King Day at the Dome: Chaos or Community
- CUBNSC
- 4 days ago
- 7 min read
By Javar Juarez | Commentary- King Day at the Dome
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. warned us plainly in Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, published in 1967, his final book, that movements can lose their moral center when symbolism replaces substance. What unfolded at King Day at the Dome in Columbia today felt less like a people’s movement and more like a managed spectacle, one that revealed how deeply fractured Black political leadership has become in South Carolina.
This was not a gathering short on rhetoric. Unity, justice, democracy, and love were invoked repeatedly from the stage. Yet on the ground, the experience told a different story. The event centered pageantry, hierarchy, and self‑importance rather than mass participation, accountability, or working‑class power.
A Movement Talking to Itself
The most visible beneficiaries of the day were not everyday Black South Carolinians struggling with housing instability, low wages, access to healthcare, or political exclusion. Instead, prime seating, visibility, and influence were reserved for fraternal orders, secret societies, and political insiders—groups that reliably appear for ceremonial moments but are conspicuously absent when sustained civic engagement and grassroots organizing are required.
Repeated roll calls, elaborate regalia, and internal recognition crowded out the public. Working-class Black people were present but peripheral. This reinforces a long-standing reality: too many institutions that claim to speak for Black people primarily organize around themselves.
This was difficult to watch. What unfolded felt like political theater, with the Black political elite posturing amid an unlimited supply of special-interest consultants, many of whom operate comfortably within the South Carolina Democratic Party. Party Chair Christale Spain and former DNC Chair Jaime Harrison were visible fixtures, positioned alongside elected Democratic leaders. Senator Cory Booker, who has been touring South Carolina since January 17, and Congressman Ro Khanna of California were among the highest-ranking officials present.
I did not remain long enough to hear their speeches. The atmosphere felt disheveled and misaligned even before any of the U.S. Senate candidates challenging Lindsey Graham took the stage.
I was particularly surprised to see Dr. Annie Andrews present earlier that morning at Big Zion. Despite this network previously quoting her in Kershaw County, where she emphasized the need for white women to stand shoulder to shoulder with Black women, her presence in working-class and grassroots spaces across South Carolina has been limited. By contrast, Brandon Brown and Catherine Bruce have consistently shown up in communities of working-class and poor South Carolinians.
I have tracked this race carefully, and the pattern has been disappointing. Comments circulated throughout the morning regarding Dr. Andrews’ appearance, with several attendees suggesting that she is being positioned by the South Carolina Democratic Party primarily as a fundraising vehicle. That perception may explain the familiar operatives and party insiders hovering around her, drawn with predictable intensity.
The march itself was equally disheartening. The indifference of the common man was evident as Greek-letter organizations commanded attention through color, symbolism, and spectacle. I kept my distance from key operatives and instead focused on those without letters, colors, or titles. Listening to the people of South Carolina—understanding what they believe, how they interpret power, and what truly matters to them—has been my life’s work.
That listening has made one thing clear: these systems are resistant to change because they are fundamentally misaligned with the priorities of ordinary Black South Carolinians. Essential concerns are routinely sidelined in favor of political agendas tethered to national party interests and convention-driven optics rather than local, lived realities.
Even remarks from Brenda Murphy, president of the South Carolina NAACP State Conference, failed to resonate. Her use of the podium to call for better housing, address the closure of state hospitals, and advocate for increased mental-health support fell flat, not because the issues lack urgency, but because the messenger and the moment lacked credibility.
The NAACP Question
The NAACP is historically indispensable. Its legacy is not in dispute. Its current posture, however, must be interrogated. When calls for accountability are met not with dialogue but with exclusion, intimidation, or the involvement of law enforcement against Black media and organizers, something has gone fundamentally wrong.
That reality became personal for me during the 2025 NAACP statewide elections. While accompanying a candidate for public office at an event advertised as open to the public, I was confronted and informed by a representative of the State Conference that I was not welcome.
I was told directly that the president of the South Carolina NAACP State Conference, Brenda Murphy, did not want me present. Camden police were subsequently called, and an attempt was made to remove me from the premises.
The incident was not only humiliating. It stood in direct contradiction to the values the NAACP claims to uphold. An organization founded to protect Black people from the misuse of state power should never deploy that power to silence Black journalists or organizers engaged in lawful, public work. Within these spaces, speaking truth to power is not treated as a democratic necessity. It is treated as a threat.
What followed only reinforced that conclusion. I was later informed that Masonic channels had circulated instructions to “keep an eye on me,” even as those same organizations were among the most prominently platformed and accommodated during the King Day program. It is widely understood that President Murphy maintains close affiliations within these circles, including the Eastern Star.
Public organizations cannot credibly claim nonpartisanship and openness while operating through secrecy, gatekeeping, and political favoritism. Unity cannot be demanded from below while power is protected and concentrated at the top. That contradiction was not theoretical. It was visible, operational, and unmistakable throughout the day.
Performance vs. Power
Several speakers spoke earnestly about service, youth engagement, and moral courage . Yet the structure of the event undermined those very messages. Donations were solicited aggressively, while no clear pathway was offered for translating attendance into tangible community power, policy leverage, or sustained organizing.
“Reach in those pocketbooks. Give. Don’t ask no questions. We are involved across the state of South Carolina and across the nation. If you need us to help, call our president. She’ll get in touch with us, and they’ll pay you to get us to lead. This is your moment now, so bless God by giving to the toughest organization in the world, the NAACP. They are coming around. Empty those wallets and those pocketbooks. Because you ought to thank God for the NAACP, because they are fighting for you. Then you can get involved.”
That statement was delivered verbatim by the individual assigned to the offertory appeal. Presented with familiar church rhetoric, it may not have surprised some attendees. To me, however, it crossed a line. The delivery was excessive, deeply distasteful, and veered into territory that felt not only inappropriate but blasphemous.
One NAACP insider remarked, “After we already gave at the church not one hour prior,” referring to the early-morning service offering held at Historic Zion Baptist Church, where the event began and where marchers assembled before proceeding to the State House.
Dr. King rejected this kind of hollow mobilization outright. In Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, he warned that movements decay when the Black middle class retreats into respectability, comfort, and self-preservation. He named this condition plainly: snobbery. King argued that respectability without sacrifice is not progress but stagnation, and that moral posturing absent material commitment is a betrayal of the poor.
When institutions prioritize image over impact, ceremony over courage, and access over accountability, they do not merely fail to liberate. They actively obstruct liberation.
That obstruction was evident in the unspoken consensus that certain critiques are off-limits. Challenging internal power structures is routinely framed as divisive, while the preservation of ineffective leadership is recast as unity. This is precisely how movements decay.
Black political obstruction does not come only from Republicans. It is often reinforced by Black elites who benefit from proximity to power while the masses remain politically homeless.
Chaos or Community Is Still the Question
King Day should be a moment of reckoning, not ritual. Dr. King warned plainly that movements collapse when moral courage is replaced by comfort, when class insulation overrides collective responsibility, and when pageantry substitutes for sacrifice. If our commemorations do not produce courage, a redistribution of power, and real accountability, then we are honoring King in name only.
King understood that chaos does not always arrive in the form of open hostility. Sometimes it is orderly, well dressed, ceremonially managed, and reinforced by those who benefit from proximity to power. He challenged the Black bourgeoisie for its snobbery, its detachment, and its reluctance to fully commit its resources to the liberation of the poor and working class. That challenge remains unresolved.
The choice King laid out still confronts us. We can continue down a path of controlled chaos, where symbolism pacifies dissent, secrecy replaces democracy, and institutions protect themselves while invoking his name. Or we can build genuine communities rooted in transparency, participation, and working-class leadership.
That choice cannot be deferred. And it cannot be made by secret vote, closed rooms, internal hierarchies, or ceremonial processions. It must be made in the open, with the people, or not at all.
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