On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered by the US government. MLK day is considered a “gift” to African (black) people from the oppressive colonial State for their murder of the Civil Rights Movement leader and the destruction of the movement.

Today, state-controlled media serves us a docile version of Martin Luther King which repeats “I have a dream” over and over again. The media speaks of Martin Luther King as if he lived a long life and died of old age. But let us remember the violent circumstances around King’s death. MLK’s life was cut short by the United States government through a violent act of cointel pro. He was just 39 years old.

Non-violent MLK

For much of the Civil Rights Movement, MLK advocated for non-violent strategies in the struggle against racism. But King began to come of the realization that white people in the U.S. had no intention of ever stopping their heinous and genocidal acts on Africans and other oppressed people all over the world.

MLK started to adopt a more radical political line, one which demanded economic justice for the African working class and sharply criticized U.S. imperialism.

His growing radicalism was becoming a problem for the white ruling class who much preferred the peaceful “turn the other cheek” King.

Two months before his assassination, King gave an incredible speech “We are Coming to Get Our Check” which made a call for reparations for African people. This speech is one of my favorite speeches by MLK particularly because he is making a demand for reparations — a part of MLK’s history that has been largely erased by colonial media. Let’s discuss his speech in celebration of his radical legacy.

Mississippi

In February of 1968 MLK spoke to poor African people in Mississippi where he outlined the injustices that Africans faced at the hands of the U.S. government and his plan to organize poor Africans to march on Washington to make the demand for reparations. He stated:

“At the very same time that America refused to give the Negro any land, through an act of Congress, our government was giving away millions of acres of land in the West and the mid-West, which meant that it was willing to undergird its white peasants from Europe with an economic floor.

“But not only did they give the land, they built land grant colleges with government money to teach them how to farm. Not only that, they provided county agents to further their expertise in farming. Not only that, they provided low interest rates in order that they could mechanize their farms. Not only that, today many of these people are receiving millions of dollars in federal subsidies not to farm.

“And they are the very people telling the black man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps. And this is what we are faced with. Now this is the reality. Now when we come to Washington, in this campaign, we are coming to get our check.”

In his speech, Dr. King spoke about the U.S. government’s policy of giving land to white people and teaching them to farm the land with the creation of special colleges. While white people were receiving these special policies from the State to increase their economic power in the 1850s, Africans were enslaved.

MLK came to the understanding that civil rights alone could not solve the poverty that African people faced and made the demand for reparations for Africans. MLK’s outline of the extreme poverty of Africans and making a case for reparations for the descendants of enslaved Africans was a threat to the State who much preferred the 1963 “dreamer.”

Continuing the demand for reparations

It’s important that we continue and broaden King’s demand for reparations in our struggle for black liberation. All African people are due reparations for the oppression that we have faced at the hands of white people up until this very second.

Reparations isnt something that’s owed only for slavery. African people in the United States are owed reparations for the poisoning of our waters, the mass incarceration of our brothers and sisters, the imposition of illnesses on our families, police brutality, and gentrification.

Our people on the continent are owed reparations for the colonialism-imposed exploitative conditions that force them to spend long hours mining for coltan and diamonds as well as producing cocoa and flowers.