Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday Is Friday – Where Are We in Race Relations Today?
By Terry Miller
As we pause and reflect on the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (Jan.15, 1929) one cannot help but wonder how far, in fact, we have come in the United States.
During the less than 13 years of Dr. King’s leadership of the modern American civil rights movement, from December 1955 until April 4, 1968 when he was assassinated, African-Americans achieved more genuine progress toward racial equality in America than the previous 350 years had produced. Dr. King is widely regarded as America’s pre-eminent advocate of nonviolence and one of the greatest nonviolent leaders in world history.
But how does 1960s philosophy translate in today’s modern world?
Well, that depends on many factors and how you feel about socialism. Despite his fear of backlash – calling for both racial integration and the explicit overturning of capitalism was bound to make him too threatening or fringe – socialism remained important to him, and by the end of his career, it was an open and inextricable part of his dream for a better America.
Drawing inspiration from both his Christian faith and the peaceful teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. King led a nonviolent movement in the late 1950s and ‘60s to achieve legal equality for African-Americans in the United States. While others were advocating for freedom by “any means necessary,” including violence, Dr. King used the power of words and acts of nonviolent resistance, such as protests, grassroots organizing, and civil disobedience to achieve seemingly-impossible goals. He went on to lead similar campaigns against poverty and international conflict, always maintaining fidelity to his principles that men and women everywhere, regardless of color or creed, are equal members of the human family.
One of the seminal moments of the civil rights movement – and the one that made Dr. King a household name – was the 1963 March on Washington. Not everyone remembers that the march was “for jobs and freedom,” in that order. Among its demands were a national minimum wage and “a massive federal program to train and place all unemployed workers – Negro and white – on meaningful and dignified jobs at decent wages.”
After President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act, “King kept moving leftward, to confront the racial and economic injustice that had created and maintained the black ghettos of the north, and the national hubris that had led America into the quagmire of war in southeast Asia,” says Lee A. Daniels of the New Pittsburgh Courier.
When he was killed, Dr. King had been planning to “stage a multiracial Poor Peoples March on Washington and involve himself in the bitter sanitation worker’s strike in Memphis,” Daniels adds. Those were hard years for Dr. King, his push for the working poor costing him the support of former allies, but they were “King’s finest hours,” Daniels says.
In 1964, at 35 years old, Dr. King became the youngest person to win the Nobel Peace Prize. His acceptance speech in Oslo is thought by many to be among the most powerful remarks ever delivered at the event, climaxing at one point with the oft-quoted phrase “I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant.”
Also in 1964, partly due to the March on Washington, Congress passed the landmark Civil Rights Act, essentially eliminating legalized racial segregation in the United States. The legislation made it illegal to discriminate against blacks or other minorities in hiring, public accommodations, education, or transportation, areas which at the time were still very segregated in many places.
The next year, 1965, Congress went on to pass the Voting Rights Act, which was an equally-important set of laws that eliminated the remaining barriers to voting for African-Americans, who in some locales had been almost completely disenfranchised. This legislation resulted directly from the Selma to Montgomery, Ala. March for Voting Rights lead by Dr. King.
If Dr. King were alive today, Zeeshan Aleem of Policy.Mic writes “he would undoubtedly be saddened by the crisis of police brutality consuming America. He would mourn the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., the death of Eric Garner in Staten Island, N.Y., the death of Tamir Rice in Cleveland, Ohio, and the loss of countless other black lives at the hands of the police.
“But it is unlikely that he would be shocked by these events as much as he would be shocked at how little progress the U.S. has made in reckoning with the vast political and economic problems that he felt underpinned and gave rise to its compulsive violence against black America. Decades after his death, extreme poverty, soaring economic inequality, and perpetual war are either unaddressed or worse than during his life. These issues were key to Dr. King’s radical outlook on the roots of racial progress, and he would trace the contemporary plight of black youth to their neglect.”
The Dr. King most of America knows has been hollowed out and sanitized. In school curricula and popular media representations Dr. King is depicted as a man with the narrow political mission of racial equality before the law and his social aspirations are distilled to the hope that “little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers,” from his 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech. There is little to suggest the enormous politico-intellectual complexity that ranks him, in the eyes of political philosopher Cornel West, the “most significant and successful organic intellectual in American history.” Many students these days, particularly those in private educational facilities aren’t even taught the history of the King legacy.
Zeeshan Aleem asserts that “King’s radicalism isolated him in his time, but the state of race relations in modern America has unambiguously validated his fears of the inadequacy of narrowly pursuing civil rights. Over the last three to four decades, segregation in education has grown worse; the white-black wealth gap has increased; the American residential landscape is as segregated as ever; trillions are spent on war rather than services for the underprivileged; and the U.S. incarcerates a far greater percentage of its black population than South Africa did under apartheid in a regime that policy analysts consider the new Jim Crow.
“The civil rights era achieved many great things. But Dr. King rightly predicted that if it was not coupled with a deeper re-evaluation of how power and wealth function in the U.S., it would not serve as a guarantor of equality. Unless we acknowledge this, it will continue to seem as if the arc of history bends away from justice.”
Locally, “A Day On – Not Off” on Saturday, Jan. 16th, will be held at Hamilton Elementary School.
MLK Holiday Program will be held Monday, Jan. 18th, at Jackie Robinson Center. “A Day On – Not Off” beautification program idea, in collaboration with PUSD, was birthed by Mr. Sam Walker over 15 years ago. Albert Bailey, expanded the program with partnerships with the Pasadena Tournament of Roses, The Hat Restaurant, Sharp Seating and many churches, community organizations, leaders and dignitaries. This year’s program is dedicated to him. We welcome your comments and thoughts on this complex issue. Please send your comments to: tmiller@beaconmedianews.com.
