April 4th, 1968
40 years ago today, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn.
40 years later, one civil rights leader passed the torch to the Hip Hop generation.
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“We can’t alienate the hip-hop [sic] community; we have to embrace them,”Charles Steele, national president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference told Black America Web. “You have to realize, Dr. King was only 26 at the start of the Montgomery bus boycott.”
Steele also said he believes that the Hip Hop generation “will be the communities salvation for economic healing.”
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Given Hip Hop’s buying and selling power, Steele may be right.
Several days ago, Jay-Z announced a deal worth $150 million with Live Nation, the largest record deal ever [click to read].
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The Hip Hop generation wields millions of dollar in buying power and more than that in terms of sales, with those involved in the culture selling everything from music, to cologne, and clothes. While the thought of boycotting a business seems out of date to many, it can still be an effective tool to voice the collective opinions of a generation often pushed to the fringes of society—much like blacks were in Dr. King’s day.
Jay-Z may have been following in Dr. King’s footsteps when he pulled Cristal from his 40/40 Club establishments following a high ranking executive of the brand disparaged Hip Hop.
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In his final speech, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” delivered the day before his death, King encouraged listeners to use the boycott as a method of getting business—and mainstream America’s—attention.
“We don’t have to argue with anybody. We don’t have to curse and go around acting bad with our words. We don’t need any bricks and bottles, we don’t need any Molotov cocktails. We just need to go to these stores, and to these massive industries in our country, and say, ‘God sent us by here to say to you that you’re not treating his children right.’ And we’ve come by here to ask you to make the first item on your agenda fair treatment, where God’s children are concerned.”
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While King advocated non-violence, he was very clear that there would be a response to unequal treatment.
“Now, if you are not prepared to do that, we do have an agenda that we must follow. And our agenda calls for withdrawing economic support from you.”
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While the Hip Hop Generation has often sparred with the Civil Rights Generation over misogyny, the N-word, and other issues, both share some common goals.
Yesterday, 100 black older black leaders released an open letter to the current presidential candidates, standing in solidarity with many around the country in the fight for human rights.
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“We share with all Americans a call for the prompt ending of the war in Iraq, universal health care, access to quality health care, affordable housing free from predatory lending, quality jobs and economic stability,” they wrote.
While some may disagree with the language and dress of some within Hip Hop, the generation is arguably continuing “The Dream,” in its own way.
