The Ideas of Martin Luther King - Essay Example

Farzeela Faisal Standard Academia Research Nov-14-2005 "Martin Luther King" Martin Luther King, an unborn leader, propelled by grass-roots groups and buttressed by a black middle class that reflected the growing self-confidence of the black nation for the freedom and justice, the King in Volume III 1 emerged as an American David. Like his Biblical counterpart, the twenty-six-year-old preacher, with his newly minded doctorate in Systematic Theology from Boston University, did not seek the position of leadership preliminary of the newly formed Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) until, once called, he led the fight that eventually broke the backbone of the American racism in Alabama. It all started when Martin Luther King accepted the pastorale of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Always a strong worker for civil rights for members of his race, King was, by that time, a member of the executive committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the leading organization of its kind in the nation. He was ready, to accept the leadership of the first great Negro nonviolent demonstration of contemporary times in the United States, abruptly a boycott was met by fury in Montgomery's white community and that brought national attention to the problem of segregation. King helped lead Montgomery's blacks on a yearlong nonviolent boycott of the bus system, the boycott ended after 382 days only when the U.S. Supreme Court intervened and declared Alabama's segregation laws unconstitutional on buses. ( Nobelprize.org, http://nobelprize.org/peace/laureates/1964/king-bio.html) After the verdict of the Supreme Court, Negroes and whites rode the buses as equals. During these days of boycott, King was arrested, his home was bombed, he was subjected to personal abuse, but it was at that time he emerged as a Negro leader of the first rank. Two events in January 1956-his arrest and incarceration for allegedly speeding and the bombing of his house-brought King's personal life into the larger context of Black America's struggle for justice and dignity. In my opinion this was the time in King's life, which created a leader out of him. This leader who contributed towards the Black-Americans was the outcome of all his frustrations, this was the result of his personal sufferings that led him onto the road of leadership. Though the political situation is at times dark and tense, we experience a certain vicarious thrill in witnessing the growing self-confidence with which King engineers a successful resolution of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Another incident occurred in Birmingham on the 16th Street Baptist Church where Martin Luther King, Jr., and hundreds of other African-Americans met and planned sittings and demonstrations for equal rights when one of the most horrific events in the long struggle for African-American civil rights took place. Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley, and Addie Mae Collins were preparing for Sunday services in the basement dressing room of the Baptist Church when a dynamite bomb planted outside exploded, killing four girls and blinding another in one eye. Two of their killers remained beyond the grasp of the law for nearly 40 years. King was convicted here as a killer of those four girls just because of the fact he was disliked by the then director J. Edgar Hoover due to no others reasons but he was 'Black American'. The wheels of justice proved to move slower than the dismantling of segregation. It wasn't until 1977 that Robert (bomber) was found guilty for his role in the bombing and sentenced to life in prison, where he later died. The tragedy galvanized the civil rights movement and helped lead to enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Progress did not come easily, however. King was a frequent target of violence. On multiple occasions he was physically assaulted, and his home was bombed several times by vigilantes. Almost daily he received death threats and hate mail. Yet he and the movement persevered even with the worst circumstances. In no small part this owed to King's religious faith and the religious content of the civil rights movement. Jr. Burrow states as King was not a saint, and did not claim to be. He was an ordinary human being who did some very extraordinary things for the enhancement of persons in general, and more especially his own people. He used the ideas of others, but did not always follow the standard practice of documenting what was borrowed. The appeal to his humanity excuses none of his limitations. It is merely a reminder that King was a flesh and blood human being like the rest of us, and consequently was no more or less susceptible to human error. (Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Doctrine of Human Dignity2.) Although he was absolutely committed to the struggle for anti racism, the total liberation and empowerment of African American and other oppressed peoples, there were also times when he longed for the day he could leave the struggle and leisurely teach theology in a seminary or university (3Washington, J. (Ed.) (1986)). Throughout the nation, impatience with the lack of greater substantive progress encouraged the growth of black militancy under the nonviolent guidance of King. Especially in the slums of the large Northern cities, King's religious philosophy of nonviolence and anti racism was increasingly questioned. The rioting in the Watts district of Los Angeles demonstrated the depth of the urban race problem. In an effort to meet the challenge of the ghetto, King and his forces initiated a drive against racial discrimination in Chicago. The chief target was to be segregation in housing. The King work escorted to rallies, marches, and demonstrations. An agreement was signed between the city and a coalition of blacks, liberals, and labor organizations, calling for various measures to strengthen the enforcement of existing laws and regulations with respect to housing. But this agreement was to have little effect; the impression remained that King's Chicago campaign was nullified partly because of the opposition of that city's powerful mayor, Richard J. Daley, and partly because of the unexpected complexities of Northern racism. In Illinois and Mississippi alike, King was being challenged and even publicly derided by young black power enthusiasts. In the face of mounting criticism, King's response was to broaden his approach to include concerns other than racism that were equally detrimental to his people's progress. On April 4, 1967, at Riverside Church in New York City and again on the 15th at a mammoth peace rally in that city, he committed himself irrevocably to opposing the United States's involvement in the Vietnam War. Once before, in early January 1966, he had condemned the war, but official outrage from Washington and strenuous opposition within the black community itself had caused him to relent. He next sought to widen his base by forming a coalition of the poor of all races that would address itself to such economic problems as poverty and unemployment. It was a species of populism, seeking to enroll janitors, hospital workers, seasonal laborers, and the destitute of Appalachia, along with the student militants and pacifist intellectuals. His endeavors along these lines, however, did not engender much support in any segment of the population4. We see King's growth as a leader through his interaction with people who became the Founding Fathers and Mothers of the modern Civil Rights Movement in America, though the focus was decidedly with the men who led the pulpit fraternity. Martin preached about equality for blacks and whites through a non-violent way and urged blacks to win their rightful place in society by gaining self-respect, high moral standards, hard work and leadership. Martin, as a Baptist minister, emphasized on love and non-violence. To gain full rights, he advocated non-violent direct action and was an upholder of passive resistance5. The emergence of Martin Luther King, as a civil rights leader brought a new tactic to the movement, nonviolent resistance. This method of peaceful protest was a combination of the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi and Jesus. King described it as 'a philosophy deeply embedded in our religious tradition.' (Stanley K. Schultz, Professor of History, American History 102) Dr. Martin Luther King as a president of the Southern Christian Leadership Council lead his followers to organized numerous marches, rallies, and strikes to call attention to the systematic discrimination against minorities that was endemic in American society. His belief was in nonviolent confrontation with the authorities and a prodding of the conscience of the white majority to effect social change. Martin Luther King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) was constructed upon the existing Black churches in the South. As the movement matured the existing institutional and organizational structures were inadequate to the new tasks at hand. He then recognized that the further development of the movement required new organizational forms and for the supporters to relate to each other in new and different ways. King's "Poor People's Campaign" represented this search. King once called for a massive march on Washington, which leaded to a passage of the civil rights bill. He welcomed the participation of white groups as well as black in order to demonstrate the multiracial backing for civil rights in which singer Mahalia Jackson called out "Tell them about your dream, Martin! " King drew upon some of his past talks, which later became the landmark statement of civil rights in America. He had originally prepared a short and somewhat formal recitation of the sufferings of African Americans attempting to realize their freedom in a society chained by discrimination. (Douglass Archives of American Public)6 There is a tendency today to cast the civil rights struggle in psychological terms, as an effort to overcome irrational prejudice, or in constitutional terms, as a battle over the meaning of federalism and states' rights. Certainly, the psychological and constitutional dimensions were not unimportant, but King was waging a more fundamental battle, over the very meaning of America. The oppression of blacks was justified in the name of certain ideas and a certain vision for the country as a whole, an understanding that rose above individual psychology and cut deeper than mere constitutional arguments for states' rights. Perhaps for this reason King rarely addressed the question of states' rights. He realized that in the end the argument was about larger questions, and in order to succeed he would have to convince America that his vision of America was the truer one. It was not only white America that King needed to win over but the black community as well. And here the problem was in its psychology, history, and politics almost impossibly complex. As described by King, African Americans teetered on the edge of two unhealthy extremes: acquiescence to racism on the one hand, and violent resistance on the other. The question was how to navigate a course between the two. (The Martin Luther King We Remember, 2003, Adam Wolfson, Public Interest, p 39.) Although Dr. King's dream of universal racial harmony is still largely a dream deferred, his contribution to racial peace in America and his message that "the struggle is not between Black and White but between good and evil" have been fully appreciated by many prominent Whites. According to Jimmy Carter Former President "It was in recognition of that debt that Dr. King was awarded a Nobel Prize. Their ideas are especially present in the Atlanta Project, which the Carter Center launched two years ago to help brighten the futures of some of Atlanta's most embattled communities through cooperation and trust. Its basic philosophy is that we all work best when we work together. We are working hard to help build lifelong partnerships among communities, businesses, churches, synagogues, government, and thousands of ordinary people who believe that, together, they can make a difference. We have accomplished many things and have much, much more to do. But throughout it all, we are inspired by Dr.King's legacy."7 I think it is of no qualm that King escorted black Americans on the road to their own individuality surpassed with freedom, but this fact is also inevitable that even today the notion of the differences lies in the hearts of Americans. The only disparity is that yesterday (with King) the spite was in between them, printed on their faces and discernible by their acts but today it lies not in their actions but deep inside their hearts. The King's contributions has buried the hatred within them! Martin Luther King lived by the conviction that Blacks must take their destiny into their own hands, in the sense of not making the mistake of passively waiting for others to take up the cause of human rights and Black liberation. Indeed, even Reinhold Niebuhr cautioned African Americans not to uncritically trust the moral sense of the White man (Niebuhr, R. (1932).8, who, as James Baldwin reminded us, too often fails to honor his own moral professions. Instead, African Americans will need to work unceasingly toward the development of a deeper sense of self-dignity and pride. Although we are Americans, we are also Africans. This is our inescapable "great dilemma." It does not help to pretend that we are merely one or the other. We are an amalgam of Africa and America. James Baldwin once said ... "This country is going to be transformed. It will not be transformed by an act of God, but by all of us, by you and me. I don't believe any longer that we can afford to say that it is entirely out of our hands. We made the world we're living in" (9Baldwin, 1961) End Notes Claybome Carson, Ed. The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr. Vol. III: Birth of a New Age. Berkeley: U of California P, 1997 Nobelprize.org, http://nobelprize.org/peace/laureates/1964/king-bio.html Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Doctrine of Human Dignity, Jr. Rufus Burro,: The Western Journal of Black Studies. Volume: 26. Issue: 4. Publication Year: 2002. Page Number: 228 A testament of hope: The essential writings of Martin Luther King, Jr. New York, NY: Harper & Row This article was written by David L. Lewis, who is Martin Luther King, Jr., University Professor of History at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey. He is author of King: A Critical Biography (1970). http://www.britannica.com/nobel/micro/321_84.html Moral man and immoral society. New York, NY: Scribner's Sons. Prominent Whites Tell: 'What Martin Luther King Jr. Means to Me. Magazine Title: Ebony. Volume: 49. Issue: 3. Publication Date: January 1994. Page Number: 21+. The Martin Luther King We Remember. Contributors: Adam Wolfson - author. Magazine Title: Public Interest. Publication Date: Summer 2003. Page Number: 39+ Works Cited Baldwin, J. (1961). "Notes for a hypothetical novel." In his Nobody knows my name. New York, NY: Dell. Claybome Carson, Ed. The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr. Vol. III, Birth of a New Age. David L. Lewis, Martin Luther King, Jr., University Professor of History at Rutgers, A Critical Biography, http://www.britannica.com/nobel/micro/321_84.html Elike Moritz, VI Comparison of Martin and Malcolm, www.unix-ag.uni- kl.de/moritz/guestbook.html http://douglass.speech.nwu.edu, May 26, 1999. Prepared by D. Oetting http://nonce.com/oetting Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Doctrine of Human Dignity, 2002, Jr. Rufus Burrow, The Western Journal of Black Studies. Volume: 26. Moral man and immoral society. New York, NY: Scribner's Sons. Prominent Whites Tell, 'What Martin Luther King Jr. Means to Me, 1994, Ebony. Volume: 49. Read More