A Cruel Jest: MLK on the Bootless

I first saw this rare color footage of Martin Luther King, Jr. at The Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama. The clip I saw—from the first one below—startled me. MLK explained how emancipation for the slave was "...freedom to hunger. It was freedom...without food to eat or land to cultivate, so it was freedom and famine at the same time." And how "it's a cruel jest to say to a bootless person that they ought to lift themselves up by their own bootstraps."

These are the same powerful word and concepts that in recent years have awakened me to the brilliant effectiveness of white supremacy culture, and my role in it. It never occurred to me that the bootstraps narrative was happening in the Civil Rights Era. But of course it was. The inevitability of present day racist-inspired mass shootings is part of the same storyline.

The second version is the full, uncut length of the interview. MLK's recounting of the launching of the Civil Rights' movement couldn't be more timely. Watch with others. Watch multiple times. Reflect, be moved, take action.

Excerpted 2:39 minute version

Full, unedited 49 minute version

June 2022 Back to Blog Home

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