Father Pfleger on Rodney King’s death: “America owes him a thank you’

By Chinta Strausberg

 

Reacting to the death of 47-year-old Rodney King who was found dead at the bottom of his Rialto, California home, Father Michael L. Pfleger Sunday said King was victorious in making America “wrestle” with racial profiling not just because of his brutal recorded L.A. police beating but his question to the nation, “Can’t we all get along”?

“America owes him a big thank you,”  Pfleger said after receiving the “Father of the Year” award at Rev. Bobby L. Rush’s Beloved Community Christian Church, 6430 S. Harvard.  “I was very sad to hear about his death because I felt he was damaged from the racial attack years ago and always seemed to be struggling to get back on his feet. He deserved better than that.”

Pfleger was referring to the March 31, 1991 beating by four white L.A. police that was captured on a video that went viral. That beating of then 25-year-old King, who had several addictions including drugs and alcohol, and their acquittal of police abuse charges by an all-white jury led to the L.A. riots and the killing of at least 55 people and the destruction of 600 buildings. The video became a national symbol of police brutality.

“I will always remember Rodney King for asking the question, “Can we all get along”?  “In most places when you ask that question, people just laugh because they are uncomfortable,” said Pfleger, “but the question he asked was a question that is just as pregnant today as the day he asked it. America is still so divided not just by race but by class, so polarized by parties and faith and politics.

“I hope that as we remember Rodney King we ask the question, ‘can we all just get along’?”  Pfleger believes that King “made America wrestle with racial profiling and racism. He did for racism what Trayvon Martin did about race profiling and the ‘Stand Your Ground’ in Florida” which sparked national protests and gain worldwide support. Martin, 17, was unarmed. He was fatally shot by 28-year-old George Zimmerman, an armed neighborhood watchman who said Martin looked suspicious.

“Rodney King made America look at itself like what Mamie Till Mobley did when she made America look at her son (14-year-old Emmett Till)” lying in an open casket with his face grossly disfigured from a vicious beating and shooting by white racists in Money, Mississippi who claimed he whistled at the wife of a store owner.

Mobley said she wanted America to see “the ugly face of racism” which is why she opted for an open-casket funeral held in at the Robert’s Temple Church of God In Christ….. on the South Side of Chicago. Emmett Till’s murder of August 28, 1955, sparked the Civil Rights movement.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat in Montgomery, Alabama resulting in a 381 successful bus boycott, a repeal of Montgomery’s segregated bus seating law, and the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that segregated buses are unconstitutional.

It was the introduction of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who helped organize the bus boycott. The Parks incident paved the way for King’s contributions to the Civil Rights movement including his giving the “I Have a Dream” speech on August 28, 1963 in Washington, D.C. that echoes Rodney King’s question of can’t we all get along. At that time, Dr. King said, “No, no we are not satisfied and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Pfleger added: “The best way we can honor and remember” Rodney King “is for us to try to get along with each other.”

Rev. Rush said Rodney King began as a victim and though he struggled history will remember him as a victor. “He was a simple man, a modest man, a man who was facing the crosshairs of history.”

Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr. told reporter “His fight helped to illuminate the darkness that exposed racial profiling and police abuse in a way that was never done before. It was a defining moment.”

Agreeing, Pfleger said, “He will always be one of the voices that spoke to the country and although he was the victim of a beating, he was victorious in making America wrestle with the question about who are we and how are we treating each other.  America owes him a thank you.”

Police are investigating the death of Rodney King as an accidental drowning; San Bernadino County, California coroner officials said the results of an autopsy performed on King today wouldn’t be available for several weeks.

Chinta Strausberg is a Journalist of more than 33-years, a former political reporter and a current PCC Network talk show host. You can e-mail Strausberg at: Chintabernie@aol.com.