January 19 has been set aside as a national holiday to celebrate the life and works of famed civil rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King. But this year, the holiday was interrupted across the country by #BlackLivesMatter protesters.
Having lost his life to an assassin’s bullet at the young age of 39, this year King would have been but 86 years of age. Despite his short time on earth, King packed important work into those years, culminating in his famous “I Have Dream” speech. But the #BlackLivesMatters protesters decided to use his day for their own purposes.
As a result, in many places across the country, Monday’s King day celebrations were taken over or interrupted by the militant #BlackLivesMatters protesters.
On Monday, for instance, The Washington Post reported that #BlackLivesMatters protesters had planned dozens of disruptive protests during MLK Day.
Instead of a day to celebrate King, one protester told the Post that, “Today is about reclaiming what MLK Day means. His work and his image has been sanitized by people who are interested in maintaining the current system of oppression.”
In another case, protesters in St. Louis, Missouri screaming the name of Michael Brown — the strong-arm robbery suspect whose death sparked months of destructive rioting in Ferguson — interrupted the King day celebrations at Harris-Stowe State University.
The St. Louis protesters even accused the civil rights activists there to observe the King holiday of being “part of the establishment” and being racists against blacks, even as most of those participating in the holiday were themselves black.
In St. Paul, Minnesota, police had a difficult time preventing protesters from flooding out onto the highway in an effort to shut down I-94.
The Associated Press also reported on disruptions during the MLK Day celebrations, saying, “several dozen demonstrators blocked traffic while marching in Cleveland, Ohio, and protests over the deaths were reported in St. Louis, Missouri and Seattle. Dozens of protesters were detained after blocking a bridge in San Mateo, California, authorities said.”
The AP also noted that unrestrained protests during the MLK holiday resulted in arrests in San Mateo, California, Seattle, Washington, Cleveland, Ohio, and other cities.
In New York, protesters gathered on the holiday to “root out racist cops.”
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter: @warnerthuston. Email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.
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