When a black conservative group ran a radio ad proclaiming that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican, reaction was swift. "We've gotten some e-mails and telephone calls filled with vitriol," said Frances Rice, chairman of the National Black Republican Association. "They've called me Aunt Jemima, a sellout, a traitor to my race." In the battle for the black electorate, liberals, who make up the overwhelming majority of black voters, have long disagreed with conservatives over ideology, public policy and economic strategies to better the lives of African Americans. But when conservatives placed the civil rights movement in a Republican context, black liberals said, they crossed a line. "To suggest that Martin could identify with a party that affirms preemptive, predatory war, and whose religious partners hint that God affirms war and favors the rich at the expense of the poor, is to revile Martin," said the Rev. Joseph Lowery, the former president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which the slain civil rights leader helped establish. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), who marched with King in the 1960s, called the ads an "insult to the legacy and the memory of Martin Luther King Jr." and "an affront to all that he stood for."
It was another time indeed; rainbows were seen for more than merely color, but for what they embodied.
Colors bending light; each prism a tint of life, each eye filled with awe, and every breath… lovely.
A mark of nature, of compassion, struggle, equality, freedom.
The rainbow arcing toward earth with pursed lips kissing the callous land of hurrying humanity and lies and murder, and washing harmony, however temporary, over the gazing heavenward.
O! The splendid colors! Kissing the disquieted world with an enchanted child’s dream; flowering wonderment and peace.
In the battle for the black electorate, liberals, who make up the overwhelming majority of black voters, have long disagreed with conservatives over ideology, public policy and economic strategies to better the lives of African Americans. But when conservatives placed the civil rights movement in a Republican context, black liberals said, they crossed a line.
"To suggest that Martin could identify with a party that affirms preemptive, predatory war, and whose religious partners hint that God affirms war and favors the rich at the expense of the poor, is to revile Martin," said the Rev. Joseph Lowery, the former president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which the slain civil rights leader helped establish.
Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), who marched with King in the 1960s, called the ads an "insult to the legacy and the memory of Martin Luther King Jr." and "an affront to all that he stood for."
It was another time indeed;
rainbows were seen
for more than merely color,
but for what they embodied.
Intense beauty;
astonishing;
limitless;
perfection hurling groundward.
Boundless; free; original; breathing;
dappled of everlasting dignity!
Colors bending light;
each prism
a tint of life,
each eye
filled with awe,
and every breath…
lovely.
A mark of nature,
of compassion,
struggle,
equality,
freedom.
The rainbow arcing toward earth
with pursed lips
kissing the callous land
of hurrying humanity
and lies and murder,
and washing harmony,
however temporary,
over the gazing heavenward.
O! The splendid colors!
Kissing the disquieted world
with an enchanted child’s dream;
flowering wonderment
and peace.
Copyright © 2006 mrp / thepoetryman
Written Rebellion does it again