Martin Luther King Day: 2022

This past weekend in Charlotte, the local Catholic diocese bussed in about 100 people for a march to Trade and Tryon where they prayed, made a scene, held signs, and entertained speakers pontificating on all manner of fake things like the so called “abortion pill reversal” procedure that causes massive hemorrhaging.

Despite being the weekend before MLK day, the local church decided to march against access to healthcare. So, I decided to see if the Reverend Doctor King had said anything about Reproductive Justice, and found something very interesting.

In 1966, Planned Parenthood created the Margaret Sanger Award and gave the first years awards to 4 people, one of who was MLK Jr.

While he was not able to attend and accept the award, his spouse, Mrs. Coretta Scott King accepted in his place and gave a comprehensive speech that covered activism, social justice, reproductive rights, and self-determination. She talked about birth control and family planning as a way out of the cycles of poverty and how she and her spouse respected the work Sanger did.

In hindsight, many of the things Sanger did have been tarnished by her writings or speeches about eugenics, as well as the more comprehensive understanding we white people have now on systemic racism, white supremacy, and the patriarchy.

While our anti-racism has far to go, I am going to link the speech below, so that it can be read and pondered in the context of it's time.

Family Planning - A Special and Urgent Concern by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

The contributions that the Rev Dr King gave to our national discussion around human rights, civil rights, and reproductive rights are immeasurable.

His murder was an additional stain on the long history of colonialism, genocide, and bigotry for which we will have to give account, but we honour his legacy today in our seemingly endless striving for the authority of people with uteruses to decide their own futures.

I hope everyone snowed in yesterday took time to read some of his unedited speeches and recommit to fighting for change, no matter what the cost.