As you may know, Fox News’s enfant terrible Glenn Beck is hosting a rally at the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s momentous “I Have a Dream” address. As you may not know, Beck is claiming that divine intervention, not the careful machinations of a marketing team, led him to his event’s historic date:
“It was not my intention to select 8-28 because of the Martin Luther King tie. … I had no idea until I announced it and I walked offstage and my researchers said, New York Times has already just published that this is [the same day as the King speech] — and I said, 'Oh, jeez.'
I believe in divine providence. I believe this is a reason [the date was chosen], because whites don't own the Founding Fathers. Whites don't own Abraham Lincoln. Blacks don't own Martin Luther King …Too many have forgotten Abraham Lincoln's ideas and far too many have either gotten just lazy or they have purposely distorted Martin Luther King's ideas of judge a man by the content of his character.”
Despite the fact that God himself (herself? Itself?) decided to have Glenn and his minions descend on DC on the 28th, several minority groups have spoken out against the event. National Urban League President Marc Morial called it “an effort to embarrass and poke a finger in the eye of the civil rights community.” Along with the NAACP, US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Al Sharpton and Martin Luther King III, Morial will be supporting a separate DC rally on the 28th.
Sharpton rather unconvincingly asserts that his group’s march is "not a countermarch to Beck."
-Cord Jefferson is a staff writer at The Root. Follow him on Twitter.