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<\/a> On Friday, February 16, 2018, I gave a talk titled \u201cIf We Can\u2019t Get It, Shut It Down:\u201d MLK, BLM and the Rhetoric of Confrontation.\u201d\u00a0 Hosted by the History Department at the University of Memphis, I argued that King, near the end of his life, no longer believed that\u00a0government officials would \u201cdo the right thing,\u201d King called for a campaign of massive civil disobedience that would lead to economic boycotts and shut down entire cities. By doing this, King asked activists to bear witness to their suffering in hopes that the action could convict the government to do the \u201cright thing.\u201d In closing, I argued that BLM whether knowingly or not, have adopted many of the ideas that King argued during the last year of his life thus becoming the natural extension of King\u2019s vision in the last year of his life.\u00a0<\/span><\/em>Below is a part of that presentation.\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\nOn July 10, 2016, more than 1,000 frustrated and fed up American citizens took to the I-40 Bridge connecting Arkansas and Tennessee in an act of mass civil disobedience to disrupt and shut down traffic<\/a>. These American citizens were protesting the latest videos; the murders of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile that had gone viral causing another round of trauma and pain in the minds and bodies of African Americans. Television stations in Memphis broke away from regularly scheduled programming to cover the protest. The local newspaper provided live updates on its website while other media outlets offered \u201clive\u201d coverage of the event through social media.<\/span><\/p>\n People overheard one protester shouting<\/a>, \u201cWe\u2019re trying to get equal rights. We want things to be fair. We want our voices to be heard. Black Lives Matter activist Shahidah Jones called the protest something similar to a family reunion. She remarked<\/a>, \u201cI saw people I hadn\u2019t seen in years.\u201d Activist Tami Sawyer reminded onlookers and the media that what was going on across the country where people \u201csaying enough is enough,\u201d She continued<\/a>,<\/span><\/p>\n I think about this last year. People all over the city and the Commercial Appeal celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Selma march, where Dr. Martin Luther King\u00a0and hundreds of African-Americans were hosed by water and attacked by dogs and beaten by police during a peaceful protest for their rights. Fifty\u00a0years after that, we\u2019re still fighting against the same injustices, and while it is true that blocking traffic could have some dire consequences, the chance of that happening here are still much <\/span>more slimmer than a black person being faced with systematic racism and injustice.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Labor and wage activist Jayanni Webster<\/a>, who was one of the last ones off the bridge that night remarked that taking the bridge so openly was the \u201conly opportunity that they would ever have in their life to even talk to a police officer in a way that won\u2019t get them killed. People in Memphis never have the opportunity to confront those in power who represent a failed state of the economy and the politics of this city that continually oppresses people.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Pastor and University of Memphis Department of Communication<\/a> graduate student Earle Fisher were one of the ones on the bridge that night. He told independent journalist Wendi Thomas<\/a> that he was \u201chappy as shit,\u201d<\/a> about taking the bridge because he \u201cknew it would take a moment like that to change the trajectory of what the movement in Memphis would look like.\u201d Activist Keedran Franklin noted that<\/a> \u201cA lot of people were crying together, but it was like tears of joy because a lot of people were hurt. That\u2019s the only reason why we were up there,\u201d \u201cNot being heard, not being felt, not enough resources.\u201d While the protest inconvenienced motorists, some that night showed signs of solidarity. One trucker allowed demonstrators to climb on top of his truck to hold up signs and raised fists. Community activist Nour Hantouli, told a reporter<\/a> that the incident was a \u201cvery remarkable sign of solidarity from someone who is caught in the very inconvenient position of that demonstration,\u201d but further added, \u201cof course, that got turned into \u2018thugs trashing property,\u2019 you know, the typical racist narrative.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n City officials, on the other hand, had a different view. While claiming that he understood the protester\u2019s frustration, and promising an open dialogue toward effecting change, Interim Police Director at the time of the incident, Mike Rallings remarked<\/a> that a \u201cbridge shutdown was not the proper way to protest.\u201d Claiming to stand with the protesters, Rallings commented, \u201cI don\u2019t want us to shut down a bridge, I\u2019m with you; I\u2019ll march with you. But we need to do it together; we need to have a dialogue, we need not be shutting down bridges.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Shelby County Commissioner Terry Roland said<\/a> that while he was \u201cproud we didn\u2019t have any violence, a lot of those people weren\u2019t even from Memphis, and they should not have blocked the roads, especially a federal highway.\u201d Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland, while appreciating the fact<\/a> that the protest \u201cremained peaceful,\u201d he cautioned that \u201ccitizens must protest in a legal way. Stopping traffic on the interstate is not legal.\u201d A day before the I-40 bridge take over and protest, Atlanta mayor Kasim Reed, after citizens there shut down a major highway infamously proclaimed<\/a>, \u201cWe\u2019re the home of Dr. Martin Luther King. The only thing I ask is that they not take the freeways. Dr. King would never take a freeway.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Despite, as the Root writer Jeanne Theoharis notes<\/a> \u201cReed\u2019s claim is historically absurd,\u201d noting that King \u201ctook many a highway\u2014most famously in the Selma-to-Montgomery march,\u201d people continue in speaking of protests, to use the \u201cwrong way\u201d; \u201cright way\u201d dichotomy to silence any activity. \u00a0Especially when it comes to Black Lives Matter activists, some well-meaning and sympathetic supporters also have been guilty of policing the movement\u2019s strategies. Some like Oprah Winfrey even questioned<\/a> if BLM had any leaders that could affect \u201creal change.\u201d\u00a0Others, such as Rev. Barbara Reynolds<\/a> went even further in her essay published in the Washington Post.<\/span><\/p>\n Reynolds, herself active within the Civil Rights struggles of the 60\u2019s, wrote<\/a> that while the \u201cbaby boomers who drove the success of the civil rights movement want to get behind Black Lives Matter, the group\u2019s confrontational and divisive tactics make it difficult.\u201d She remembered that activists\u00a0in the 1960\u2019s \u201cconfronted white mobs and police with dignity and decorum, sometimes dressing in church clothes and kneeling in prayer during protests to make a clear distinction between who was evil and who was good.\u201d She further wrote that activists in her generation were \u201ctrained in the tradition of Martin Luther King Jr., we were nonviolent activists who won hearts by conveying respectability and changed laws by delivering a message of love and unity. BLM seems intent on rejecting our proven methods. This movement is ignoring what our history has taught.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n However well-meaning, these historical descriptions just are not accurate. This misremembering not from opponents but supporters of King lead many to believe he was just a utopian dreamer who led a few approved and sanctioned marches.\u00a0<\/span>In this presentation, I would like to challenge some of these contemporary embedded narratives by examining the more radical King. Specifically, I examine King\u2019s rhetoric as a synecdoche or as representative of the Civil Rights movement most people profess to understand. Drawing from Robert Cathcart\u2019s notion of managerial and confrontational rhetoric when applied to social movements, King\u2019s earlier rhetoric seeks to be non-confrontational and seeks persuasion\u2014a changing of hearts and minds in accompanying goals and objectives. However, as time went on, I argue that King begins a rhetorical project with the aim not necessarily to persuade but to bear witness through confrontation that would hopefully at best lead to <\/span>conviction. <\/span><\/p>\n During the last year of King\u2019s life, his ability to persuade and to gain a national consensus around issues of war, poverty, economic injustice, and the inequality suffered by blacks and all people of color had waned. Faced with increasing hostility to him and the movement along with the rising white backlash that eventually would give birth to Nixon\u2019s silent majority coalition, King knew that moral suasion would not give him the results that he had hoped. Thus King begins a campaign, grounded in non-violence that aimed to force the government to act on behalf of the movement. No longer believing that government officials would \u201cdo the right thing,\u201d King called for a campaign of massive civil disobedience that would lead to economic boycotts and shut down entire cities. By doing this, King asked activists to bear witness to their suffering in hopes that the action could convict the government to do the \u201cright thing.\u201d I conclude by arguing that BLM whether knowingly or not, have adopted many of the ideas that King argued during the last year of his life becoming the natural extension of King\u2019s vision in the last year of his life.<\/span><\/p>\n To listen to this and the rest of the lecture, click here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n