At least three times in the last few months, I've heard people talk about how Martin Luther King, Jr. is widely revered but little understood. On MLK day, a friend told me how he has made a personal tradition of reading some of MLK's writings which get little press these days, but which are quite radical and challenging to the very structure of our society. Then a family member told me how he noticed "at a community MLK celebration how little people really know about Dr. King especially how his ideas and actions were rooted in faith. We seem to have divorced his actions from his faith...there may be a connection to the hostility toward faith based initiatives." A third time, while playing a game, a friend claimed that the media was presenting a sanitized MLKjr--that he had been reduced to a civil rights crusader (which, though true and good, is not all that he stood for).
How could someone so universally loved be so misunderstood? Maybe a better question is how someone so controversial in his day be (ostensibly) so normative these few decades later? The answer, I think, is that the aspects of his mission that have become generally accepted (eg. "I Have a Dream") have been touted and repeated over and over, while the more controversial aspects (a stance against militarism, an emphasis on the need for structural change, and the extent to which his faith drove his words and actions) have been glossed over.
Using my limited resources, I've compiled some information on these less-well-understood aspects below. (If you've got others--please put them below in the comments).
There are, essentially, two Martin Luther Kings: the young, energetic leader who preached from the pulpit and led successful protests in Montgomery, Birmingham, and Selma, who received the Nobel Peace Prize and delivered the epochal "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial; and the later, post-1965 pilgrim who was tired, discouraged, and not a little scared, who was losing faith in the American system, who suffered a great defeat in Chicago and another, just before his assassination, in Memphis, and who was beginning to lose the full confidence of his followers, particularly younger blacks.
The first King has become, for many Americans, an almost kitschy symbol of benevolent social change, of the belief that great progress has been made in the field of race relations and that enough has been given in terms of money, time, and effort to redeem the nation's past. The other represents a different kind of legacy, a call for larger structural changes stretching beyond pleas for brotherhood into demands for economic justice for downtrodden Americans, including poor whites. The veneration of the first King, his heavy presence in the psychic life of the nation, has in a strange way come to represent payment of the debt, I think, in many people's minds. I am reminded, in particular, of conservative Republicans, who have hotly contested affirmative action and health-care reform, and yet pushed for a memorial to King on the Mall in Washington, D.C. Is this veneration a way of avoiding meaningful discussion--of avoiding him?
MLKJr on the structure of our society
[Various sources] "A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it understands that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring." [Norman Solomon, "The Martin Luther King You Don't See On Tv"] "From Vietnam to South Africa to Latin America, King said, the U.S. was 'on the wrong side of a world revolution.' King questioned 'our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America,' and asked why the U.S. was suppressing revolutions 'of the shirtless and barefoot people' in the Third World, instead of supporting them.
In foreign policy, King also offered an economic critique, complaining about 'capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries.'" [Stewart Burns in Sojourners] [I]t became evident that the historic civil rights laws would not sweep away racism or poverty, he had come to see the inadequacy of individual rights. He grasped that "civil rights" carried too much baggage of the dominant tradition of American individualism and not enough counterweight from a tradition of communitarian impulses, collective striving, and common good. This subterranean tradition had been kept alive by peoples of color, especially blacks and American Indians. The polar strains of individualism and collectivism needed to be reconciled, as he strove to reconcile other opposites. His conception of rights shifted to a richer, comprehensive meaning that reflected his underlying biblical values.
...
[quoting King] "Jesus didn't get bogged down in a specific evil. He didn't say, now Nicodemus you must not drink liquor. He didn't say, Nicodemus you must not commit adultery. He didn't say, Nicodemus you must not lie. He didn't say, Nicodemus you must not steal. He said, Nicodemus you must be born again. Nicodemus, the whole structure of your life must be changed.
"What America must be told today is that she must be born again. The whole structure of American life must be changed."
MLKJr On Faith, Action, and Calling
[From Time] [After a death threat] "Shaken, King went to the kitchen to pray. "I could hear an inner voice saying to me, 'Martin Luther, stand up for righteousness. Stand up for justice. Stand up for truth. And lo I will be with you, even until the end of the world.'" [Various Sources] "If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job well."
[From "Beyond Vietnam," April 4, 1967] [T]hose of us who are yet determined that "America will be" are led down the path of protest and dissent, working for the health of our land.
As if the weight of such a commitment to the life and health of America were not enough, another burden of responsibility was placed upon me in [1964]. And I cannot forget that the Nobel Peace Prize was also a commission, a commission to work harder than I had ever worked before for the brotherhood of man. This is a calling that takes me beyond national allegiances.
But even if it were not present, I would yet have to live with the meaning of my commitment to the ministry of Jesus Christ. To me, the relationship of this ministry to the making of peace is so obvious that I sometimes marvel at those who ask me why I am speaking against the war. Could it be that they do not know that the Good News was meant for all men--for communist and capitalist, for their children and ours, for black and for white, for revolutionary and conservative? Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the one who loved his enemies so fully that he died for them? What then can I say to the Vietcong or to Castro or to Mao as a faithful minister of this one? Can I threaten them with death or must I not share with them my life?
Finally, as I try to explain for you and for myself the road that leads from Montgomery to this place, I would have offered all that was most valid if I simply said that I must be true to my conviction that I share with all men the calling to be a son of the living God. Beyond the calling of race or nation or creed is this vocation of sonship and brotherhood. Because I believe that the Father is deeply concerned, especially for His suffering and helpless and outcast children, I come tonight to speak for them. This I believe to be the privilege and the burden of all of us who deem ourselves bound by allegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper than nationalism and which go beyond our nation's self-defined goals and positions. We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation, for those it calls "enemy," for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers.
MLKJr on Nonviolence
[Various sources] "Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals."
"Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him." [From his Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance speech, December 10, 1964] "[N]onviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time: the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression. Civilization and violence are antithetical concepts."
[From "Beyond Vietnam," April 4, 1967] We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent coannihilation. We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world, a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.
Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message-of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise, we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.
Bruderhof quotes Martin Luther King Jr in their daily dig today (the anniversary of his death):
"Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world...
Yet it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war.
I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.
America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities.
If we do not act we shall surely be dragged down the long dark and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.
This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers around the world wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the odds are too great? That the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message, of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours."
Source: Address at Riverside Church, New York, NY, April 4, 1967
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