Martin Luther King, Jr.: Memphis, The Prophecy
Number 19, in Wadada Leo Smith's Ten Freedom Summers: "Martin Luther King, Jr.: Memphis, The Prophecy." He ends his work with King, and the name of the city where King was murdered. You'll need to consider why he would call this a "prophecy" and what might be prophesied with King's death. working with your assigned song from Wadada Leo Smith's work Ten Freedom Summers that takes into account our question "What is freedom?" If Smith's work can be said to be making an argument for freedom, how does your specific part of that work contribute to this argument? You should also bring into play at least three citations from the other writers we've worked with this semester (James Baldwin, LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka, Angela Davis, Bernice Johnson Reagon, Clyde Woods), perhaps via consideration of the questions we've linked to their writings (What is the blues? Who are the blues people? What is justice? What is sacred? What is a disaster?). Ten Freedom Summers on some level is a work of 19 songs without words, except for their titles, which are very richly allusive. So, if we were to bring all our work together, we'd be providing the words that he, the musician, suggests but leaves silent. Introduction: What is this essay about? What questions do you propose to address in Take into account the fact your reader will very likely not be familiar with your subject. They won't know the music or the musician. They won't know the detailed history that you're researching. You'll need to provide the context for the reader that will allow them learn about your subject. How do you situate it historically? Citations: Follow MLA form (see attachment) for anything that you quote from any source. Make sure to provide a list of Works Cited at the close of your essay. Images, hyperlinks: If you bring any images into your essay (please use no more than three images), remember that the image should be there for a purpose: What does it do that words can't do? What do you have to say to contextualize the image? You can also add hyperlinks to online works outside your essay, but again, make sure to give good reason and consider what it adds to bring this in. Conclusion: Let your reader exit your essay with some sense of what's been covered in the preceding pages: not a direct repetition, but a way of summing up and reminding of the crucial issues you've raised.
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Martin Luther King, Jr.: Memphis, the Prophecy
Martin Luther King Junior is and will always be one of the most influential civil rights activists through out the history of America. As a Christian, Martin used his knowledge of the bible and passion for the freedom of the oppressed to marshal against the oppression from the government and the related institutions. One of the speeches that set the stage for Martin, as the great orator that he was, is the famous ‘I Have a Dream Speech’. This had been in Washington where he had managed to organise a massive rally back in the year 1963. He was one of the fiercest campaigners against the racial profiling that was vile at the moment. Most of the black Americans had been through the slavery period or majority of the parents and their grand parents had been affected directly. At the time Martin was growing up, most of the African Americans were regarded with disdain by the rest of the white populace. They would receive the worst treatment from the government and the related agencies simply due to the colour of their skin. Living and working conditions for the African Americans were deplorable as most of them worked in the menial jobs where they would only manage to make meagre earnings. Given the amount of support that Martin was getting from the population of African Americans and the whites that were like minded, some of the officials in the government did not like his ideas.
There were several threats made on Martin’s life, but even then, he did not let up the fight for the freedom of the African Americans and the other oppressed people in America. He stood his ground and focused all his energies towards the ultimate goal of freedom for the oppressed in the society. Towards the end of his life, there had been a nation wide strike by the sanitation workers. The workers were demanding better pay and appropriate working conditions in Memphis. According to Martin, people had the right to fight for their rights and thus the workers had acted within the bounds of the law. On the 4th of April 1968, Martin had been in the mason temple, a church in Memphis, Tennessee (Holley). Here, thousands of followers had gathered to listen to the great orator as he went about his speech. This is a speech that has had great significance to Martin’s life and his course for freedom. It is has over the years been labelled as the ‘Been to The Mountaintop Speech’. It is the last speech that Martin made when he was alive in a public gathering. In the speech, he was seen to use words that hinted that he knew that his time of death was near. Much of his last words related to the aspects of mortality and his death. According to Martin, he had gone to the mountain top and he had seen the future of a free people. Even though there were deaths threats upon his life, which he said, did not worry him and what mattered was the fact that his people would finally find freedom. He was sure that when the freedom that he so much fought for would finally come, he would not be around to enjoy the fruits of his work, but he was content, knowing that he had fought a good fight. In his final words, he was happy and he did not feel worried nor have fear for any man.
Wadada Leo Smith is one of the renowned jazz musicians, who realised the Ten Freedom Summers. Having worked on the piece for more than three decades, Wadada finally realised a work of art in 2012. This work is composed of fours discs in total. All of the discs have five pieces of jazz classical music apart from the second disc that has four pieces, bringing the total number of pieces to 19. In the last piece on the last disc, he has dedicated it to Martin Luther, the prophecy and the city that King died in. According to Wadada, the composition has deeper meanings and they relate to the aspects of democracy, freedom and the various events that have shaped the American history. There is a lot of history and significant personalities that have been described in the composition especially in relation to the civil rights movement of the 50s and the 60s. Wadada dedicates the last piece to Martin as a way to bring to fruition the entire theme of the freedom for the oppressed in the American community. Martin had been one of the main figures that made the difference in the freedom fight for the African Americans. From the name of the composition and the theme of the pieces, there is a general idea of liberation for the oppressive rule of the whites. The idea of freedom and the prophecy ride on the last piece. Martin had been threatened with death s...