Happy Birthday!

 

Martin Luther King, Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia on January 15, 1929.  He was the second of three children born into a religious family, where his father and grandfather had been educated preachers.  Martin Luther King, Jr. is the first and only private American citizen celebrated with a national holiday. On the eve of his 92nd birthday, it is the right time to look back at his remarkable life. 

At fifteen, an age when most youngsters are still playing with toys, Martin Luther King entered Morehouse College.  There under the guidance of its esteemed president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, young King began studies that would guide him for the rest of his life. It was a life of asking questions, seeking answers, and attempting to do what was right. Guided by educational, philosophical and Christian principles, Martin Luther King, Jr. graduated from Morehouse, and then studied at Crozer Theological Seminary and Boston University. At Crozer, a predominately white institution, he was elected president of his class. He graduated with a second bachelors from Crozer and doctorate in divinity from Boston University.

Race and racism literally colored his life.  Atlanta had segregationist laws and practices which "Daddy" King trained his children to challenge. Mixing love and resistance, the King family never accepted social discrimination. During young Martin’s time in the north, he also experienced discrimination, and one incident in Maple Shade, New Jersey was well documented. Years later he tested segregation in Chicago and encountered different forms of racial hostility.

In 1954, he became the pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama and was selected to be the spokesman for what became the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Afterwards, he never left the national spotlight and his fight for equality continued throughout the rest of his life.

King became a Moses in his own land. He called out to America to challenge its values. He gained audiences with leaders, presidents, and nobility. Dr. King spoke to high school and college students as well as congregations of all faiths. In 1964, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace, the youngest person and then the second African American to receive this award. Dr. King believed in and practiced non-violence, never wavering in his commitment to justice and peace. Through his words and actions, Dr. King transformed American society. He became the spiritual leader of the modern Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1968, the most important social movement in the history of the United States.  

August 28, 1963 marks the highpoint of Dr. King's public life. On this day, Dr. King was at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom where he gave his most famous speech. It spoke of the failings of America and the hopes of the future. Most only remember the key lines of the second part. “The Dream,” as this part of the speech was labeled, described a utopian future where racial conflict was conquered.  In 2008, following the election of Barack Obama, many believed the “Dream” was realized.  There were T-shirts, hoodies and posters featuring images of King and Obama smiling at each other. A recording was discovered of Dr. King speaking of his belief that the election of a black president was not far in America’s future. Civil Rights leaders hailed Obama’s victory as a symbol of change and advertisers promoted commercials with multiracial families.  

Flash forward eight years, and Donald Trump is elected president. Within a year, Americans started rediscovering the first part of the speech. Here, King discussed racial oppression and police brutality, as well as social and economic injustice.  For many, the appeals of Black Lives Matter and the call for reparations can be found in these stanzas.  King’s emphasis, however, is not solely a cry for African Americans but for all. Three key passages speak about democracy, unity, and how allies will create the society we all want and need. 

One states: 

”Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.”

In confronting the specter of anger and violence, another passage reads: 

“Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence.”   

And in bridging the races, Dr. King makes the most profound statement of the entire speech. Yet for decades it has gone unnoticed. He posited that whites must understand that black anger is not directed at them but is a vehicle for change. 

“The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence her today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. 

We cannot walk alone.”

It is these powerful and reflective thoughts that makes Dr. King important to the generations that heard him speak those words in 1963 and the generations that read or saw them afterwards. One speech with two messages, but historically analyzed in reverse order. 

This year, the calls to honor Dr. King with a day of national service should be respected as our nation attempts to heal. Fifty-seven years ago, Dr. King accurately described what could be depicted as Barack Obama’s and Donald Trump’s Americas. Two uniquely differently places. One of hope and the other of despair. 

But, 57 years ago, Dr. King was living in John F. Kennedy’s America. An America that many saw as great. Yet, it was a society of great inequality where the poorest person felt that he/she was not respected by the wealthiest. A land with little opportunity, and where race was perceived as a threat. A land where many southern black Americans, then Negroes, could not vote. Dr. King offered real hope, not just words, to bridge gaps and to make America fulfill its promise.  His words in 1963 were calling for an unrealized Great Society.

Lyndon Johnson heard those words and was stirred to act. The Great Society was the nation's greatest response to racial and social inequality since Reconstruction and the New Deal. Yet, by 1968, Dr. King was not satisfied with the Great Society as it was taking a backseat to the war in Vietnam.  King challenged it and America's poverty by organizing a Poor People’s March. This march was designed for all Americans regardless of race and creed. However, before the march took place, he went to Memphis, Tennessee to support striking African American sanitation workers.

On April 4, 1968, Dr. King was killed by a sniper’s bullet in Memphis. His accused assassin, James Earl Ray, was a white supremacist.  Four days later on April 9th, Dr. Benjamin Mays gave the eulogy for his prized student. Dr. Mays said his life’s greatest honor was that he was able to serve as a mentor to Martin Luther King Jr, a person who he considered like a son.

In speaking of Dr. King, Dr. Mays said: “Perhaps he was more courageous than soldiers who fight and die on the battlefield. There is an element of compulsion in their dying. But when Martin Luther faced death, again and again, and finally embraced it, there was no external pressure. He was acting on an inner urge that drove him on….Coupled with moral courage was Martin Luther King Jr.’s capacity to love people. Though deeply committed to a program of freedom for Negroes, he had a love and concern for all kinds of people. He drew no distinction between the high and the low, None between the rich and the poor. He believed, especially that he was sent to champion the cause of the man farthest down. …. He belonged to the world and to mankind. Now he belongs to posterity.”

Shortly after his death, supporters wanted to honor Dr. King by making his birthday a holiday. However, most whites said why, and then no! Even in death, Martin Luther King, Jr. symbolized the waves of American racism and discrimination.  This holiday movement progressed slowly, pushed by celebrities most notably Stevie Wonder who memorialized Dr. King in song.  It was first adopted by several states and then made its way to Congress in 1979.  On the state level, January 15th was celebrated under Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Civil Rights Day, or Human Rights Day. In some states where the holiday was celebrated, local officials argued it was too expensive often refusing give workers the day off.  And rather than closing schools, a new concept of giving service was attached to the celebration. To honor Dr. King, authorities claimed, students should perform acts of charity. The National Day of Service accompanied the holiday.  In 1983, after Congress finally passed the legislation, President Ronald Reagan reluctantly signed the holiday into law.  The national holiday was enacted in 1986. However, Arizona refused to legalize the holiday until 1992 and New Hampshire held out until 2000.

The night before he died, Dr. King gave another one of his famous speeches. "The Mountaintop" speech was a bit different than "The Dream."  Dr. King signaled that the utopia world was in sight. The metaphor that he "might not get there" may have been more than singular prophecy.  He was urging America to continue its struggle. 

In the years since his death, scholars have scrutinized Dr. King's life. They have gained new insights and learned a lot more about his personal life. They disagreed about parts of his behavior but they concur that he was a very complex person. And, everyone has agreed that Dr. King was constantly engaged in thought about the fate of his people and his nation. Based on this research, I've concluded that Dr. King believed that full integration (social and personal) was the only way to save America. It did not mean that everyone had to live in the same neighborhoods or intermarry, but that integration would lessen the sting of confrontational racism. In many respects, his efforts set America on that path. Interracial marriage, social integration and educational integration increased at the end of the King years and into the 1980s. The imagery in the Dream speech gave it legitimacy.

 

Yet, as the nation is currently consumed in racial conflict and witnessing a visible rise of white supremacy, I doubt that Dr. King would be surprised. America in 2021 is part of the backlash that he depicts in the speech. He tells us to move forward with speed. Unfortunately, we have not done that. Yet, I do think Dr. King would be disappointed by our mass disillusionment and lack of national unity. He would speak out in fierce words about what happened at the Capitol, and he would call for all faith leaders to stand together to unify the nation. If he were here, we would see his capacity to love all people. Dr. King would urge us all to press forward. He would tell America in his strongest cadence to make his dreams our realities.