by Julian Zelizer

PRINCETON, New Jersey (CNN) -- The changes that we are seeing in public attitudes about homosexuality are just the tip of the political iceberg.

GEORGE CURRY

(NNPA)—In five months, we will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. In 1963, the March was jointly called by the Civil Rights Movement’s “Big Six”—A. Philip Randolph, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young, James Farmer and John Lewis.
At this point, it is unclear whether today’s leaders will come together and rally around the theme of jobs and justice as leaders did on August 28, 1963.
Al Sharpton and Martin Luther King III are planning a march in Washington. Bernice King has announced a commemoration of the “I Have a Dream” speech at the King Center in Atlanta to observe the 50th anniversary. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Dr. King’s old organization, will be holding its annual convention in the nation’s capital the week of the anniversary and is considering holding an activity.
The foundation that raised more than $100 million to erect the MLK monument on the National Mall—and was forced by King’s children to drop the reference to Dr. King in its name—is still hoping it can participate in a joint celebration by all of the civil rights groups.
Interestingly, the Big Six managed to come together when the Black unemployment rate was 6.7 percent, compared to 3.2 percent for Whites. The unemployment rate for Blacks 20 and older in February was 12.7 percent—nearly double what it was at the time of the March on Washington.
Of course, any discussion about the preservation of Dr. King’s legacy invariably involves his three remaining children—Martin III, Bernice and Dexter. While appreciating the King family’s desire to protect intellectual property left to them by their father, including his “I Have a Dream” speech, I have been critical of their decision to charge what had been known as the Martin Luther King National Memorial Project Foundation, Inc. a licensing fee of nearly $3 million to use his name, likeness and quotes in conjunction with a monument erected to him on the National Mall. I also upbraided them for, after making the decision to charge a licensing fee, refusing to extend the agreement, forcing the foundation to change its name (it is now The Memorial Foundation) and limit the scope of the monument-connected activities it had planned to advance Dr. King’s legacy.

Roland Martin and Joe Williams have an interesting article on rolandmartinreports.com about the controversy.
We had a heated discussion Sunday on “Washington Watch with Roland Martin” about the King children’s interaction with Harry Johnson and the group that raised the money for King monument on the Mall, the first to honor an African-American. In response to my earlier column on the subject, Armstrong Williams wrote a column claiming I had slandered the King family and “For Mr. Curry to spread the falsehood that the King family is charging schools for the ‘I Have a Dream’ speech is not only wrong, but embarrassing to these good people.”
After schooling Armstrong Sunday on the difference between “slander,” defamation that is spoken, and “libel,” which is written, I told him I couldn’t have possibly made that charge because I never used the word “school” anywhere in my column. He waited four months to reply and still didn’t get it right. To his credit, Armstrong acknowledged his error on-air and apologized.
During the program Sunday, Roland said he had spoken with Tricia Harris, a King representative, who said the money paid to the Kings was for corporations that exploited Dr. King’s image and they had not received money from the foundation for using quotes and the likeness of Dr. King.
I said, “She’s lying.”
Harris sent me a note taking exception to my comment and said, “It’s a great American tragedy when influential African-Americans attack the King family for protecting and benefiting from Dr. King’s work when he set it up that way.”
Actually, King, Inc. was created after Dr. King’s assassination. Therefore, he did not “set it up that way.” Second, the licensing agreement does in fact extract a fee from the mall foundation in exchange for using his likeness on materials and quotes at the memorial.
Let’s be clear: No one is objecting to the King siblings profiting from their father’s intellectual properties. The issue is, unlike the descendants of Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, they are trying to personally profit from a national monument that honors their father and the struggle he led.
David Garrow, a Pulitzer Prize-winning King biographer, told Roland Martin and Joe Williams: “It’s not as if (King, Inc.) is using any of this income for charitable good deeds. We’ve seen none of that whatsoever. It appears to be simply self-enrichment for a small number of people.”
As great as he was, the March on Washington wasn’t about Dr. King. It was about jobs and freedom. Sadly, 50 years later, we need a similar march that unites our leaders around those same issues.
(George E. Curry, former editor-in-chief of Emerge magazine, is editor-in-chief of the NNPA. He is a keynote speaker, moderator and media coach. Curry can be reached through his Web site, www.georgecurry.com. You can also follow him at www.twitter.com/currygeorge.)

ROXANNE JONES

by Roxanne Jones

(CNN) -- I'm not mad at Tiger Woods, or Nike.

Those people who are up-in-arms that Woods has climbed back to his standing as the world's No. 1 golfer and that he is no longer asking for our forgiveness are hypocrites.

"Winning Takes Care of Everything," proclaims his most recent Nike ad, as a focused Tiger crouches in the background. When I first saw the ad, I thought: Wow, bold move by Nike. It's an in-your-face, unapologetic statement.

Back in 2009, when Woods took his public plunge into disgrace by cheating on his wife with a long list of silicone-enhanced beauties, we criticized him for being a fake. We said he'd lied not only to his wife but also to his adoring public, who apparently thought he was a near-God. We said he was the role model for our kids.

But I never thought it was Tiger's job to teach my son how to be a responsible, loving husband or father. That's a job for parents. Of course, I'm not excusing his behavior, but I am not his judge. His wife and family -- and Tiger himself -- really were the only ones hurt by his actions.

Well, now Tiger is being real. He's being honest with the public. We should be happy. He's finally speaking his mind so there can be no question of what type of man he is today. And I say, good for him.

And good for Nike for standing by him through what was in the end just a personal flaw. It's not like he's Lance Armstrong, who used enhancement drugs throughout his career and sabotaged an entire sport for years. Woods did not have to give back his championships because he cheated his sport, his fans or his sponsors.

Don't be mad at Tiger. It was never him we were disappointed in anyway. It was the cheating boyfriend or spouse who broke our hearts and split up our families. Be mad at the problems in your own personal life. Or, be mad at yourself. I know when I've screwed up, if I'm honest, the first person to be upset with is myself. Tiger has nothing to do with my life or relationships.

The Nike ad may be offensive to those who don't quite understand sports culture, or work in extremely competitive environments such as sales, or Wall Street, and even politics. But in those worlds, nothing could be truer than "winning takes care of everything." In those worlds you are only as good as your last big win.

How many times have we said to ourselves at work: "I can turn my career around with one success on my next project?" Or, "One win will make my bosses happy and all will be forgotten?" How many of us say to our kids who play sports: "Hang in there. All you need is one game-winning goal and that will change everything. Everyone will forget you haven't scored all season."

Winning does change things. Just think of Super Bowl Champion Ray Lewis, who the NFL calls one of the best men to ever play the game. Or former Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel, who was a king for a decade, surviving numerous scandals until he was forced to resign amid NCAA rules sanctions. Tressel then went on to work for the NFL. Why? Because he knows how to win.

Does anyone think Joe Paterno would have lasted so long at Penn State among the allegations of child sex abuse if the football program was down-and-out? No, sadly, it was the winning and the big money that kept Paterno and others safe. Heck, even Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton reclaimed their status as kingmakers after personal disgraces.

We are a forgiving nation. For me, nothing is better than someone who can get back up and succeed after a bloody knockout. Tiger got back up. And I hope this time around he can relax, be himself and enjoy the game.

Editor's note: Roxanne Jones is a founding editor of ESPN The Magazine and a former vice president at ESPN. She is a national lecturer on sports, entertainment and women's topics and a recipient of the 2010 Woman of the Year award from Women in Sports and Events. She is the co-author of "Say It Loud: An Illustrated History of the Black Athlete," (Random House) and CEO of Push Media Strategies.

JESSE JACKSON

Morehouse College, one of the most distinguished historically Black colleges—with graduates like Dr. Martin Luther King, former Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson, film director Spike Lee and others—literally shut down for spring break this week. As its 2,000 students took their break, every member of the faculty and staff was furloughed without pay as the college struggles to balance its books.
The crisis at Morehouse, which will hit other historically Black colleges and universities even harder, results from the combination of foul economic times and continued cuts in support for students and colleges at the federal and state level.
African-Americans have dramatically less wealth than White families. To pay for advanced education, students piece together grants, work, family contributions and loans. Morehouse lost 200 students, part of 10,000 students in HBCUs affected, when the Department of Education suddenly tightened eligibility requirements for Parent Plus Loans that lend to eligible parents to help pay for their children’s college costs. The average Plus loan at Morehouse was $22,000 in 2010-11. Add to that the fact that college costs are rising, while the level of Pell grants is not, and colleges and faculties will be hit by the across-the-board “sequester” cuts at the federal level.
Morehouse is like the canary in the mine — an early warning signal. Student loan debt now exceeds $1 trillion dollars, greater than credit card debt. A quarter of African-Americans graduate with debt over $30,000, along with 16 percent of White students. Student debt can’t be erased in bankruptcy, or because of loss of a job.
About half of college graduates are unemployed or underemployed. In worse shape are the 30 percent of college students with loans who fail to graduate, often because they can’t afford to continue. Student loans can be deferred, meaning that no payments are due, but the interest keeps building up. Eventually, they must be paid back, although defaults are rising.
Burdened with debt, graduates find it hard to pay for a car, a place to live and health care. They find it virtually impossible to save anything for the future.
President Obama understands that educating the next generation is vital to this country’s future. In his first address to Congress, he pledged that “by 2020, America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world.” He then signed into law the largest increase in student aid since the GI Bill at the end of World War II.
But since then, rising college costs and declining federal and state support have pushed more costs onto students and their parents. Advanced education or training is increasingly imperative and unaffordable.
We will pay far more in the future for failing to educate this rising generation than we will save in cutting support for them. We need a National Commission on College Affordability to review the rising costs of and the declining support for colleges and advanced training programs. It should recommend how the rise in college costs can be slowed and how to ensure that students are not priced out of the education they need nor condemned to debt servitude to get it.
That good students are forced to drop out of a distinguished school like Morehouse because they can’t afford it is a warning sign. The furlough of Morehouse employees is a wake-up call. We need action before good schools fail and more good students are locked out.
(Keep up with Rev. Jackson and the work of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition at www.rainbowpush.org.)