Sweet Auburn King

Today is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday. Perhaps the most ubiquitous figure of the Civil Rights Movement; King serves as the model for peaceful protesting and strategic political planning. This year, King’s hometown and state glowed under national spotlight, as Georgia historically became a blue state; predominately Black counties DeKalb and Fulton carrying a majority of these votes on their backs. This political victory stands on the back of Atlanta’s Black men and women who sacrificed to further the progress of economic, educational, and racial justice in America; and inherently around the world.

It is no secret that the CIA and FBI actively monitored Dr. King. Most infamously blackmailing him with the potential of exposing his infidelity and offering the ultimatum of suicide or assassination. As history played out, King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4, 1968.

In his last speech, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop”, given the day before his assassination, Dr. King prophesied his death - or perhaps knew the seriousness of the the death threats against him. It is a speech that marvels at the culmination of birth and death, the beginnings and endings of life and history.

We have seen the ways in which history has made him a sacrificial lamb; a beacon of pacifism that assuaged white guilt and rage. However, when you closely analyze his final speeches; it is understood that he also began to understand how quickly a King could become a pawn in the game of American politics.

“I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight; that we as a people will get to the Promised Land.”, here King posits himself as Moses, performing his own eulogy before an unknowing crowd. Is it speculative to call this speech a prophesy or is this a mere coincidence of King’s religious intellect and the inevitable firing of America’s Death Squad?

Have Black people in America been led to the mountaintop, or is it the “burning house” King spoke of in his final days? Somedays it is hard to tell. The Civil Rights Movement was Dr. King’s split sea moment, the clearing of the path towards something greater; Moses and The Exodus. As Atlanta made history this political season, one cannot help but to think of King’s legacy - that this blue state is perhaps seeing the first horizon of what Atlanta’s Sweet Auburn King saw on the mountaintop. .

The Political Nature of Black America’s Favorite Birthday Song

True story: About ten years ago, I was a guest at a birthday party of a friend of a friend’s. The birthday girl, in her drunken audacity, walked up to me and sweetly asked, “Can you sing the Black happy birthday song for me?” (yes, she was). I absolutely did not, but it made me ponder how she knew to call it that and moreover if she knew the political nature of what was mere entertainment for her.

“Happy Birthday” appears on Stevie Wonder’s 1981 album, “Hotter Than July” and was released in 1980 as support to a national campaign to create a Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. national holiday. The holiday was not approved until November 2, 1983 under the presidency of Ronald Reagan; fifteen years after King’s assassination.

The song itself has become a standard in Black America. Go to any birthday celebration at any given location and you are bound to hear an acoustic version of this song. It has become ours. This melodic celebration of King’s life has become a celebration of our lives. His legacy lasting through our annual celebration of life and family.