Sunday, January 15, 2006

King: Dream or Nightmare?

This is the time of year when we commemorate the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.. I have been busy setting up the station's activities for the commemoration which includes 4 parades, an ecumenical service, a weekend of special exhibits at the California African American Museum, getting a parade float built, negotiating for donated cakes for our King Day Birthday party, getting the choir from Frank D. Parent Elementary School all set for our birthday party. Also, some young 6th graders who wrote a speech about Dr. King and won a local oratory contest with it.. I'll be promoting them at our King birthday Party as well.. It all takes place in Leimert Park - the center of African American Culture in Los Angeles... Councilman Bernard Parks(yes, Bernard, the former LAPD Police Chief and wannabe mayor) is shutting the streets of the park down for a huge festival... The parade ends at Leimert Park so we anticipate thousands of folk will attend.

Additionally, I wrote and produced several radio promos that detail what the station is doing over the course of the King Holiday Weekend, and some promos that include people on the street with reflections of the life of Dr. King... The latter was quite the wake up call...

After setting forth our arsenal of King parade promos and promos touting the broadcast of our special radio docudrama, I got the bright idea to produce a short series of bits featuring listeners, you know, people in the community. I wanted to know what King's Dream meant to them.... After getting the appropriate approvals and such from our programming department, we hit the streets of Inglewood and South Los Angeles... Simply asking "What does King's Dream mean to you?". Let me just say that I was not prepared for the amount of people who did not want to comment. Not only did they refuse comment, they had a huge attitude about it... But getting past that, I was not prepared for the ummmmmmm, misinformed way that my people expressed thier thoughts:

Us: Hi, we'd like you to comment on the legacy of Dr. King

Them: Ok, yeah..

Child with Them: Momma, I know about Martin Luther King, let me talk!!

Them: ok, baby.. uhhh can she talk?

Us: Sure, that would be cool...... Hi.. what school do you go to?

Little One answers: I go to ******* school

Us: What grade?

Little One: 5th Grade

UsL: ok, cool... who was Dr. Martin Luther King?

(microphone is on)

Little ONe: ummm, he was a slave that had a dream about......

Us: Are you sure he was a slave? Who told you that?

Little One: Oh, we learned that in school... saw a movie and everything....

Us:

Little One: He had a dream that one day all the people like casucasions, black people and mexicans would all get along...

us: ok, so then how did he get out of slavery?

Little One: He didn't.... Somebody shot him and he died....

Momma: Stop it child, you know Martin Luther King wasn't no slave!!!

Little One: he was too, momma....

Us to Momma: ok, look, the library is right there why don't you take her there to teach her about Dr. King and his legacy and what it means to her life right now.... If you don't have time now, please make sure you take the time this weekend to inform her correctly......

Momma: aiight brotha, thanks a lot man... I'm sorry.....

Us:


hmmmm....

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