Public Enemy vs Arizona

The journey to making Martin Luther King Jr Day a holiday was a long one that included legends like Coretta Scott King, politicians like Representative John Conyers, celebrities like Stevie Wonder, and strangely enough an impassioned speech by New Gingrich to his Republican colleagues. But it happened. 

Another surprise, Ronald Reagan signed it into law stating 1986 would be the first year with MLK Day as an official holiday. In 1987, after just a single year, the state of Arizona had enough and voted to cancel MLK Day. Do you know how racist you have to be to cancel a day off from work to spite a man who has already been assassinated? 

That’s where Public Enemy comes in with “By The Time I get to Arizona,” named after an Isaac Hayes song called, “By The Time I get to Phoenix,” and people hate it. Not me, I love it. When Public Enemy performed in Arizona, that was the only song. Coretta Scott King hated it because she felt it didn’t represent her husband.  

Still, the point was made and in 2011 Chuck D stated, “I’m for peace, but I can make a visual statement about how I feel about what happened. The actuality is that I shot a video in rebuttal to something that happened in real life.”  

It’s hard to say how MLK would feel about the song or video. Being assassinated tends to keep people from giving us their thoughts.