ANGELA RYE: Good morning, Memphis.
AUDIENCE: Good morning.
ANGELA RYE: [adjusting the microphone] This is a little high for me. I have on my stilettos, and it’s still a little too — in fact, you know what? Let’s take that off. Um, thank you all so much for having me. I wish we could see your faces. I don’t know if it’ll mess up the recording. But I would love to have the lights up just a little bit. I don’t do dark rooms lest I fall into the Sunken Place.
AUDIENCE: [laughter]
ANGELA RYE: Those of you who watched “Get Out” understand that reference. So, first and foremost, I just wanna thank you all so much for having me here today. I’ll take the spotlight…that’s better. I … I thank you because I didn’t have to be here and I’m grateful because I’ve had the opportunity to sit with some Memphis folks that I love. And so thanks to the City for inviting me here. The first thing I wanna do is just pay homage to Dr. King … part of the reason why we’re here. I would also want to recognize and stand in solidarity with the families and the surviving sanitation strikers (because I think that’s important) who asked a very important question or made a very important demand. Thank you, I AM A MAN, which talks about the dignity that we deserve and have always deserved as black people in this country. Right. So, I’d like to say that I believe I’m a bringer of truth. My name means bringer of truth. And so sometimes it’s tight, but it’s always right. So first…I’m going to …I just wanna play a part, a small part. It’s about to be a hood-tastic presentation, but a small part of Dr. King’s last speech here in Memphis.
RECORDING: …All we say to America is, “Be true to what you said on paper.” If I lived in China or even Russia, or any totalitarian country, maybe I could understand some of these illegal injunctions. Maybe I could understand the denial of certain basic First Amendment privileges, because they hadn’t committed themselves to that over there. But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right.
AUDIENCE: [applause]
ANGELA RYE: And so, thank you, Dr. King but I believe the greatness of America that he’s talking about should also apply to the greatness and the vision he saw for Memphis. So I wanna talk just for a moment about why we’re here, so of course, of course we pay homage to these heroes. But I think it’s very important for us to understand that 50 years later, we still haven’t seen the progress that we deserve.
AUDIENCE: [applause]
ANGELA RYE: And that is not just true for Memphis. It’s true for America. There was an election that took place in 2016 that took us back. Church people call it backsliding. We went backward, and we don’t have to go backward. We the people don’t have to stand for going backward. We the people have never stood for anything but progress. It’s important for you all to know just a little bit about me. I come from someone who was once called a perpetual troublemaker. A friend of his thought that was a joke. I didn’t know that was his friend, so I was ready to fight somebody on behalf of my daddy on a elevator.
AUDIENCE: [laughter]
ANGELA RYE: I call my dad a protester proudly. My dad is an activist where I’m from in Seattle, Washington. My dad is true to this he’s not new to this. He named me after Angela Davis, which is why in part I’m wearing my beret but also “Black Panther” just came out.
AUDIENCE: [laughter]
ANGELA RYE: But it wasn’t just my dad seeing his … His mother was a labor union member and part of an organizing committee where she worked at Boeing. See, my grandfather was a part of the National Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. He also … being a union man. These are people who always fought for the dignity of what it means to be black in this country to just be paid what we deserve because we worked for free for far too long.
AUDIENCE: [applause]
ANGELA RYE: And I’m also here because I stand on the shoulders of some activists who are very familiar. Some advocates who are very familiar to the Memphis family here — those folks are Tami Sawyer, Shahidah Jones, Keedran Franklin, Andre Johnson and Earle Fisher. … If you all would stand, I just wanna thank you and acknowledge your work…
AUDIENCE: [applause]
ANGELA RYE: Thank you. So I wanted to give you this frame because I’m so pleased to be here with you all, because my standing here means that you’re not afraid of progress. Either that or you didn’t do your research. [laughter] Ha, ha, hell.
AUDIENCE: [applause]
ANGELA RYE: But I also stand here because my spirit is troubled. See, this is the place where Dr. King was assassinated. He said in the remarks that we just played, “America, be true to what you said on paper.” And today 50 years after his assassination, I say to you “Memphis, be true to what you said on paper.”
AUDIENCE: [applause]
ANGELA RYE: You wanted to have a reverse march today and you couldn’t, and you couldn’t because we can’t substantially honor progress that doesn’t exist. The black child poverty rate is the highest in the nation. One of the highest rates of disconnected youth in the nation. The City of Memphis spends more on policing than on education. There’s unlawful surveillance of activists and grassroots leaders… Eerily familiar to what Dr. King went through with J. Edgar Hoover. We do not want to replicate what the FBI has done and had to apologize for. In our cities, there’s an existing ACLU lawsuit because of the requirement that certain activists and advocates in Memphis must have escorts in City Hall. The FedUp campaign, which purports to be tough on crime, but is overwhelmingly adding to the number of black people who are serving mandatory minimums in your prisons. We can’t be afraid of progress Memphis; it’s tight but it’s right, and we can walk forward together, but the choice is on you.
AUDIENCE: [applause]
ANGELA RYE: Your campaign is called “I Am Memphis.” But is this the Memphis that Dr. King would have seen in the promised land, where the right to protest for rights is met with the blacklisting, literally, of activists? Are you proud of this Memphis — this Memphis that sounds entirely too familiar to the Memphis that rejected Dr. King in 1968? Are you proud of this Memphis? This Memphis is rejecting today’s Dr. Kings. Don’t you understand? Revisionist history is what makes us love Dr. King. It’s the pulling of the quotes that are the easiest to digest. It’s the harsh truth of his word. And I’m crying from frustration because we can do better as a people. We must do better as a people. Our lives are literally on the line.
AUDIENCE: [applause]
ANGELA RYE: Because you wanna honor Dr. King and the sanitation workers
Don’t just pay restitution to the sanitary workers survivors. Pay the families of those who are no longer with us. If you wanna honor him and the sanitation workers’ legacies, give awards to the activists that called for the removal of the Confederate statues even when their lives were on the line. If you want to honor him, support a livable wage, that’s $15 an hour in the city where I’m from. Put it on the books. You can do this, Memphis. Our people are hungry. Their starving their babies for tips to keep their lights on.
This is not the Memphis that Dr. King would have appreciated and talked about going into the promise land.
AUDIENCE: [applause]
ANGELA RYE: If you want to honor him. You paid me a large fee to be here. I’m gonna be honest with y’all, I don’t lie to family. You paid me a large fee to be here Memphis. And I’m grateful. But with that fee … I’m gonna give $5,000 to the C-3 Land Cooperative. And I’m gonna give another $5,000 to the Official Black Lives Matter Campaign, who has … the Memphis Community Bail Fund. Join me. Put up your $5. Put up your $10. Put up your $15. We’ve got work to do, to build the legacy of the I Am Memphis that you wanted to do the reverse march. We can enjoy the progress. We can celebrate the progress. But let’s not lie to each other about where we are.
You can be better. We can be better. I will stand with you in becoming better. But if you won’t, don’t tell me about his dream when you support policies that make the reality for far too many a nightmare. If you won’t, don’t tell me about the content of my character when you’re profiling, stopping and frisking, setting unaffordable bail, doling out our citizens, my brothers and sisters. If you won’t, don’t tell me about love when you are cowering to fascism, and racism and bigotry cloaked in Trumpism.
AUDIENCE: [applause]
ANGELA RYE: Don’t tell me about justice rolling down like waters when your silence is deafening, and you’ll sit at the feet of Jeff Sessions. What kind of radical action will you take that mirrors the Dr. King that we know and not the one they put in commercials? The kind of Dr. King that insured our progress, our forward movement and our freedom. If you want to honor Dr. King’s legacy, don’t just dream, work. If you want to honor Dr. King’s legacy, don’t just stay woke, work woke. If you wanna honor Dr. King’s legacy, don’t just fight for equality, fight for equity. If you wanna honor Dr. King’s legacy, don’t just pursue justice and love, pursue power in love.
All power to the people.
Theryn C. Bond (@SuprProducr114) curated this transcript, which was edited by MLK50. It may contain typographical/punctuation errors and small discrepancies.
This story is brought to you by MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, a nonprofit reporting project on economic justice in Memphis. Support independent journalism by making a tax-deductible donation today.