By Sherry Gay-Dagnogo, Education Advocate
June 18, 2013
Talking to a group of students I was asked, “What are we marching for Ms. D?”. I realized during that conversation that there’s a generational gap and transfer of knowledge regarding our story and struggle. Throughout our lively dialog I shared the following:
Sherry Gay-Dagnogo speaking at City Council hearing Aug. 30, 2012
Every right we have in America, someone took a stand that wasn’t always popular or embraced. I shared that Detroit finds itself in utter turmoil with the existence of Emergency Managers controlling our city and schools, coupled with the existence of a separate and unequal education experiment the Educational Achievement Authority. While the aforementioned systems have systemic challenges that demand systematic resolution, the methodologies used by those in power does nothing more than widen the gap of race, power and privilege polarization.
Voter’s Rights are under attack and the basic quality of life we so freely enjoy is being eroded by the attack on labor, the lack of jobs, and legislation seeking to further nullify our rights. The Emergency Manager’s recent threat to misuse Michigan’s legislative process to place a choke hold on seniors’ pensions while protecting art at the DIA is wrong! We still have not recovered from the blatant attack on Democracy during the lame duck passage of a new EM Law and Right to Work legislation. This form of government is the very essence of hypocrisy of democracy.
Click Here to View: Citizen’s Reaction to the Threat of Taking their Pensions.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. leading freedom march in Detroit, June 23, 1963. He had no corporate sponsors, and many ministers in the city, including Black pastors, refused to march with him., That situation is reminiscent of the reaction to the current EM/bankers’ takeover of Detroit,
Dr. King shared his views on unjust laws in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, in which he addressed the media’s attempt to categorize him as lawless and contradictory to the cause of peace and nonviolence.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. came to Memphis to support striking AFSCME sanitation workers and was assassinated there shortly after he marched with them.
“You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court’s decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “An unjust law is no law at all.”
Carpool during Montgomery bus boycott, which brought Jim Crow to its knees.
That is why we must all gather to march for a change in our legislature, a change in our educational systems, to protect our voting rights, to protect labor, to renounce power and privilege over the will of the people. We must march to write a new chapter in Detroit as we take a stand for Democracy during Freedom Walk, Saturday, June 22nd, 9 a.m., gathering at Woodward and Forest. Together we can restore Voting Rights and Democracy for Detroit!
To Register call: (313) 871-2087 or visit FreedomWalkDetroit.com
Education Advocate, M.Ed.
@DetroitEducator
Education in the News:
Freep: Thousands Expected to Rally Wednesday, 6/19, in Lansing for Education
Crains: 650 Layoffs resulting non-payment of Robert Bobb DPS Contract
Education Next: Why all the hype for Michelle Rhee?
Freep: Bills to dissolve Michigan Public Schools on Fast Track
Diane Ravitch Blog: Save Michigan Public Schools Rally
EAA Chancellor Fibbed on Grant Application
DetNews: E.A.A. Embellish Authority on Federal Grant
Rep. Ellen Lipton E.A.A. FOIA documents highlight $12 million loan from DPS
While VOD certainly supports any march commemorating the heroism of Dr, Martin Luther King, Jr., we question the NAACP and the UAW, indicated as sponsors of this march, on why they are not using Dr. King’s most effective tactics, e.g. the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and the strike of Memphis AFSCME workers in 1968, during which he was assassinated.
Related article about the history of the 1963 March and the refusal of many ministers and others in the city, including the NAACP, to participate.
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