After the American Century
To Black activists and college students in the middle 1960s, Martin Luther King
Jr. was not the iconic figure who is being remembered this year, on the fiftieth anniversary of his famous "I have a Dream Speech." Delivered from the Lincoln Memorial in August, 1963, that speech was the rhetorical high point of the Civil Rights Movement.
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| Martin Luther King delivering his "I Have a Dream" Speech |
One only has to look at a
photograph of King to begin to discern why he fell somewhat out of favor
on university campuses between 1963 and 1968. King invariably wore a dark suit and had a
short haircut. He dressed like a banker or a mainstream politician. By 1968 students had adopted a colorful wardrobe of loose-fitting clothing and long hair. Only a
small, square minority had crew-cuts or short hair. That "look" declared one’s
sympathy for the military. Dressing like Martin Luther King was just not cool.
King also made a point of presenting himself as a Christian.
This was a good strategy in the American South in the late 1950s, as it challenged the minds and
reached out to the hearts of his opponents. King challenged the core values and
identity of Southern racists, who regarded themselves as quintessentially
Christian. But on university campuses, emphasizing Christianity was more
controversial and did not win support from Marxists, for example, or from the
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Indeed, in the late 1960s many Hippies were turning toward Eastern religions and non-Christian religions.
Martin Luther King was still respected for his early work in
Civil Rights, but by the middle 1960s young Black students were distancing
themselves from him. The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had
begun as an outgrowth of his civil disobedience campaign against segregation.
But by 1967 SNCC had rejected non-violence, Black Power was the new slogan, and
more confrontational tactics were being adopted. Some even called King an Uncle Tom.
King’s goals were under attack. He called for
assimilation. Black Power demanded separation; not integration into mainstream
white society, but separate businesses, separate organizations of all kinds,
and even separate Black states. The more radical white student leaders rejected the
white middle class itself. They did not think that African
Americans would benefit from assimilation. The white middle class, they thought, was not the solution but the problem. Their values, radicals believed, were dangerous.
They were imperialistic and violent. They subscribed to patriarchy, and
keep down women, Blacks, Native Americans, and Third World peoples. The new ideology of Black Power
proclaimed that “Black is beautiful” and called for liberation from white
society. The Black Muslims and Malcolm X had arrived at similar conclusions.
Stokley
Carmichael and the more radical students wanted revolution not assimilation. From this perspective, King was part of the problem. They
did not want "to overcome" with whites and join in a new color-blind society.
They instead wanted Black communities that affirmed a distinctive
Black culture and consciousness. They wanted to stop what they regarded as the
white war on people of color, whether in the United States or in Vietnam. Martin Luther King met with Lyndon
Johnson at the White House. In contrast, Stokley Carmichael and SNCC refused to meet
with him.
When Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, student radicals
were angry, but they also felt vindicated. They regarded the shooting as final proof of their own arguments. The assassination seemed to demonstrate that non-violence could never work. In 1968, a
Revolution seemed necessary, and it seemed near.
Half a century later, it is painfully obvious that the radical students were wrong. The
years after 1968 did not lead to revolution or even a liberal government. On the Left, Richard Nixon's election in 1968 was regarded as the last gasp of an old order that would soon be swept away. But between 1968 and 1992 Republicans
would hold the presidency for all but 4 years. The United
States proved far more conservative than student radicals thought.
Looking back a half century to 1963, King has emerged as a towering figure, an effective organizer, a captivating public speaker, and a man able to mobilize and unite disparate groups to effect
fundamental change. He has been canonized as the visionary who redefined what the American Dream might yet be. He appears great today, but he also illustrates all too
well that a prophet often is not recognized in his own country. Only with the
passage of time have Americans begun to understand his true stature.
King still speaks to the world's problems today. The following words from his Nobel Prize acceptance speech apply with considerable force to all too many contemporary crises, particularly in the Middle East.
"Violence as a way of achieving racial
justice is both impractical and immoral. I am not unmindful of
the fact that violence often brings about momentary results.
Nations have frequently won their independence in battle. But in
spite of temporary victories, violence never brings permanent
peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and
more complicated ones. Violence is impractical because it is a
descending spiral ending in destruction for all. It is immoral
because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his
understanding: it seeks to annihilate rather than convert.
Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than
love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It
leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends
up defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and
brutality in the destroyers."
