{"id":10603,"date":"2026-06-04T02:45:34","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T07:45:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kewus.net\/yesterday\/?p=10603"},"modified":"2026-06-04T02:47:03","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T07:47:03","slug":"20260604","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kewus.net\/yesterday\/2026\/06\/04\/20260604\/","title":{"rendered":"Yesterday\u2019s News 2026 06 04"},"content":{"rendered":"

curated news excerpts & citations
\n… trying to ‘unbury the lede’<\/h4>\n

\"In<\/a><\/p>\n

Qasim Rashid, Esq.: Why Did Dr. King Say White Moderates Are Worse Than The KKK?<\/a><\/h2>\n

On April 12, 1963\u2014Good Friday\u2014the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested and jailed in Birmingham, Alabama.<\/p>\n

His \u201ccrime\u201d was organizing peaceful, nonviolent protests, marches, and sit-ins against the brutality of legalized segregation. He was not throwing bricks. He was not inciting violence. He was doing precisely what every civics textbook tells us citizens we are supposed to do: peacefully assemble and demand that the government live up to its own stated values.<\/p>\n

For that, Dr. King was locked in a cell.<\/p>\n

He was finally bailed out eight days later\u2014on April 20th\u2014by the United Auto Workers, who posted $160,000 bail. In those eight days, confined to a Birmingham jail cell, Dr. King wrote one of the most important documents in American history.<\/p>\n

Every person committed to justice should read it in full. But today, I want to focus on the passage that cuts most deeply\u2014because it was not written about the Klan. It was written about the people who, while claiming to be on Dr. King\u2019s side, were his greatest stumbling block.<\/p>\n

Dr. King wrote:<\/p>\n

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I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro\u2019s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen\u2019s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate<\/em>, who is more devoted to \u2018order\u2019 than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: \u2018I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action\u2019; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man\u2019s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a more convenient season. Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.<\/em> Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Read those words again. Slowly. Because Dr. King was not describing the enemy. He was describing the ally who refuses to act like one. He was describing the person who agrees with the goal but objects to the urgency. Who believes in justice in theory but demands cowardly patience in practice. Who is more committed to maintaining the comfort of the powerful than to delivering the rights of the powerless.
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\n(Qasim Rashid, Esq. more…)<\/a><\/p>\n

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