activist
[Editor's Note: In anticipation of the anniversary of the March on Washington on August 28, 1963, God's Politics will feature a series of posts on the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King.
[Editor's Note: This week we will have a series of reviews on films with a focus on immigration. Check back each day for a new film review, and visit www.faithandimmigration.org for more information]
On May 2, 1963, African-American kids all over Birmingham, Alabama heard a D.J. from WENN announce, "Kids, there's going to be a party at the park. Bring your toothbrushes because lunch will be served." This was a coded call for a mass demonstration. Eight hundred kids, some as young as six, skipped school.
Since the recent passage of Arizona Senate Bill 1070, scheduled to go into effect on July 29, those of us working for social justice in the United States have a rare opportunity to register a particularly effective form of protest.
Those of us living along the Gulf Coast are the sacrificial people and region for you and the rest of the Western world. We have been for many many generations. Sociologists would call us the subaltern; politicians would call us the 'don't counts'; economists call us disposable; geographers call us 'ineducable'; religious people call us hedonists or sinners; educators call us backwards.
A couple of weeks ago I read Paul Greenberg's excellent review, "Hot Planet, Cold Facts," of Bill McKibben's newest book,