During Black History Month, as the US pays homage to African Americans who have changed the course of history, the establishment shows us a revised version that omits a critical piece: the black radical political tradition.

The mainstream narrative erases the attack on black liberation movements in the 60s and 70s, where the horrors of COINTELPRO effectively neutralized and destroyed prominent black radical leaders and organizations–all in a quest to dictate black history.

The black radical tradition is a collective of ideologies for liberation, from Pan Africanism to Black Marxism, that sees issues like police brutality and inequality as systemic injustices, perpetuated by class warfare–and is rooted in internationalism and anti-imperialism.

On January 10th of this year, hundreds of people from all over the country converged in Philadelphia to show this fire is still burning, despite all the attempts to extinguish it. Featuring interviews with Cornel West and others, and with speeches from legends like Mumia Abu-jamal and Angela Davis, Abby Martin provides a snapshot from the ‘Black Radical Tradition In Our Time’ conference held in Philadelphia. The event brought together around 1000 organizers, leaders and activists from around the country, with the goal of “challenging white supremacy and capitalism in anticipating the next stage of the Black liberation movement.”

Cornel West and Mumia Abu-Jamal Uncensor Radical Black History

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But Dr. King gave hundreds of unpopular and controversial speeches ranging from the dangers of the Vietnam War to mass commercialization. During his life, he was attacked and marginalized from the white and black community alike.

The US government coined Dr. King the most “dangerous Negro leader in the country”, routinely spied on him and even went as far as writing him a letter in 1964 urging him to commit suicide.

In fact, MLK Jr.’s surviving family filed a civil suit in Memphis, TN, in which the jury found elements of the US government complicit in his assassination.

Having been arrested thirty times, Dr. King routinely threw his body upon the gears of the machine to show that change doesn’t roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but through continuous struggle against institutionalized injustice.

Focusing on America as the greatest purveyor of violence in the world, Dr. King spent the last year of his life fighting what he called the triple evils of the word: racism, militarism, and economic exploitation.

In fact, when MLK was assassinated he was planning the “Poor People’s Campaign” – a mass march and occupation of DC until the US government granted poor people an “Economic Bill of Rights”.

Listen to his profound speech “Beyond Vietnam”, given exactly one year before Dr. King’s assassination.

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “Beyond Vietnam”

It’s a topic Tavis Smiley explores in amazing depth and clarity in his new book, Death of a King: The Real Story of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.s’ Final Year in which he talks about the unvarnished truth about Dr. King’s life, and last sermon entitled “Why America May Go to Hell”.

Breaking the Set speaks with Smiley about Dr. King and Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson, Arun Gandhi, about why structural and passive violence are the most inhibiting factors for peace.

Breaking the Set with Tavis Smiley and Arun Gandhi

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 Abby Martin | @Abby Martin 

Photo by flickr user Angela N.