Martin Luther King
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America was different in the past. It will be different in the future.
Let’s hope we have unique leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King whose life and accomplishments we honor with an annual holiday. Tomorrow, is that holiday.
MLK was a poet. He chose words that grabbed and touched people deeply. Unfortunately those words were felt by much of white America too slowly back then and in all races too shallowly today.
Differences in colors, customs, politics and religions still create distance, fear, animosity to outright hatred and conflict including physical harm.Since it exists within races as well as between races and other differences, maybe we can look to the lessons taught by MLK and apply them regardless of color of skin?
When he marched in Washington in 1963 I had just begun high school in a near all white town so I did not see the sanctioned rule based segregation, the racial hatred and violence that was actively condoned by authorities or at least enabled in silence. I slowly became aware of it, too slowly understood it’s impact on generations of Americans and today do not know how to change the hearts of others to match what mine feels.
History shows strange things when truly viewed as history should be viewed, free of bias and free of the emotion of the time as well as ideals enhanced and overly idealized by time, distance and politics. President Kennedy and his brother Bobby Kennedy, who were and are loved and beloved by so many today, have been given a pass for many things, including resisting MLK, trying to keep him under control, and only reluctantly allowed some of his activities.
Fortunately, their acceptance of the times, their enabling of inhuman discrimination failed, falling to the enormity of MLK. They had to be pressured to allow events to proceed, including some events which ended in tragedy but all contributed to creating the successes measured in law and policy changes and public awareness necessary to move us belatedly ahead. Not all hearts followed.
Today, we need to find a way to apply the MLK spirit to all human conflicts, not just racial ones, but also religious conflicts, economic class conflicts and ideological conflicts.
Do we have an MLK today? Probably not, for today even MLK would be reduced in stature, taken down or so slowed by politics and the public media including bloggers. His pecadillos would be front page scandal, making his achievements more difficult today than they were then. Some progress, huh?
Comment by colin on 21 January 2008:
Well written!
Comment by Artis on 21 January 2008:
Interesting! I was unaware that JFK was unsupportive of MLK and his efforts. Goes to show you that not all truths are written in textbooks. I was not alive at the time of the civil rights movement so I must rely on the word of those who were. It would be nice to hear the whole unbiased story of all historical events!
Comment by Jimmy Justo on 21 January 2008:
It was not that Kennedy was totally unsympathetic to King and others at that time. It was more that he pulled his punches and deferred to the White Democratic Southern Caucus powers. He did not want a confrontation or reputation like Ike got when he sent federal troops into Little Rock a few years earlier. He did not want bad press here or overseas, so he encouraged the blacks to continue to settle for small steps. The testament to King and others is that they persisted and drug the President and his brother Attorney General along when they did not want to move so fast for political reasons. Nothing new, it is just that these things do not get much light of day and most modern day JFK worshipers have no interest in these details.