and I would say it’s 50/50. Some want us to toe the line, some don’t.

That shit pisses me off to no end.

It never should be about the paper.

It’s all about advancing thought for me personally.

Stand up and make yourself accountable or be peace.

A young Ralph Wiley would definitely be able to work. Whether or not he’d be under ESPN.com is up for debate.

In answer to your next question, more black sports writers who are conscious, unafraid, and not worried about job security when truth is in danger of compromised is what’s needed

– Would a young Ralph Wiley be able to work today under the ESPN brand?

– Your post speaks to the shortcomings of simply hiring more black writers as some end-all solution. Does having more black writers in mainstream increase the liklihood of the “authentic black voice” that you speak about just by the odds?

– Or does it have to come from a separate entity like the black newspapers in the old days… and if so, is that voice commercially viable? (not as some big money-making endeavor, but not free-blogging either — I’m talking just enough to eat food.)

No need to be modest. You’re the real deal. I didn’t know he was one of the original Q-Dawgs.

Are you familiar with Charles Houston?