I Have a Dream

Posted by Jim on April 4, 2018

Martin Luther King, Jr.

I Have a Dream

delivered 28 August 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C.

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.”

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.

We cannot turn back.

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. **We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: “For Whites Only.”** We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until “justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”¹

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest — quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of “interposition” and “nullification” — one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; “and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.”²

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day — this will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim’s pride,    From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!³

DUP may not like Sinn Féin but they still have to do a deal with them

Posted by Jim on

“Once again, in this article,  Belfast columnist Brian Feeney provides essential reading for the U.S. Congress regarding the DUP’s failure to live up to the Good Friday Agreement —just as many Whites resisted full freedom for Blacks in the Civil Rights struggle. … However, ‘The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.’

 The ending of the partition of Ireland is inevitable. In the meantime, the Beloved Community must be built up in Northern Ireland —based without equivocation or stonewalling on the Good Friday Agreement. The DUP’s failure to accept this is not only disrespectful to Nationalist/Republicans/ ‘Catholics’ but is also a great disservice to the Unionists/Loyalists/’Protestants’ of Northern Ireland.

The DUP must follow the vision of the Blessed Martin Luther King, Jr. not that of segregationist Governor George Wallace of Alabama.”—Fr. Sean McManus.

DUP may not like Sinn Féin but they still have to do a deal with them

Brian Feeney. Irish News. Belfast. Wednesday, April 4, 2018

How many unionists do you think read the speech Michelle O’Neill gave in Milltown cemetery on Sunday? Few or none?

How many members of the DUP assembly party read it? Few or none? That’s the whole speech on the Sinn Féin website, not just the headline “SF calls for unity vote in five years”, which probably guaranteed virtually no unionist read any further.

In fact the message O’Neill wanted to get across had nothing to do with a border poll. The headline in the Sinn Féin website is: “Now is the time to heal the wounds of the past and build a society based on mutual respect.”

Sinn Féin’s national chair Declan Kearney emphasised the same point in his speech at Castlewellan. O’Neill said: “Republicans and Unionists have conflicting narratives, conflicting histories and conflicting allegiances. That’s the reality. Part of the journey to reconciliation is about recognising that to be the case. Much hurt has been caused and real pain inflicted on all sides of the community. It takes time to heal those wounds and to build a new society together where we respect each other.”

She added: “I need a Unionist leader who’s up for tha, t so that together we can serve the entire community fairly.” Her speech, like Kearney’s, fell on deaf ears among Unionists like everything anyone in Sinn Féin says.

In a lecture on March 6, Professor George Weigel, an American writer and policy analyst, tried to explain this kind of reaction, the blanking out of other views. He calls it “the politics of them”. It makes it impossible to imagine that someone with a different policy prescription might be honest, well-intentioned, much less even right. It means it’s impossible to see anything of value in what the ‘other’ thinks or believes.

Due to the DUP’s paranoid style of politics it’s inconceivable that Arlene Foster could contemplate accepting anything like a concept of two conflicting narratives or imagine they are equally valid and need to be reconciled.

Consider her speech at her party’s spring conference recently. It can be summed up as follows: ‘Sinn Féin, Sinn Féin, Sinn Féin.’ Now repeat. In DUP speeches Sinn Féin is the embodiment of all evil, a gigantic conspiracy against Unionism. In fact, Arlene Foster’s overheated, aggressive speeches are almost as paranoid about Sinn Féin as Micheál Martin’s and even less constructive. The comparison is apt. We know Martin has staked his future on not doing a deal with Sinn Féin. His message is clear.

The problem for Foster and the DUP is that unlike Martin they must do a deal with Sinn Féin. The question they need to answer is how can that be possible when in every speech they tell their supporters that Sinn Féin is, to paraphrase Richard Hofstadter, a vast, insidious, preternaturally effective conspiratorial network? As such it must be defeated because it is the enemy. How can this be, when the DUP has just spent 10 years in an administration with that same enemy Sinn Féin?

You might also notice that Arlene Foster and other DUP figures almost never name anyone in Sinn Féin. They prefer to demonize the party as a disembodied entity, conveniently ignoring the fact that 70 per cent of nationalist voters in The North support them. It’s ‘Sinn Féin, Sinn Féin, Sinn Féin’, not a criticism of what O’Neill or McDonald says or proposes for that can’t be considered sincere or well meaning. It has to be a trap, a snare and a delusion so you can’t engage,  or the spider has you in its web.

Now as long as this is what passes for politics in The North, we’re going nowhere. O’Neill is right that she has no partner in Unionism who can move beyond the ‘politics of them’ to work out how to cooperate together. Foster lacks the political nous to see the big picture. Therefore she can’t get past her inherent contradiction of encouraging her supporters to detest, distrust and abhor the entity called Sinn Féin but at the same time claiming to be working to get into partnership with that same dreaded entity.

Official Communication from the UFA

Posted by Jim on April 3, 2018

April 3rd

Death in our Family

Posted by Jim on April 2, 2018

With sadness we report the passing of Brother Sir Knight Sean Halligan, Past President of the Good Shepherd Catholic Club, Past Grand Knight Monsignor John T. Woods Council #5995, Former District Deputy & long time member of the Ancient Order of Hibernian’s Division #35. May the perpetual light shine upon him.

On Monday April 2^nd at 7:30 PM please note that there will be a joint PRAYER service with the Good Shepherd Catholic Club, Knight’s of Columbus& the Ancient Order of Hibernian’s.

Obituary of Sean Halligan

Halligan – Sean P., age 55, of Brooklyn entered into eternal rest on March 30, 2018. Loving husband of 32 years to Kathleen (Byrnes) Halligan. Treasured father of Susan P. and Brian P. Beloved brother of the late Thomas Jr., Theresa, the late Kevin, Mary Kay, Erin, Kathleen, James and Noreen.

Reposing Sunday, April 1 from 7:00 – 9:00 PM and Monday, April 2 from 2 to 5 and 7 to 9 PM at Marine Park Funeral Home 3024 Quentin Road, Brooklyn. Mass of Christian burial will be held 11:00 AM on Tuesday, April 3 at St. Columba R.C. Church, 2245 Kimball Street, Brooklyn. Burial to follow at St. Charles Cemetery, Farmingdale NY.

In lieu of flowers a donation can be made in Sean’s memory to:

Circle of Hope Cancer Foundation

1622 East 16 Street Brooklyn 11229    

718-630-9622

In Our Motto,

AOH Kings County Board

Jerry McCabe ~ President

Eddie Velinskie ~ Vice President

The Proclamation and William Henry West

Posted by Jim on March 31, 2018

The Proclamation and William Henry West

By Ciaran Murray, for Come Here to Me

The Proclamation first read aloud by Pearse on the steps of the GPO on
Easter Monday is a document synonymous with Easter Week and the birth of
the modern Irish State. Widely accepted to have been composed by Pearse
himself, there remain very few physical copies in existence.

Though it was intended for 2,500 copies of the Proclamation to be
printed in Liberty Hall and distributed around the country, it is likely
that fewer that 1,000 actually were, and these were entrusted to Helena
Moloney for transport to the GPO. Sean T. O’Kelly, the second President
of Ireland would from here take these and billpost them around the north
and south inner city. The paper upon which they were printed was of poor
quality, so very few remain. Fewer still exist of a facsimile of the
Proclamation issued by the Irish Citizen Army for the first anniversary
of the Rising in 1917 of which there is believed to be a sole surviving
copy.

The responsibility for printing the document lay with Michael Molloy and
Liam O’Brien, two Volunteers, and Christopher Brady who had until now
overseen the printing of ITGWU Weekly, “The Worker’s Republic.”
Compositor’s and printers by trade, these men were approached by James
Connolly in the run up to Easter week and asked to forego the planned
parading of Volunteers in St. Anne’s Park on Easter Sunday morning and
to instead meet him in Liberty Hall for a task he had prepared for them.
Upon arrival, Connolly and Thomas MacDonagh, also present, handed them a
sheet of paper with the words of the Proclamation inscribed upon it and
remarked “Do if you wish to, and if not we won’t be the worse friends.”
All three accepted the job.

As the men launched into their work, it became obvious that they would
not have enough print to finish the job. The machine upon which they
were to perform their task, an old Wharfdale Double- Crown machine upon
which the Irish Worker was printed was wholly inadequate for the task at
hand, the paper of an inferior quality, and print for the machine
severely lacking. Different fonts had to be used, (the wrong font for
the letter ‘e’ is used in over twenty instances,) many letters had to be
fashioned out of others (in several cases, a capital ‘E’ was made from
fashioning the type out of a capital ‘F’ and adding wax,) and eventually
the men realised they would not have enough type and would simply have
to borrow some more.

The type was borrowed from an Englishman named William Henry West, a
printer whose premises were located on Stafford Street. Following the
tradition of Wolf Tone, the protestant revolutionary who Stafford Street
would eventually be named after, West appears to have been sympathetic
towards the cause for Irish Freedom. Census returns for 1911 list West
as 41 years of age, with an address at Brigid’s Road Upper, Drumcondra.
His job title is “Letterpress Printer” and his religion is given as
“Cooneyite.” Cooneyism was an offshoot of a home based church movement
known as the “two by twos” which gained some traction in Ireland in the
late 19th and early 20th Century in Ireland. It was known as an
“itinerant” religion and its lay people called “tramp preachers” due to
the homeless and destitute nature of their calling.

West was printer of choice for the ITGWU and appeared twice in the
courts alongside Jim Larkin. In January 1913, he appeared as a
co-defendant with Larkin in a case in which Mr. William Richardson was
claiming a sum of #500 after allegedly having been libeled in the Irish
Worker. In September of that year, he appeared in a bankruptcy case
involving himself, with the creditor bringing the case again him the
same Mr. William Richardson, still looking to eek out punishment for his
alleged libeling. In examination of his firms accounts, William Henry
West had listed the ITGWU’s debt as a “bad debt,” or one which he deemed
unrecoverable. West’s examination by the prosecution is below:

Mr. Larkin owes you #227 for the printing The Worker- isn’t Mr. Larkin
the proprietor of The Worker?

He is, and he owes me #227.

Have you put that down as a bad debt?

Yes, because it is a bad debt.

Why?

Because I cannot get it.

Can you not recover it from Mr. Larkin?

I wish you could show me how. (laughter)

Has Mr. Larkin refused to pay the amount?

Well, he cannot pay.

He refused to pay?

No.

Did you ask him for it?

Of course, often. But he can’t pay what he hasn’t got.

You know that Mr. Larkin is Secretary of the ITGWU?

Yes, I have heard so.

And can you not recover this amount by suing him for it?

Do you think I would do that, when he’s my best customer? (laughter)

The case also makes reference to debt owed by other organisations,
including the Labour Party and a drama class at Liberty Hall, and asked
whether he could not sue for payment, to which he replied “I don’t
believe in suing, I’ve never sued anybody in my life,” again to
laughter.

The Witness Statement of Commandant Liam O’Brien states that on Easter
Sunday, upon realising their shortage of type, Michael Molloy was
ordered by Connolly to West’s printers along with a messenger and
Citizen Army man employed by the Worker’s Republic who was known to him
by the name ‘Dazzler.’ West provided the type, under the auspices that
it was to be returned to him intact or compensated if lost- it was his
livlihood after all. Of course, this wasn’t to be as Liberty Hall was
first, pounded by shells from the Helga, and gutted by fire. When
entered by British soldiers after the fighting had died down, they found
the second half of the type still on the machine.

What happened to West after Easter Week, I can find no reference. But
his is another story of the many from the Rising — the English
protestant printer who supplied the type for the Irish Proclamation.