If Dr. King were alive today that s what he would be discussing. I Have A Dream speech. It would seem to me that if I were a soldier that died on the battlefield for you, that if you were going to honor me, you ought to be coming to the battlefield where I fought rather than going to the beach, celebrating the fact that I m not here to fight anymore. That s like a man celebrating his wedding anniversary with his mistress. Secondly, you can t memorialize soldiers that fought on the other side.
Nobody remembers enemy soldiers.
You memorialize soldiers that fought for you. So, if we are going to deal with Memorial Day, we can t remember those soldiers that stood at the door in Birmingham and blocked schoolhouses from us. We can t memorialize soldiers who came into urban areas to hold our communities under siege in police states, supporting those reactionary forces that tried to keep apartheid intact in these United States. If we are going to talk about soldiers, let s talk about those soldiers who went on the battlefield for freedom, justice, empowerment and fairness. Thirdly, when you talk about soldiers to your children this weekend, tell them about the Tuskegee Airmen, tell them about Ben Davis, tell them about Crispus Attucks, who was the first man, black or white, to die in this country against the British empire, even though the Americans who used him had the same racist policies against him as the British had against the Americans.