MLK 24-Hour Zine

This past weekend, I participated in a fundraising stunt for the Portland Zine Symposium. The goal was to make a 24-page zine in 24 hours. A bunch of us holed up in the IPRC with pizza, donuts and coffee and set to work!

Because I didn't trust myself to produce coherent text after 18 hours of wakefulness, I opted to do an annotated printing of one of my favorite sermons ever: "Can A Christian be a Communist," by a guy you may have heard of named Martin L. King Jr.

I first came across a transcription of this tape-recorded sermon one night a few years ago. Wracked with anxiety from my never-ending quest to reconcile my commitment to Marxist politics with my love for Jesus Christ, I despondently turned to Google and found a sermon with my question's name as its title. Though the sermon is available online, I wanted to do a decent printing of it . . . hopefully this zine will fall into the hands of some other struggling Christian leftist, and the words of King, Amos, Isaiah, and of course Jesus will help to order his or her thoughts, as they did mine.

Allow me to summarize, briefly, King's thesis [spoilers]:

For the zine itself, I added illustrations of some of the philosophical and political figures King mentions, as well as some miscellaneous spot-art to liven up the pages.

G.W.F. Hegel

 Ludwig Feuerebach

 K-Mizzle

 Archbishop William Temple

 James Meredith

 Ross Barnett

This was really fun and enlightening to make. I've already mailed out zines to my sponsors, but if you'd like a copy for your secret commie library, try to get a hold of me - I sell them for one dollar, plus shipping if you're not in Portland.