Latest / D-constructing Topics / Unveiling the Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.: A Puerto Rican Perspective

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Unveiling the Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.: A Puerto Rican Perspective · D-constructing Topics

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What's going on, folks, and welcome to the Legendary Podcast.
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My name is David, and welcome to this Legendary Podcast, the Deconstructing Topic Podcast.
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What's going on, everybody? Ooh, we got another special one,
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a meaningful one, a one that I would say, the topic that we're going to be talking
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about today is Martin Luther King's Day.
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We celebrate and honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,
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and we got a little i always
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say that when i do these podcasts keep in mind
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is this that sometimes and in many cases i like
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to do what they call like a stew little different ingredients in spanish we
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got the caldero big caldero we got a big pot and we just throw in different
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ingredients to see what works i'm pretty sure by the end of the day that night
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stew is going to be tasting.
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Wonderful. But we got Martin Luther King.
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We're going to talk a little bit of a couple of things here and there,
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but it's more of my perspective in terms of Martin Luther King.
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Keep in mind, I always tell people I was born in the island,
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the beautiful island of Puerto Rico.
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Yes, I'm an unofficial ambassador of Puerto Rico, raised in New York City, Bronx.
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And just to give you an idea, So sometimes learning about people like Martin
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Luther King coming here in this country, you just say to yourself, wow.
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And what better way to kind of get that little Martin Luther King juice flowing?
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We got a little bit of a couple of things going on. Let's get it.
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My four little children who one day live in a nation where they will not be.
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Music.
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Judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream.
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And that was Martin Luther King's famous speech on August 28th, 1963 in D.C.
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Just to give you an idea where I'm at with Martin Luther King.
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And look, Martin Luther King, one of the leaders of the civil rights movement.
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Some argue that he was the face of it.
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But keep in mind is this, the civil rights movement from the 50s to the 60s in the United States,
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Especially for those black communities Fighting for equality And just not just
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equality in other But just equality in many spectrum But what's interesting
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about the civil rights movement.
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Me, me, me, me, I got a little sight Hey, listen, I'm feeling good So relax
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there, you little cold, whatever Trying to get to me I'm trying to do a podcast
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It needs to relax But people forget The civil rights movement.
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People always kind of, for some reason, and yes, it did happen a lot in the
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South, but it also happened in New York City, Boston, Chicago, L.A.
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So you had different sectors, different groups of these civil rights.
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And for those who are not in the United States that want to get,
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the civil rights movement is basically a movement spearheaded by many black leaders.
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Again, there was segregation in the South, you know, legally, if I understand it.
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And here in the north when i say the south we're talking
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about georgia the southern states north carolina south
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carolina louisiana and so on so basically
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black people or people in the black community they
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drank or ate or had to take bus separate from
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the white and sadly for the black some of
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these things let's just say we're not a
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you know top shape you know what i mean so you
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know it's one of those deals that in the south they fall for that in the
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north here in new york city even though segregation was not
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a thing for some reason the system and even brother malcolm x kind of spoke
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about it that hey listen over here they like to point what's going on in the
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south but hey you know we got a little kind of going on segregation in new york city so let's go.
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Malin luther king and we're able to start with malin luther king because he's
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a swiss knife You know, when I say a Swiss knife, am I saying it right?
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Swiss, right? Knife, meaning that, you know, those little knives with like so
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many gadgets that you could do.
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Martin Luther King, my understanding. Brother, Martin Luther King Jr., born in January 15th.
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That's why January, it's that day.
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Even though, as I'm recording this, it's January 20th.
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But they always do the, I believe it's the second or the third Monday.
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So January is It's Marlott King's month So he was born January 15,
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1929 And sadly What happened with Marlott the King That he was.
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Assassinated In April 4, 1968 In Memphis,
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Tennessee And what's interesting with Marlott the King Is that when he I say
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he's a Swiss knife People kind of always remember And we always talk about What
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he was fighting for When it comes to the civil rights movement,
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But he did so much. And sadly, on the day and on the week that he was there
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in Tennessee, Memphis, Tennessee,
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for some reason, I can't you now, for some reason, I thought that he was deleted
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somewhere in Alabama for some reason.
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But I think that there was some connection between Alabama kind of sanitation
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workers or there was some type of strike for those people who are in the union or the labor union.
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We do know what it is for strike. Basically, it's like, we ain't working until
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you take care of us. You know what I mean?
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So he's on Tennessee, doing his Tennessee thing, Memphis, Tennessee.
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And sadly, yeah, he was in this sanitation worker strike that affected more
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than 1,500 black sanitation workers,
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not getting the proper wages and benefits and whatever comes down to be working.
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So just to tell you that, you know, he's been all around. Now,
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what's interesting is this, and some people might either know,
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do not know, that we might have not Martin Luther King.
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Now, sadly, Martin Luther King was assassinated. Now, hey, I hate to work,
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but hey, we got to use that in the context of what happened to his life.
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But sadly, my understanding back in 1958, he was doing a little book tour.
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Remember, Martin Luther King been around doing that, you know, that work.
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Now, keep in mind, I always tell people, Marlon the King is a Christian Baptist, if I'm not mistaken.
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Correct me if I'm wrong. I don't edit these podcasts.
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So Marlon the King comes in that sense of, and one of the philosophy would be
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that he's on that nonviolent. We're going to talk about that as well in this podcast.
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But just the fact that we might not have Marlon the King because in 1958 when
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he was doing his thing, his little book tour, He was doing something in Harlem,
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a young lady by the name of Isola Curry, a black woman.
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And it's, how can I say the irony sometimes?
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And you're going to hear this in every spectrum of people who,
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let's say, Puerto Ricans in a black neighborhood.
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You know, I work, you know, with a lot of Albanians, Italians,
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so on, Dominicans. You're always going to hear this.
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Sometimes there's people that feel That the people that do more harm to you
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In the context that we in United States And we in this melting pot in New York
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City With different kind of culture Different type of people Is that a lot of
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people feel like Hey listen The people that do you more harm Is your own people,
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Right We have heard that Raise a hand if you heard that You know sometimes there's
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people that feel that way And sometimes it is true There is a,
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How can I say They're kind of like a connection in a sense, because there's
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only room for, let's say, X amount of Puerto Ricans,
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X amount of Dominicans, X amount of Italians, Albanians,
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Polish, Blacks.
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In a country that we are mostly working with white people, I'm just saying.
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So Isola Curry, a black woman, my understanding is that she was going through a little mental issue.
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There's not much of info as what it is, but the fact that this black young woman
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decided to kind of take a jab at Mr. Martin Luther King.
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And my understanding, he stabbed him almost close to the heart.
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So in other words in 1958 we could
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have the well i just say that
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in this beautiful country the history of moan luther
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king and the black history and all that we wouldn't have a moan luther king
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so you know again it goes back to that situation in regards to that sometimes
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even in your own people you know might do harm to you you know what i mean i
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mean it's one of those things uh There's not really much.
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It's an interesting story. One that some people forget.
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Some people hear. But just the fact that we might not have heard.
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Or we might not have Martin Luther King as we know. I'm pretty sure we would
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have still celebrated Martin Luther King.
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But he lived a little bit longer to tell beautiful stories and fight that fight. So we making it happen.
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The other situation as you already know. Is that the person that assassinated
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Martin Luther King was James Earl Ray.
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And he died. He died years ago. And it's one of those things that Martin Luther
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King have, you know, and I just want to say it and kind of forgot that he's Correa Scott King.
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His wife survived. He had sojourn as well.
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Coretta Scott King, my understanding is that she continued the legacy and the
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fight for Martin Luther King. So let's not forget that.
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My understanding that him, his family, his older kids, in a sense, forgave James R.
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Ray, for who was the person that was convicted for the assassination of Martin Luther King.
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And what's interesting is that there are still kind of, in a way,
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people feel that even though this individual was caught,
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And that, you know, and we don't want to go to like this little conspiracy because
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we are honoring and my point, but I'm only telling you these stories because
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of what I've experienced knowing the Martin Luther King.
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And the fact that one of the things there is that, you know,
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we could go who did it, you know what I'm saying? And my understanding is that it's still a thing.
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There's some secrets out there, whether it's, you know, let's say the government,
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let's say it was a private. Keep in mind, he was part of the sanitation strike.
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Couldn't be a corporation.
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You know, we could go different ways, but it's different ways.
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I'm over here getting different ways. I'm over here thinking about James Earl
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Ray, the person that has been accused
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and convicted in the jail time of assassinating Martin Luther King.
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But the fact is this, we don't know. Now, is that something that is interesting? Sure.
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Depending on what avenues you want to take it. You know what I mean?
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But it's one of those things that, yeah, people do want to know. I want to know.
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And, you know, again, in the 60s, in this country, we have assassinations of
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important figures, historical figures.
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Brother Malcolm X, John F. Kennedy as the president of the United States.
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Robert Kennedy, his little brother, who was running for or was being a candidate
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to run for president of the United States a year later.
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So a lot of things was going on in the 60s. The 60s was wild You know what I'm
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saying Now I bring up Brother Malcolm X To the equation,
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Because Brother Malcolm X And let's just say Martin Luther King Jr Or Martin
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Luther King III But you know Actually Jr I'm sorry,
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You know they had a little clash going on Because Malcolm X He's a Muslim right
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But even if we take away from that Right.
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You know, Malcolm X was from New York City, you feel me?
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And sometimes he's, I think that sometimes, you know, New York City,
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New York City loves attention.
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And it could be because Malcolm X representing this part of the United States
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in the civil rights movement.
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You also had Adam Clayton Power Jr., you know, politician going on.
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So they had a little friction with Martin Luther King. Sometimes it could be so many things.
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But one of the things could be that, hey, New York City wants its attention. Hey, we got issues, too.
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You know, many of the white folks that, you know, were in support of the civil
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rights movement, kind of giving money out here to these black communities.
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Brother Malcolm X and Adam Kling, you know, hey, listen, you guys over here
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donating money to send people to the South, but that's a problem here, too.
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And Malcolm X kind of view it as there's
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a famous picture where he had a gun and he view as if they
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attacking us eye for an eye basically and the
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same you know to say with Adam Clay and Power where he was the politician that's
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another podcast there and then with Marley the King basically being Christian
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he was in a non-violent situation so I just want to throw that there That's
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a different dynamic in itself with what I've heard.
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As you already know, Malcolm X was very vocal, especially very vocal against the,
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or let's just say he tended to kind of say to the white liberals,
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the friendly white community who funded these kind of civil rights kind of movement
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or groups or whatever to fight, you know, this racism and all that.
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You know, brother Malcolm X, Adam Clayton power.
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You could throw James Baldwin. I could go so much with the civil rights. It's a beautiful story.
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I definitely will be doing one in the, well, a lot of people like to say Black
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History Month. I like to say American history.
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It's a beautiful thing. And listen, a lot of people would say that,
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you know, Martin Luther King might have kind of changed.
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And in a sense that Martin Luther King, as you already know,
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that these things were happening, that he might have gotten a little bit more
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aggressive, became more anti-capitalist and anti-war.
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That time was Vietnam War. And sadly, some people kind of attribute that to,
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how can I say, his assassination, basically.
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He was too much of an important figure.
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So, especially in the black community, and he has too much power.
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Enough is enough, sadly.
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Some people will see it that way when Martin
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Luther King was assassinated we had the Martin Luther
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King assassination right now I
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bring this up because I remember in 2020 when
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George Floyd was sadly killed when when I'm
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gonna say that when I say sadly because I always
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say there's no way you should have
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put a knee behind somebody's back regardless of anything so
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that dude is doing his time george floyd got killed and it
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led to uh kind of like a momentum of
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of of you know the black community and
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sadly sometimes it gets co-opted and you had the rights right now some people
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would bring up that there were rights when marlotte the king was assassinated
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and and it was kind of like it you know what i would feel as if in the black
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community is that i would feel,
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Wow, they just bodied our guy You know, the person that's fighting for our rights
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You just basically, boom, he's dead Oh, we're gonna go after you Not my thing with riots.
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And some people brought up, you know, look, this is what happened in George
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Floyd riots. People have the rights to riots.
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People got the right to be angry and kind of vent, right?
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And people brought up the Martin Luther King riots. And I personally would say
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this is the sad thing about these riots,
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especially that people should be more cautious, especially with the situation with George Floyd.
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Is that riots tend to be co-opted, right?
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And I say co-opted meaning that some entity grabs it, manipulates it. What happened is this?
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In Chicago, New York, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, wherever these,
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Chicago, wherever some of these riots took place, right?
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Sadly, it took a while for these communities to rebuild because you could say the government, right?
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The United States government could have said, Hey, listen, sadly,
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I understand your grief. Let's put money.
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Let's rebuild your areas, whatever.
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Stores burned down, whatever it happened. I understand your grief.
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Let's get some leaders. Let's talk it out. You know what I'm saying?
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But sadly, now the state government said, you guys burned that stuff because,
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you know, your boy over here got killed. You know what?
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Learn your lesson, basically. So that's why I'm not a fan or I was not a fan
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of these riots because they get caught.
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And sometimes the government would just leave us burning
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for decades like ah you guys destroy that
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store let it be now you know now that things
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has a little bit different because some of these stores got
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instruments whatever but again these things get
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co-opted so that's another little story of
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Martin Luther King Martin Luther or
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Martin Luther King was named after Martin Luther something that we
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have spoke about Martin Luther was basically
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the German priest if if a lot
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of people especially in the Protestant Roman Catholic
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Martin Luther was a important figure in starting the Reformation back a long
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time ago a long time ago we're talking about like what 500 600 years ago and
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it's one of those things interesting kind of little tidbit there I mean I think
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people have mentioned it.
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And if you look at Martin Luther King, and if you look at the word Luther,
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and for those in the Christian church, Protestant church,
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there are churches that are named after Martin Luther, or let's say Martin Luther,
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the German priest or Lutheran church.
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I'm going to be like, hey. So I just want to bring that up in regards to that.
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Yes, Martin Luther King does bring an aspect of the non-violence approach.
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And when I say nonviolence, I believe even he might have adopted something from Gandhi.
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It's that basically, all right, you guys can slap us all you want,
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but we're still going to fight. We're still going to march. We're still going to do our thing.
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And we're still going to do whatever it is until we get it done.
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And, you know, we got the civil rights bill that was signed in 64, 65, if I'm not mistaken.
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So he made moves. So he made moves.
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Again, just to give you a little thing going on. Me growing up.
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So here's somebody like that. And I said to yourself, there's some people,
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and I grew up, there's some people in the black community who gravitated towards Malcolm X approach.
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It's like, all right, you're going to slap me, I'm going to slap you twice. You understand?
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And, you know, kind of gravitated to Brother Malcolm X a little bit more than Martin Luther King.
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I apologize, and I don't apologize, right?
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But, you know, these are individuals who are savages. And when I say savages,
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we're talking about fighting for the justice of everything, but mostly the black community.
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And, you know, for me to grow up, you know, you hear names because I was too
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young when I moved over here.
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But you hear names that have fought the fight and have fight the fight.
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And you hear names and then you gravitate to an individual and it kind of opens
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the doors where you want to know. You want to know, as one me,
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Puerto Rican, who's that Puerto Rican version of Martin Luther King?
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I think some people might have bought Pedro Albizu Campo, but I disagree.
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Pedro Albizu Campo was more like Malcolm X. You know what I mean? In that sense.
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But I get, you know, Pedro Albizu Campo, that's another podcast.
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That's way before. But just to give you an idea as a Puerto Rican kid to learn
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this and the struggles here in the black community, You kind of say to yourself
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There's still a struggle The only difference that I can see here Now there's
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nothing legally that would say Gay,
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you know, black people cannot do this Black people, you know There's no laws
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that impeach the black people What happened is this It gets co-opted,
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it gets confiscated And sadly,
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When it comes to Martin Luther King And even Malcolm X They get a little bit
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of whitewash You could say Because sometimes if you start and I've heard some
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speeches where, you know,
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especially after the assassination of Malcolm is that, you know,
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you start to see, you know, Marlith the King kind of a little bit aggressive
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because he knows, hey, my time is coming too.
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And then I saw a speech where his tone was different than what we have studied
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or what the media have shown.
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You know, and it's a speech in 66, if I'm not mistaken. Again,
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this is like a year after the assassinated brother Malcolm X.
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Keep in mind, mine was 1968. So his tone of voice kind of have changed.
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People call him radical.
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You know, people started to call him radical. But it's just that the tone,
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as he was becoming mature. Keep in mind, he died at the age of, what, 38, 39?
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But even that age, as he was becoming, as the change of this country was becoming,
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kind of Martin Luther King started to adapt.
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And I remember it was a speech by Adam Clayton Power where he kind of said,
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okay, I see that, you know, making fun of Martin Luther King.
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Hey, I see that he's kind of changing the colors there, you know what I mean?
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You know, Adam Clinton, what a class act.
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But it's one of those things that you gravitate to these stories and to know
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that there was another side of Martin Luther King, more a little bit edgy.
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I'm a little edgy myself, more like, hey, I'm not going to fall into this trap
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and be a puppet of the system type of deal.
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But it's always good to know that, hey, brother Martin Luther King was on that
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wagon where, hey, what's going on? You know what I'm saying?
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You know, as much as I'm a Christian and as much as I believe in the nonviolence
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and love and all that, you guys are pushing my binds.
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So that's a little bit of the story of Marlott the King and what he has meant
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in terms of my life and me having to understand.
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Keep in mind that I'm from Puerto Rico and coming to this country,
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that there was a lot of struggles here in New York City, in the South,
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Chicago, in the black community. We're still struggling.
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Rest in peace. When I say Cha-Cha Jimenez, who's the leader of the Young Lords, Puerto Rican,
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who might have been inspired by Martin Luther King to kind of get these groups,
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the Young Lords, that's another podcast. I keep saying, yo, that's another podcast.
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For everything I say, I keep saying, that's another podcast.
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But the fact that there's a lot of things that have happened,
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and these individuals, the Martin Luther King, they have kind of,
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you could say, They sacrificed because they knew.
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That something was going to happen. And they put out there and they fought that fight.
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The equality and some of the certain freedoms that we might have experienced.
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Because of this individual.
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But like I always said. Freedom in this country comes with an asterisk.
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Even though there's no laws that forbid for you to do things.
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Regardless of what color, greed, religion, whatever it is.
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Keep in mind we still tied up. We still got shackles.
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We still are being signed up and manipulated. by some of these mainstream news.
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And in a day like this, you know, feel free to go and put Martin Luther King
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radical views or Martin Luther King, you know, something to that effect.
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I don't want to discredit everything that he did 90% of his life preaching about
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the nonviolence and the equality.
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But just check it out. Just check it out. You're going to see some of his speeches.
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I try to find one, but I'm telling you, sometimes YouTube half away,
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And I'm not just going to say YouTube, but to mention finding a way that when
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people are waking up and doing their little research out of nowhere.
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Video cannot be found. It changes the algorithm.
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And that's why sometimes, listen, that's why you're going to please feel free
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to like, share, comment.
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If you want to hit me up, if I miss something, if you learn something, feel free to hit me up.
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Let's make it happen. Much love. This is the Deconstructing Topic Podcast,
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and I hope that you enjoy this nice little episode because we make it happen for sure, for sure.
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And you already know much love out there. Stay safe.
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Remember, freedom comes with a price. But just remember the people like Martin
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Luther King, man, just remember that.
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Let's make it happen. And I'm out. Peace.