As Martin Luther King said in his speech give us the ballot_
“Unfortunately, this noble and sublime decision has not gone without opposition. This opposition has often risen to ominous proportions. Many states have risen up in open defiance. The legislative halls of the South ring loud with such words as “interposition” and “nullification.” Methods of defiance range from crippling economic reprisals to the tragic reign of violence and terror. All of these forces have conjoined to make for massive resistance.”
(Speech given before the Lincoln Memorial at the March on Washington, May 17, 1957)
But now a new foe has arises, a formidable and dreadful foe whose weapons consist of complacency, lack of enthusiasm, slothfulness and what I call ‘caught uppness’. This is not really a new foe but an old one that slept dormant encased in the cocoon of struggle for inequality and injustice. It has emerged from that cocoon with a new look yet the same creature. This foe has proven itself to be a much more problematic foe than that of injustice and bigotry. It is like a wolf in sheep clothing hiding under the very skin of those who say they seek justice…this foe is US.
'Caught uppness' is a term that I created; Simply put it means (caught uppness) that we have ambush ourselves by not taking part in this egalitarian process; but have choose to become occupied and preoccupied with things that have no real impact nor any lasting benefits for our present life or our future. We've become unavailable and completely ambiguous to that which is most important. In doing so we have forfeited the ability to move to higher social ranks and to acquire greater wealth, power and respect. You know exactly what I mean! We’ll go out Christmas shopping in a hail storm. We’ll get out of our beds one, two o’clock in the morning and sit in a long line in the freezing cooled at a shopping mall on Black Friday but won’t take a few minutes to go around the corner to vote! And don’t let Maxwell, Mary J. Blidge or Nicki Minaj (for the younger folks) come to your town to do a concert; the stadium will be packed out yet we can’t fill a small building up that has 6-8 voting booth on election day. But we want change!!! Just like war, change is never achieved just by one man nor is change achieved just by wanting it. If we want change we must become more actively involved in our democracy by way of the ballot.
Martin Luther King knew how powerful the ballot was for blacks in this country when he said
“So our most urgent request to the president of the United States and every member of Congress is to give us the right to vote. Give us the ballot and we will no longer have to worry the federal government about our basic rights. Give us the ballot and we will no longer plead to the federal government for passage of an anti-lynching law; we will by the power of our vote write the law on the statute books of the southern states and bring an end to the dastardly acts of the hooded perpetrators of violence. Give us the ballot and we will transform the salient misdeeds of blood-thirsty mobs into calculated good deeds of orderly citizens. Give us the ballot and we will fill our legislative halls with men of good will, and send to the sacred halls of Congressmen who will not sign a Southern Manifesto, because of their devotion to the manifesto of justice. Give us the ballot and we will place judges on the benches of the South who will “do justly and love mercy,” and we will place at the head of the southern states governors who have felt not only the tang of the human, but the glow of the divine. Give us the ballot and we will quietly and nonviolently, without rancor or bitterness, implement the Supreme Court's decision of May 17, 1954.”
(Speech given before the Lincoln Memorial at the March on Washington, May 17, 1957)
We as a people must take up arms against ‘caught uppness. We must wage an aggressive fight against it and its allied complacency; the same way as was done when our forefathers and foremothers fought against inequality and injustice of the pass. we must win the battle within in order to change the things outside. We are no longer in a confrontation with an external foe but an internal one…and it is us.
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Very importantly, we will ask audience members for input on solving the questions above.
a break in the program will allow networking and sharing of lunches people bring with them.