My speech in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King at Florida's Capitol Complex

Get the Point!

Earlier today in Tallahassee, I was honored to join one of my oldest friends and mentors, Attorney Daryl Parks, historian Marlon Williams-Clark, and Dr. Tiffany Packer, chair of the Florida A&M University History Department, as keynote speakers for today's MLK Holiday Commemorative Event at Florida's Capitol!

I extend kudos to Attorney Mutaqee Akbar, President of the Tallahassee Branch of the NAACP, Commissioner Curtis Richardson (Tallahassee Mayor Pro Tempore), and Attorney Carolyn Cummings (Chair of the Leon County Commission) for their leadership during this year's events.

I also extend kudos to State Attorney Jack Campbell, Sheriff Walt McNeil, Public Defender Jessica Yeary, Property Appraiser Akin S. Akinyemi, and Leon County Schools Superintendent Rocky Hanna for their leadership and support as well!

My speech:

As a Black man born in 1972, I am always proud to note that if my very first male hero was my father, the late Charles Hobbs, then my second hero—unequivocally—was Dr. Martin Luther King!

Long before the King Commemoration became an official federal holiday (1986) when I was in middle school right down the street from here at the old FAMU High School, I was always fascinated by the stories of his life and legacy as told by my parents, their friends, and many of my teachers who grew up during the Jim Crow era and remembered those turbulent times in pedantic detail. 

Dr. Martin Luther King, (center) Morehouse College graduation day circa 1948

As a kid, of course, I, like most Americans my age, received the almost fairy tale version of his life and could recite it on demand; I knew early on that Dr. King had led the Montgomery Bus Boycott after Rosa Parks was arrested; I knew that he helped form the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with a number of Black pastors including his Morehouse College Brother, Tallahassee's own civil rights legend C.K. Steele; I knew that he led protest marches and rallies all across the nation, including the March on Washington, where he went off script for several minutes to tell everyone about his dream! Indeed, that speech is considered one of the greatest pieces of oratory in American history—and it remains referenced (and on constant replay)during this time of year. 

Rev. C.K. Steele, also a Morehouse Man, inspects a burned out cross that the Ku Klux Klan lit up in front of his Tallahassee church base, Bethel Missionary Baptist…

But it was only as I grew from a boy into a man that my historical knowledge was deepened during my own matriculation at Morehouse College, where I learned ALL about Dr. King's nightmare—the part of his life that so many of our fellow Americans who invoke his name for their own selfish goals conveniently omit. 

It was then that I learned all about the near constant harassment from the FBI and local police forces who often were in lock step with the Ku Klux Klan and White Citizens’ Council members who were using every legal and illegal means at their disposal to thwart the cause of Black Civil Rights and the ideal of "Justice for All."

It was then that I learned about the constant death threats, the tapped telephones, the letter from none other than FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover suggesting that King was a fraud who should kill himself, that I understood that the man who was my hero was labeled a menace, a rabble rouser, and even a traitor to the United States once he began speaking out against the Vietnam War.

The SCLC leadership roster circa 1960

What intrigued me as a young man, and guides me still in my early 50's, was the realization that the last 13 years of Dr. King's life was a nightmare simply because he used his pulpit, his pen, and his presence to force America to fulfill what it always “claimed” to be—a place where liberty and justice for all was more than mere sloganeering. 

You see, Dr. King wasn't demanding special status, he simply pushed for the day when Black citizens received the very same rights as white citizens in these United States. But King went even further than that, I remind, because after eight bloody years of peaceful protesting by his followers—protests that were often met with billy clubs, boots, and bullets, when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 were finally signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, Dr. King soon drew that same president's ire once he spoke out against all of the poor Black, white, and Latino men who were being drafted to kill poor Vietnamese people in Southeast Asia.

And when Dr. King announced in early 1968 his intentions to form a Poor People's Campaign that would unite poor people of ALL races in a second march on Washington to demand more jobs and better pay, weeks later, he was forever silenced by an assassin's bullet that snuffed his life out at the Lorraine Motel on April 4th. 

So, I speak of Dr. King's nightmares this morning to remind all here assembled that the man we love and celebrate today was hated and denigrated by so many while alive—but he still pressed boldly on towards justice for all not by returning the hate, but by extending love. I speak of Dr. King's nightmares today to remind that those of us who love and honor a life given up in the cause of justice back in 1968—should ensure justice for all in 2024. 

As I often write, I find it perverse—very perverse—that right here in Florida's Capital City, in the building right behind us, are politicians who will “praise” King this day by taking his words on color and character completely out of context, but are the main ones in our legislative halls and in the governor’s mansion trying to limit the teachings of the nightmarish aspects of the very Jim Crow laws King gave up his life to change!

Pictured above with friends Mutaqee Akbar, Nicole Everett, and Jon Brown. (Below) A mural of Rev. C.K. Steele in front of the Leon County Public Library

I find it perverse when folks in that building behind us who couldn't explain Critical Race Theory if their very lives depended on it, praise King in one breath, while pushing laws that dictate how we should think and who we should love, while ensuring justice for the privileged few—not for all.

Civil rights attorney Daryl Parks, the 69th President of the National Bar Association

I find it perverse to see the same folks praising King this day, hammering the "Woke Mob" every other day—as if Dr. King would side with their corporate elitism, anti-immigrant, and militaristic goals were he alive today!

So as we leave here this day, lest we forget the price that Dr. King paid—along with the sacrifices of leaders like Rev. C.K. Steele, Rev. Ralph Abernathy, Rev. Andrew Young, Congressman John Lewis, Diane Nash Bevel, local legend Patricia Stephens Due, and so many men and women in King’s inner circle who fought for the oft stated yet oft illusory goal of “liberty and justice for all…”