MMMM # 463 -- Ferguson & Alabama.

Michael Brown's body lay in the street for hours before it was
covered, and then not completely.

     Some Ferguson, Missouri residents have complained that many of the people protesting the shooting death of Michael Brown by a  police officer were "outsiders". 
    

      Almost all of the media covering the shooting were definitely not from that small town.

     The public radio program "On The Media" dissected the media presence---outsider and local-- in Ferguson this weekend.

     The "outsider" charge sounded familiar to resident of communities where the Civil Rights movement was born and played out.   

     You could almost hear George Wallace and Bull Connor cursing those "outsiders" who were ruining their communities with protests.

   The Ferguson police helpfully provided the visuals for that comparison by using police dogs and arresting peaceful protesters and reporters. Only the fire hoses were missing.

     
        (Ironically, as I am writing this post on Sunday Morning, NPR is broadcasting a feature making a similar comparison, with unrest in Philadelphia in the 60's.)

     A previous post on this website pointed out the data-driven story that showed Alabama's population in 1950, as the Civil Rights movement began stirring, was made up of a majority of people-- 88%--who were born in the state. And almost all of those born elsewhere came from similar nearby southern states.
     There was no shortage of outsiders at the protests in the south in the 1960's.

     Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. responded directly to that "outsider" label in April of 1963 in his "Letter From A Birmingham Jail":

     I think I should indicate why I am here in Birmingham, since you have been influenced by the view which argues against "outsiders coming in." I have the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every Southern state, with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. We have some eighty-five affiliated organizations across the South, and one of them is the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. Frequently we share staff, educational and

financial resources with our affiliates. Several months ago the affiliate here in Birmingham asked us to be on call to engage in a nonviolent direct-action program if such were deemed necessary. We readily consented, and when the hour came we lived up to our promise. So I, along with several members of my staff, am here because I was invited here. I am here because I have organizational ties here.

But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. 

 [The Monday Morning Media Memo is a regular feature of timlennox.com.]