OWS MLK: Taking Account(s)

It’s the photo from today’s trove that most closely captures King’s philosophy and that of the Occupy movement, which sponsored an MLK Day march this morning in Manhattan. Just as Occupy has been falsely branded as overly violent and revolutionary, same with the fragment on the cardboard. The larger snippet from the “I’ve been to the Mountaintop” speech reads as follows:

(W)e’ve got to strengthen black institutions. I call upon you to take your money out of the banks downtown and deposit your money in Tri-State Bank. We want a “bank-in” movement in Memphis. Go by the savings and loan association. I’m not asking you something that we don’t do ourselves at SCLC. Judge Hooks and others will tell you that we have an account here in the savings and loan association from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. We are telling you to follow what we are doing. Put your money there.

With the additional context, it goes from revolutionary to common sense and considered.

(photo: Michael Nagle/Getty Images caption: ‘Occupy the Dream’ demonstrators march from the African Burial Ground National Monument to the Federal Reserve in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. January 16, 2012 in New York City. Today is a United States federal holiday marking the birthday of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who was assassinated in Memphis Tennessee on April 4, 1968.)