Martin Luther King: his “dream” inspired millions of people and remains relevant
Born in Atlanta on 15/1/1929, he was fortunate to grow up with his two brothers in a family that was devout, “proper” – his father was a Baptist pastor, his mother a teacher – and highly respected in the city’s African-American community. But something that was not true outside of it, just as it was not true of any black man in the American South at the time, as Martin Luther Jr. would find out even as a child.
It was a racism that was blatant, institutional and pervasive socially, from school to the workplace to the public sphere, and it quickly became an experience as an apartheid regime was effectively implemented: blacks were forbidden to frequent the same restaurants, shops, hotels or clubs as whites, had to sit apart even on public transport, even had separate churches. The discrimination, insults and humiliation he often faced himself were deeply imprinted on him and steeled his will to fight to end them.
He was able to study in good private schools (for blacks only, of course) and the educational experience of working on a Connecticut tobacco plant in the summer of ’44 was a catalyst, as he found that the racial discrimination taken for granted in the Southern States did not apply in the liberal American North, although even there the situation was not ideal everywhere.
He wrote, among other things, how impressed he was that on arriving in Washington he could do what whites could do – “another world”, literally, a world he began to believe would be possible in the South. Although he originally intended to study medicine or law, he eventually turned to the priesthood upon graduating from college, as did his father. During his theological studies in Pennsylvania and Boston he was exposed to progressive religious ideas and adopted Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence which he found very much in line with the social Christianity he now espouses. He would later even visit India where he would have talks with Prime Minister Pandit Nehru (1959).
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More than half a century since his passing, however, and despite the advances made in the interim – if you told the average white American in the 1960s that the country would have a black president in the future, he would laugh uproariously or swear at you – the black community in the US, especially the less privileged part of it, still experiences exclusion and discrimination, albeit in different forms.
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These concerns cause him to abandon his secular ambitions. He is content to become a simple pastor so that he can be closer to the people. First in Montgomery, Alabama, where he spearheads the prolonged boycott of the black community on public buses. The reason was the arrest of Rosa Parks, a simple seamstress who, exhausted from her day’s work, had dared on 1/12/1955 to occupy a “whites-only” position – an action that literally made history since, after 385 days of protests, demonstrations and riots, the US Supreme Constitutional Court ruled the ban unlawful.
During these landmark protests in the African American struggle for dignity, equality and equity, Martin Luther King’s “star” shone for the first time and his rhetorical prowess was highlighted. He would be one of the founders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (1957), standing in pulpits and sidewalks to support community demands.
The outgrowth of these experiences was his first book, Decisive Steps to Freedom (1958). “For many years we have shown admirable patience. We often gave our white brothers the impression until we liked the way they treated us. But now we have no patience for anything less than freedom and justice,” he proclaimed in one of his early speeches that thrilled crowds.
The following year he returned, now with his family, to Atlanta – he had already married Coretta Scott, with whom he had four children – to become an assistant in his father’s parish.
He had already been in jail twice for participating in protests, but the hard times were still ahead, starting with the so-called “Birmingham (Alabama) campaign” in April ’63. He led a peaceful march to the town hall of a city stronghold of hard-core racists who were brutally attacked by the police. They indiscriminately beat young people, the elderly, women, underage children, even use dogs.
King himself is abused and taken into custody (he was released through John F. Kennedy’s intervention, having written his political manifesto in letter form while incarcerated), but despite the brutal repression the protests do not stop and a month later they are vindicated: Racial discrimination in the region is outlawed, an additional 3,000 prisoners are released.
King continues with vigour – in August that year he delivers one of his most stirring speeches before 200,000 white and black protesters in Washington, DC, at the Abraham Lincoln Memorial, beginning with the famous phrase “I have a dream…”. It was a special moment in the informal “civil war” that shook America throughout the 1960s, a war of generations, ideas, genders and races that was to turn the clock of history many hours ahead, even if the great wave of controversy failed to stop the “machine”.
King’s dream, however, is quickly realized, at least institutionally, as in the next two years all forms of discrimination are abolished and people of color are granted equal civil rights throughout the United States. Successes largely credited to the humble pastor who has now become a legend to his supporters and the recipient of deep hatred from his opponents – gangs of white men armed with clubs and sticks await him, defiantly shouting “We want King!” in cities he visits to assist in mobilizations.
A charismatic preacher and dedicated defender of human rights, he fought with proverbial passion against racism and discrimination, only to ultimately become a sacrifice on the altar of equality and social justice.
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He has now emerged as a figure of global calibre – in October ’64 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, a distinction never before given to such a young candidate. He distributes the $55,000 or so that comes with it to activist organizations, and the following year continues his campaign in Selma, Alabama, whose authorities were also notorious for their racist record – only one in ten black citizens there had the right to vote.
Birmingham’s police brutality was repeated with the assistance of hundreds of avowed racists at the first march in early February to Montgomery, the state capital. Beatings, lynchings and even murders of protesters in a dense cloud of tear gas follow. Even mounted paramilitaries are recruited. Martin Luther is taken to prison for the umpteenth time, as are at least 2,000 “Negro rioters.”
A second march a month later results in a new orgy of repression that stirs up American public opinion. King reacts by leading a third march in person, but backs down when he is served with a court order banning it, a decision that has been widely criticised. Presumably, he acted in such a way as to appear legitimate and not to further inflame the atmosphere by expecting the ban to be lifted, as it was ten days later. The demonstration march starts with about 4,000 people, which by the time it reaches Montgomery has grown to tens of thousands. Among them are personalities such as Leonard Bernstein, Harry Belafonte, Joan Baez, Ella Fitzgerald.
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Gradually, King incorporated into the movement’s goals the elimination of social injustices and poverty for whites and blacks as well as ending the war in Vietnam, seeking broader political alliances. However, the passive resistance it continues to consistently advocate is now opposed by the most radicalized blacks, and the fact that it is in official talks with the “white bosses”, even with three American presidents – it even supported Lyndon Johnson during the election campaign – seems to some almost a betrayal.
The Black Panthers and Malcolm X, with whom he also had religious differences as the latter was No 2 in the “Nation of Islam” hierarchy, openly challenged him. Malcolm X finds it criminal to devalue violence as self-defence. King responds that supporters of violent confrontation have reason to be angry, but not suggestions; he is also wary of the SNCC student organisation’s “Black Power” slogan, which he finds offensive and potentially divisive.
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In April ’68, the most “terrible” year of the 20th century post-war, King, who had by then travelled some 9 million miles in tours and marches, given over 250 public speeches, dozens of interviews, authored four more books and numerous articles, prepares the “Great Poor People’s March” on Washington. But he was overtaken by the events in Memphis, which was being severely tested by race riots. The occasion is the big strike by the city’s sanitation workers, the vast majority of whom are black.
The situation escalates after a 16-year-old black boy is killed by police fire and now the National Guard intervenes. When it arrives in the city the demonstrations have been banned but this time it does not back down, even exhorting the more ardent to show restraint so as not to give cause for attack on the planned march.
On 4/4, at 6 p.m., he steps out onto the second-floor balcony of the Lorraine Hotel where he was conferring with his colleagues. It was his last move – a repeating rifle bullet from the building opposite hits him in the neck. His fourth or fifth assassination attempt in a row this time would succeed – ten minutes later he had expired, at just 39 years old. The perpetrator was a common petty criminal, 41-year-old fugitive James Earl Ray, who no one ever believed that he acted alone and that he managed to elude the FBI for a year, only to be arrested in London and sentenced to nearly life in prison. He later – unfortunately – applied for a retrial, claiming that he had confessed under blackmail. He would die in Nashville Prison in 1998.
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News of the killing sparked some of the worst riots in US history, with entire cities plunged into chaos for weeks. Non-violent resistance now sounded like a joke. Authorities and the “deep state” would in the following years launch a proper manhunt against “extremists”, real or perceived, with dozens of victims and hundreds of arrests with heavy sentences. King’s all-out funeral turned into a silent march of 100,000 people and was covered live on television nationwide.
“What I would like to be said, if I die, is that Martin Luther King tried to help others. That he tried to love others. I would like you to be able to say on that day that Martin Luther King cared to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to companion the imprisoned,” he said prophetically, four months ago, in a sermon that was recorded and broadcast the day after his passing to the crowds that packed the Ebenezer Temple where he preached and the surrounding area.
In 1983 a national day of remembrance would be established in his honor (the 3rd Monday in January) and in 2011 a monumental adriad to him would be erected in Washington, D.C. (the work of Chinese sculptor Lei Yixin).
The legacy he left is a great one; thanks in part to his contributions, the social status and daily life of the average African-American has changed a great deal since then. More than half a century since his passing, however, and despite the great advances made in the interim – if you told the average white American in the 1960s that the country would have a black president in the future, he would laugh out loud or swear at you – the black community in the United States, especially the less privileged part of it, still experiences exclusion and discrimination, albeit in different forms. It has not ceased, moreover, to be the easiest and most predictable target of police brutality, counting proportionally far more victims than any other community of police shootings, even with little or no cause – hence the Black Lives Matter movement. But neither did it manage to find a common language in the meantime, while the social stratification within it changed.
King’s “dream” thus remains relevant even if the times are not conducive to mass movements and nice, big, lofty collective ideas.
