Feeling My Age

(AP Photo/File) / Beaumont

Martin Luther King’s Address at March on Washington
August 28, 1963. Washington, D.C.

“…In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.”

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check – a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice…”

[For full text see the MLK website]

The full video of this landmark speech used to be available on YouTube but EMI Publishing acquired the copyright to the only footage and have had it removed. You might imagine that in a selfproclaimed “creative industry” the importance of Dr King’s impassionated oratory being viewed as widely as possible by today’s generations would count for something, but you’d be wrong.

Well can we at least pay to view it on iTunes ? Can we fuck. EMI make far too much money charging the world’s TV & film companies through the nose everytime they want to use a few seconds of it in a programme. At least the full length audio recording is available, and you can hear it by clicking play above or the Soundcloud link.

I’m all in favour of creative individuals holding a copyright in their original works and receiving due income as we enjoy them – Iggy Pop, for instance, or even JK Rowling. But who was the creative individual here – the network employee who pointed his camera at the podium or the man giving the speech ? And do you suppose either of their families ever see a cent from this continuing income? No, neither do I.

So here we have perhaps the most powerful assertion of human rights ever seen in the modern era witheld from view, simply to line the pockets of corporate shareholders. It’s a fucking disgrace.

Addition/Correction – 2 Sept 2011 
See this comment by Merrick and, for my part,  this retraction