A revenge fantasy that MTV shelved soon after. In the final moment, Chuck D pushes a button and the car carrying the fictional governor explodes. PE shot a cinematic video where they kidnap or attack various fictional political leaders from Arizona. If Wonder’s song was a bright welcome into the conversation about a King holiday then Public Enemy’s song was an aggressive conversation-ender. This was an incendiary anthem about King and the racist resistance to his holiday. That elicited the anger of Black America, which was distilled into a powerful song by Public Enemy, “ By The Time I Get To Arizona.” Arizona was a longtime holdout - their voters refused to allow the King holiday.
It came in more like a wave that didn’t hit everywhere.
That other side of King is echoed in another song about King that I discuss in this episode of “Being Black.” See, the adoption of the King holiday wasn’t immediate or universal. The real King is much more nuanced, much more Blackcentric and much more of a servant of Black political and economic needs than the milquetoast King we celebrate on his holiday. And he was staunchly anti-war at a time when that was a controversial position. He was also about attacking the American capitalist system. You know, the only King quote that most white people know or use. That’s the King of judging people solely by the content of their character. The King that we celebrate each year is a beacon of peace and post-racial thinking. It took years of careful political diplomacy and image-shaping by Coretta Scott King to position King in a way that would let him be a candidate for a national holiday. In 1966, King’s Gallup disapproval rating was 62%. The story of how the King holiday came into being is at the heart of episode five of “ Being Black: The ’80s,” Stevie Wonder x MLK. That campaign took a lot of work because when King was assassinated, he was not popular with white Americans. His widow, Coretta Scott King, asked Wonder to write it because she wanted help with her years-long campaign to create a national holiday honoring her late husband. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a national holiday. But many people don’t realize the origin of Stevie Wonder’s “Happy Birthday.” Wonder wrote a song meant to promote the idea of making Dr. Read more opinions on theGrio.Īt every self-respecting Black birthday party, you sing “Happy Birthday” in the Black way. OPINION: The fifth episode of “Being Black: The ’80s” dives into Stevie Wonder’s Happy Birthday and the real Martin Luther King Jr.Įditor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own.
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