Remembering Martin Luther King Jr.

Posted by Larry Miller on January 17, 2010 under How | Be the First to Comment

As I was growing up, hearing about the speeches and marches of Martin Luther King, much of what I heard was that he was stirring up trouble where he had no business. In the rural northeast there was little knowledge or understanding of the situations he was fighting against. There was only one black student in my high school graduating class and she was kind of cute and fit in with everyone, so I could not comprehend what the fuss was all about.

It was only later, after Dr. King was gone, and I saw grown men with dark skin addressed as “Boy” and saw pictures of segregated facilities that I began to grasp the struggles of freedom fighters like Martin Luther King Jr and others like Medgar Evers.

Our Declaration of Independence enshrined the words “all men are created equal”. Correctly it does not specify all men of a certain color, a particular economic class or those connected to the “ruling class”. It says all men are created equal. It does not say that some are only three fifths equal as some in congress specified so as to obtain congressional representation, yet not recognize the humanity of some citizens.

In so many ways, the projected rights some feel they have to lead, based on their skin color is just as repulsive, perhaps even more so, than the projected right to lead of the English royalty that our founding fathers threw off. It has been my personal observation that those who look down on others because of some external characteristic like skin color have the least reason to look down on anyone.

It may be for this reason that they are the most defensive and most violent in keeping what they consider to be their God-given dominance. History tells us that the Democrat Party rose to power in the Reconstruction south, partly through the efforts of its terrorist wing, the Ku Klux Klan that intimidated black voters and often left them hanging high in trees as a warning to others.

It is against this backdrop that Dr. King took his struggle to the streets in the 50’s and 60’s. The old racist thinking hadn’t changed much, but it had developed a veneer of sophistication and pleasantry. The north was little better as many, lured by the promise of jobs, migrated north to less hospitable climates. Most making the move “knew their place” and created an underclass of cheap laborers who basically did what they were told.

Our country is not what it should be, but great strides have been made in the direction Dr. King was working. Our black friends owe him a great debt of gratitude for his inspired leadership. The rest of us do also. He opened the eyes of many of us to situations we did not see or chose not to see.

What can we learn from this man of God who stood against established social norms? First thing we see was his commitment to non-violent protest. I believe it was part of his spiritual DNA. It also was a matter of practicality as he represented a minority group surrounded by many who would be only too happy to return violence with greater violence. Today many are questioning whether we can right the wrongs of the current administration peacefully. Dr. King, following in the footsteps of Ghandi, showed what can be accomplished by single-minded dedication to one’s goal. Unfortunately, his life ended when someone, seeing white dominance threatened, chose the violent route to a temporary victory.

Our government was not so powerful and pervasive at the time. It was not as immune to citizen concerns. King’s phones were tapped, but he did not have an empowered Department of Homeland Security breathing down his neck. We need to hope and pray that such an approach can work in our situation. If it does not, we need to decide, like our founding fathers, how much we value our freedom and what price we are willing to pay to keep it for ourselves and our children.

The non-violent approach he used was not a non-confrontational approach. Martin Luther King Jr. and his followers sat down in lunch counters that refused to serve them. The closed down streets. Together they raised their voice, letting the world know they would not be denied. The non-violent approach was not an easy road as King told the people they had to stick together. They had to work together, they had to pray together, they had to march together. They at to get arrested together. Whoa! Did he say get arrested together?

Sit ins at lunch counters, while conceived as peaceable, did not always end peacefully. Protesters were hauled off to jail for trespassing. Sometimes overzealous police, protecting the old value system, cracked some heads or crosses were burned in the night. Some working for freedom suffered the same fate as King and Evers… some simply disappeared forever.

We may be up against a more pleasant speaking opponent, but Chicago style thuggery can be just a vicious. The question for us is how far is each of us willing to go in pursuit of the freedom and justice that used to be the United States of America. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is rightly a heroic figure in the black community. But, we can all learn from his life, his mission and his dedication. Thank you Dr. King.