Killer Mike spoke with Professor Cornell West, Senator Nina Turner and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders to discuss Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy, which Mike says is more radical than most perceive. The panel discussed many aspects of the important Reverend and social activist's legacy, and the effects that his advocacy of civil rights has had on society today. Each participant had a unique vision of the iconic Doctor, and paid tribute respectively. However, Mike's perspective differed a bit from others on the panel and said that Dr. King was more about social justice than others thought.
The conversation took place in Emanuel AME Church, sometimes called Mother Emanuel, in Charleston, South Carolina, according to HipHopDX. This historic African American church was the site of a horrific massacre on June 17th, 2015 when Dylan Roof, after sitting in a Bible study class for an extended period of time, opened fire on the congregants in a hateful act of racial bigotry and violence, killing nine innocent church-goers.
Killer Mike says he was mentored by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s peers, and has learned aspects of the icon's radicalism that were not taught to him in school.
"I have been mentored directly by Andrew Young, Joseph Lowery, Ralph David Abernathy III, and others that were directly involved with Dr. King...We have been sold a load of crock," Killer Mike said via HipHopDX . "We have been given a pretty, little compartment to put Dr. King in that says 'No matter how much you hurt. No matter how much we stigmatize you. No matter how much we traumatize you, we beat you. As radical as you could go is nonviolence.' And that's about where it is. It never talks about the social justice aspect of Dr. King."
The rapper/activist continued, "Alice Johnson was a white woman and my mentor, from Chicago. She was the first person to introduce me to the radically different ideas of King that directly challenged establishment. They challenged the military-industrial complex. They challenged this country to feed and take care of its poor and mentally ill in a different way...And I had never heard of that. I just heard in school 'Be nonviolent.' It was all about desegregation. It absolutely was not only about desegregation."
