As a young journalist at the Chicago Bureau of the Associated Press during the 1960s, I was assigned to follow King around Chicago and report on him. Being a white boy who had survived 12 years of Roman Catholic, education I was not much impressed with this black rabble rouser. But then I attended his speeches at mostly Black churches and knew I had met someone who had more power in his voice than most rich white people had in their wallets. I had the privilege of interviewing King via telephone and what his voice did to my ear was just short of a sexual experience. And then I was with him during his march through Chicago's all-white south side when he got hit in the head with a rock thrown in Marquette Park by a local redneck. While his aides rushed to him, he brushed it off and continued walking. My white boy complex took a gut punch that day and I can still feel it every MLK day.
8
Mr.Blow seems to be speaking from anger, frustration and agitation. Often.
Dr. King spoke with love, and of love.
which shall we follow? Mr.Blow seems to find the words that fit his own thesis and stance. I hope readers think for themselves.
2
MLK has been framed by White America as they want him remembered so it’s refreshing to hear his thoughts expressed in the Stanford speech. There is a lot to be done to bring Blacks to something better than a figment of White wealth. This should start by focussing inwards than bossing over non aligned countries and reducing dependency complex of its client states by not absorbing their defence costs.
6
Let us not forget that millions of U.S.-born Latinos also grew up in and still inhabit Dr. King's other America.
I grew up in Pacoima, a blighted and poverty stricken corner of the otherwise upscale San Fernando Valley.
We had no choice but to endure the deprivation and inequality that dire poverty brings with it.
It was also enlightening and depressing to venture into the monied enclaves of Chatsworth, Sherman Oaks, Topanga among others.
As a child I could not help but notice that Pacoima was almost exclusively in habituated by blacks and Latinos and the ritzy neighborhoods were as white as Norway.
All the more depressing is that my hometown has fallen into deeper poverty and dislocation.
Today, its per capita income is a bit more than $20,000. Of its overwhelmingly Latino 103,00 residents, 19 percent live below the poverty line. Just 55 percent have a high school degree.
Tragically, hundreds of homeless people have for the past few years lived under freeway overpasses.
Back in the 60's when I lived there no one was without a home.
The giant Price-Pfister plumbing fixture plant where I worked closed up in the mid-1990's, eliminating some 900 jobs.
Gangs and drugs had infested Pacoima when I was still in grade school. Those ills have only worsened.
Because of that and a host of other reasons, my stomach tightens when I hear the Trumpian cry of "Make America Great Again."
16
We must not only embrace the King who had a dream. We must also embrace the King who called America out for not coming close to fulfilling that dream.
15
UBI is what is needed...
King in 1967, “Now one of the answers it seems to me, is a guaranteed annual income, a guaranteed minimum income for all people, and for all families of our country. [crowd applause] It seems to me that the Civil Rights movement must now begin to organize for the guaranteed annual income. Begin to organize people all over our country, and mobilize forces so that we can bring to the attention of our nation this need, and this is something which I believe will go a long long way toward dealing with the Negro’s economic problem and the economic problem which many other poor people confront in our nation.”
3
Mr. Blow is right. There is a horrific white backlash. Hate crimes are at an all-time high, and yet we're told not to practice "identity politics". What this really means is that those of us who aren't white may not practice it but Trump voters are driven by it.
I remember presidents back to Eisenhower. I grew up in the Civil Rights era. I'm in my 60's. And I am a person of color. Now, in those years we were told that our failings were all our own and that we must "pull ourselves up by our bootstraps." So many of us did. I put myself through college and law school. Fast forward to today. Whites are resentful of our success. They believe that something has been "taken away" from them, when they now must simply play on a more level playing field. But they have their leader - the man that espouses their beliefs. The man who has said that neo-Nazis and the KKK are some very fine people.
What the rest of us yearn for, especially people of color, is our leader. We hunger for an MLK for our era. A leader who will speak out about skyrocketing hate crimes and increased targeting of brown skinned people. A leader who will speak out against the abomination that is the internment camps housing Hispanic children on our soil.
I have hungered for such a leader since Trump's election. We need someone to give us hope in a country where we are no longer welcome by half its citizens. This figure of moral clarity isn't simply aspirational - I believe it is the fundamental need of our time.
18
People need to actually read his speeches and forget the truncated propaganda that politicians repeat when they try to cast him as nothing more than a guy who thought segregation was bad.
He was a revolutionary and if he could speak from the grave I'll bet that he'd say "I tried to tell you this would happen".
And "Vote Bernie 2020 !"
5
Absolutely. Right on!
2
If you read the whole letter from Birmingham jail, it’s clear the “white moderate” he describes in the 1960s would be considered a reactionary in any part of America today.
No doubt MLK would be far more outspoke about the anti-Semitism in Monsey, Jersey City, Crown Heights than today's "racial justice" activists. I've seen more outrage from the social justice community over Rosanne Barr insulting a powerful black woman than I do over Board of Education member Joan Terrell pronouncing her support for the killers in Jersey City. The only people of color who came out at a Board of Education meeting were to protest her "being attacked". To call it sad and shameful is an understatement.
4
This is why I love you Mr. Blow. Please continue to educate people on King. I have been trying to listen to James Brown and his music stressing unity like in the track Talking Loud and Saying Nothing.
5
I Listened to DR King in my car today and I was amazed by this mans speeches. He was the bravest man I have heard on the radio ever in my 77 years. I wish there were more people around now who have that much courage. The US Senate needs that kind of courage so that they can impeach Donald Trump a man of no courage or integrity. It makes me sick to think that he will get by with all the laws he has broken or ignored in his three years in the WH. God Save us from this horrible man.
13
“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice.”
I’m a 45-year-old white guy. I read that passage as a teenager and I find the truth of it more apparent every year of my life. I see it with every new civil-rights issue, whether it’s marriage equality or reparations, where commenters on internet message boards speak in a single voice: “This far, and no further.”
There is no figure in this society more self-flattering and deluded than the white moderate. King knew that and he spoke a truth that is at heart of every modern trouble with racism and the TRUE impediment to progress.
3
MLK
"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.
America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war."
BTW--NYT--where's your picture of Sanders and Warren linking arms at MLK March Today. Pursuit of peace over war? MLK words NYT should heed.
5
Hard questions: If he were alive today, would King have wanted things to have gotten better, or would he have wanted them to stay the same so he could stay angry? If things would've gotten better, would he have acknowledged the progress, or ignored it so he could stay angry? Will Charles Blow ever acknowledge that things have gotten better when/if they ever do? NO.
1
Rev. Dr. King plagiarized chunks of his doctoral thesis. He remained a member of an African-American fraternity that routinely severely hazed its new recruits. He was a serial adulterer. None of this takes away from his legacy or importance. He would advise, I daresay, to extend the same grace to our Founding Fathers for their moral transgressions.
1
What I heard that MLK was a down to earth gentleman, never was looking for leadershp , ot limelight...but became one !
1
Rev. King's speech “The Three Evils of Society” needs exposure, too! See https://connectere.wordpress.com/2016/01/19/the-three-evils-address-delivered-by-martin-luther-king-8311967/
An extension of “The Other America”, it's a pointed, yet uplifting speech. In it, he explains the three evils plaguing American society:
racism, excessive materialism, and militarism.
King decries capitalism and the myth of the Protestant work ethic; he highlights how racism and capitalism are inextricably linked — and exposes the hypocrisy of elites — such as their “building of beautiful, impressive hotels” (!) rather than attending to pressing social, educational, and societal needs.
He challenges the idea that racism is a matter of a few bigots, explaining it is institutionalized and sustains the white power structure.
King assails the Vietnam War, colonialism, and domestic spying.
He calls upon us to embrace a “revolutionary spirit” and be “creatively maladjusted”. Don't ask whether a course of action is popular or expedient, ask whether it is moral and right.
In contrast, the “I Have a Dream” speech is Kumbaya pablum, and lacks the gritty recognition of underlying, fundamental problems. The “Three Evils” speech is more instructive and insightful, coupling hard-nosed realism and astute diagnosis, and how to get out of our current dilemma.
It's time to feature it prominently on the day we celebrate King's life and legacy. Sadly, it still relevant over a half century later.
5
I recommend "The Bone and Sinew of the Land: America's Forgotten Black Pioneers & the Struggle for Equality" by Anna-Lisa Cox. It follows free Afro-American settlers in the early 1800's and how whites changed existing laws to hinder them and exclude any followers. Not to mention terrorised and murdered them for being hard working and successful farmers.
2
"Gimme, Gimme, Gimme!"
From what you write, it seems that King did much to deradicalize the Black community and to foster an attitude of dependency.
You don't wait to be given. You go out and take, lawfully of course. We Africans who came over lately from the mother continent don't wait to be given. We grasp the opportunity we see here with everything we've got. That doesn't mean we are blinkered, that we don't see the racism and all. But we are too busy making something of the little window of opportunity that we see to stand around waiting to be given.
What you write about King might make one respect the man much less. King took the sting out of Black radicalism and maybe even eroded Black sense of self-determinism.
And it sounds as if King began to see with the much more radical Malcolm X in the end, perhaps a little too late.
1
Sorry Blow, not buying into reparations. And frankly, a lot of reparations have been paid out - pigford case where thousands of black farmers (more than were a part of the case or even farmed), affirmative action across the spectrum from college to every large business in America, etc. etc.
I'm not black, and I am not a racist. Until a few years ago, being white didn't automatically make you a racist. Same for being black, or red, or yellow, or ? I am sad for the future of an integrated society where no one, or at least most, don't care about the color (or depth of color as you wrote about a year or so ago) of one's skin. The ONLY way to solve racism is to stop programs designed to fuel racism.
3
The sad part is that for whatever reason, a moderate almost devoid of any energy, is getting the support of Black people..
I read that this is because Black do not trust the white political establishment with its historical missed promises.
I think that this is because of a deep religious culture that even if delivered by Black preachers has an old white core that was and is meant to keep Black people in cultural chains.
1
I declared January: "Black Power Month." Not ignorant of the fact, Black power in a White power America seems, "Separate but equal."
For Black America to continue celebrating Black History Month is status-quo. Carter G. Woodson rightly highlight the accomplishments of Blacks. He also rightly believed celebrating Black history should be temporary. Today, 90 years in no way equals temporary. Personally, I’m a Black man more concerned with Black future than Black history. Great reverence/respect to the many Black leaders who have walk and suffered for me.
I believe Black Power Month is a time for Blacks to break away from the status-quo of looking back. Concentrate on our future of love self, respect self and educate self. Start the year this way and you will not go South.
Woodson knew there would be a day when it was no longer needed to highlight the great deeds of Blacks or in need of special attention. I saw a four-year White boy play a piano like Beethoven. I was right to be amazed. But Black History Month makes Blacks appear as a 4-year-old White boy on a piano. That is condescending.
Celebrating Black History Month, 90 years after Woodson first came up with “Negro History Week”, is like patting a 4-year-old White boy on the head because he can play a piano like Ludwig van Beethoven.
1
Re: "...We’ve come to know a more complex King, one who reacted realistically to white backlash..."
I never had the honor of meeting, talking to, nor being physically, near Dr. M.L. King, Jr.
I marched to demonstrate my opposition to Vietnam, Ops. Enduring Freedom, 'N, other war_profiteering crimes, 'N, my opposition to racism, sexism, homophobia,, and 'My-religion-makes-me-better, than-you!' religiosity.
When I use that word, ('HONOR'), in reference to M.L.K., I literally, mean it, (in 'real' life), exactly as the actor, Michael Dorn, uses it, (in 'reel' life), within 'StarTrek:Next.Gen', as he plays the scripted Klingon_character*, 'Worf, Son, 'O, Mog'!
Before I forget...
As a caucasoid, hetero_male_U.S. citizen_voter...'SHAME', and/or, 'Utter_Revulsion', (aka, 'chunks, hurled'), describe my reaction, within 'family_friendly' terms, to D.J.Trump, S. Bannon, S. Miller, Dylan Roof, James Alex Fields Jr., (who murdered H. Heyer), 'N, other Republicans / Republican policies, in general...
*{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worf#/media/File:WorfTNG.jpg}
“I had been taught a reduced King, smooth and polished, a one-dimensional impersonation of a person.”
Without realizing it, Charles, by not featuring King’s anti-war sentiments and his criticism of capitalism, you’re perpetuating the “one-dimensional impersonation”.
Of course, doing so would’ve endangered your job.
Your decision.
3
This comment only appears here because the Times is too cowardly to allow comments on their non-endorsement.
The specific insult is their saying Biden's lead in because of familiarity. By coincidence, Biden is strongest amongst the black community, so the Times decides on Martin Luther King Day of all days, to dismiss black voters.
In an attempt to hide their sometimes misogyny, they fall back on racism.
This is a sad day for the Times. I'm considering canceling my subscription. I urge everyone to read Jennifer Rubin's column in today's Washington Post.
Yes, the article is insanely dismissive of other candidates. Until someone corrected them they could not even get election numbers for Pete Butttigieg right.
I have nevr been so ashamed of the NY Time and am not sure I can continue supporting such hypocricy.
I am white and 75. For me, this has always been a day of tears. And now with a racist president and racist Republican Party, I have no tears left. Whomever the Democratic candidate turns out to be, vote the republicans out.
1
"Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday is the greatest sheer spectacle of hypocrisy and historical duplicity of the year, as Black misleaders take center stage to claim his mandate and mission on behalf of a corporate party."
“While Dr. King rejected an alliance with the ‘triple evils,’ Black Democratic misleaders describe their deal with the Devil as smart, ‘strategic’ politics.”
https://www.blackagendareport.com/mlk-and-black-misleadership-class
2
Today's Leftists want to throw out the "judge a man by the content of his character" and insist on judging people by the color of their skin. Shame!
2
Nice job Charles. Good article.
2
The seeds that he, his peers and predecessors planted have only started to germinate. Douglass, King, Obama. Dig?
I salute and revere this giant. Thank you Mr. Blow.
1
I believe the speech would now be, “I had a nightmare that Donald Trump will win in 2020. I had a nightmare that Republicans would hold the Senate, and win more seats in the House of Representatives.
I had a nightmare that the future of all children today, no matter their color, is in the hands of those who do not face the reality of science, who hide behind a cloak of Evangelical Christianity, and who sow hatred and scorn of others through radio, television, and internet sites that care not for the truth of where there hyperbole of hate originates. Most gravely, I had a nightmare that Barack Obama was an aberration in the line of presidents, and that Bush/Cheney and Trump are the true line of degradation for our nations highest office.”
(I would add Clinton wasn’t so great either, he killed Glass-Steagall, and his economic policies inspired by Greenspan increased the speed at which our society has become so economically imbalanced.)
1
On the eve of the impeachment trial Dr. King should serve as an inspiration to all involved to never compromise your obligation to the American people in searching for truth and fairness. We need you to stand up for what is right, not what is politically safe. You need to be able to look us in the eye after this is all over. You can only do that if you are not hanging your head in shame.
Love this article. Thank you for writing it.
2
I see Martin Luther King, Jr. as a clear eyed individual who understood that achieving good meant focusing on good, not striking back. He knew that his opponents were not sincere and well meaning but ignorant and vicious. Many of those who supported segregation and repression of racial minorities did not even reflect upon what they were doing. Hating them was easy. But fighting with them would only result in dwelling in the darkness with them, instead of advancing into a far better place.
Four centuries of slavery, racial discrimination, and inequities have produced a culture of mistrust that afflicts those who were unable to escape it more than those who have. Jim Crow ended half a century, ago. Any belief in race is also diminishing because it was a false concept that serves no real social purpose anymore. The legacy is not gone. The effects are not gone. The inequities are not gone.
Thank you, again, Mr. Blow, for your impassioned and precise words. Yes, to reduce the extraordinary Dr. King to his “I have a dream,” is also to reduce the really ugly history of our country. It drapes a great and brave man in what has become, through endless repetition, Hallmark colors. It’s no accident that that speech has come to represent him, as it acts as a palliative for the endless acts of violence against blacks in this country. I find it, also, outrageous in the utmost, that the “gun rights” march in Charlottesville, lead by a man who believes in putting weapons in the hands of 3-year-olds, took place on this day of remembrance of one of our bravest citizens.
29
I would ask that the New York Times
and Mr. Blow to not use the word
"Whites" when speaking of European Americans.
I would also like Mr. Blow to acknowledge that there
are numerically more Poor European Americans
than Poor African Americans and Poor Latinos.
The Elites do not care about anyone but themselves
no matter what Dr. Martin Luther King said or did
they will never change their minds.
3
As a septuagenarian white man I am ashamed of the way Europeans have treated non-whites over the centuries, and am especially ashamed of how the earliest white immigrants to American, as a whole, treated non-whites as less than human, from the natives they tried to exterminate, to the Africans they rounded up like animals to enslave for life, and the Chinese who they worked like animals to build the railroad.
And still they persist, many feeling deep in their hearts that whites are superior to the other races, often not admitting it to themselves. White america has always been in denial, still is, possibly getting worse. How sad because it hurts everyone, the hated and the haters alike.
3
Thank you Mr. Blow for another incisive, helpful column.
1
King knew he might be murdered and that whom ever murdered him would be deluded by a false concept about race or by a dark desire to exploit others for gain, not people who an example of pursuing good rather than resisting evil, not striking back at evil, not struggling to defeat evil by using the same means would appreciate.
MLK was a wonderful mixture of a man, equal parts compassion, understanding, empathy, and kindness. He was also practical, earthy, sensitive to his surroundings. He was non-violent but not a push-over, a man who stood his ground. But above all, he loved justice and fairness in the service of fundamental equality within a unitary community. He held a common, inclusive view of humanity that holds we are all here "under God" together. Our differences melt, or meld. We are still having a very hard time with this. We want to hang on to our disparities as we continue to prize our unique identities as something special and precious. We have a society of self-interest, not common interest. King fought against the damage this does and asks us to continue his fight beyond his grave. Thank you Charles Blow for remembering this.
4
Reverend Dr. King is a perfect example of the principle that a person can be deeply flawed in their personal ethical conduct and family life, and still be an important and beloved public figure. One does not negate the other.
2
Remembering the man I first experienced on a school field trip to a Baptist church in downtown St. Louis, 1962...and his remarkable sermon, all about love. I've been an activist ever since. Today, as I listen to his little-known speeches (thx, Michael Moore, Sam Seder and others), I hope his dream will guide us through our nightmare.
And while we are adding superlative speeches to the canonical King Day exercises, let's include his speech on the Viet Nam War. One of the best pieces written on the subject of American imperialism in that era or any. People thought King had overstepped the bounds of his authority as a "black leader," but he showed that the logic of his vision inevitably extended beyond race.
4
Yes, perhaps the "agitated MLK" was important for all to witness. None the less, another dialect within that agitation, which stands true decades after the fact was his most simple attribute. He was kind and he loved. Especially in the climate of divisive incivility created by our leaders we need to remember....."darkness does not get rid of darkness....we need light to get rid of darkness".
2
I encourage you to take the well deserved admiration you have for MLK and encourage readers to VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO in November. The reason for this, is that the dignity and future of all US persons of any description is at stake under the blatant disregard for Dr. King's Dream by Trump, and, Senators Mitch and Lindsey, to name a few. I am certain that the Democratic nominee will not be my personal ideal but surely will be a much better choice than Trumpism. I implore you to recognize the opportunity you have to lead in a style like MLK embraced for steps to be taken on that long road by effectively electing reasonable alternatives to ignorance, bias and the worshipping of money. It is time to cast a positive vote, even in anger, as it will do good.
4
As an African American woman, I idolize MLK for his dedication in the fight for equality for his people, as well as a better future for all Americans. Like Charles Blow, I grew up admiring a fraction of who MLK truly was. When Blow said, “I had been taught only the “Dream” King”, I think he speaks for a lot of us, in which schools give Dr. King a hero complex but neglect to shine a light on the fact that he was human. MLK did amazing work during his time and received a lot of push back in return. The talk of race and equality back then and even today can be a frustrating conversation. However, understanding that Dr. King was angry and irritated at times validates how some of us feel today, because whether we like it or not, we are facing similar problems.
MLK is more than his “I Have a Dream” speech and it is important to understand that we cannot always rely on school systems to teach us everything because they won’t. We have to take the time to educated ourselves, in addition to future generations, not only on days like today but whenever we have the chance. It was not until I left high school that I decided to research MLK and although I was still young, I feel as though I missed out on years were I could have been more grateful for Dr. Kings sacrifice as well as acknowledged his humanity.
8
It’s an important perspective and I appreciate it. I’m glad we have a day to honor Dr. King. I also think about the many men and women who protested for basic rights and freedoms and the anguish they felt - it is unimaginable to me and it was happening around the time I was born and into my first years of life. I don’t have the courage they had and I would have been so afraid to face the violence and intimidation they endured and for what? Voting, eating lunch, sitting anywhere they felt like sitting anywhere whether on a bus, at a restaurant, saying whatever they wanted, being treated like second class citizens or worse. It makes my blood boil that it happened at all and maybe still does. So, I am quite sure Dr. King was angry and it is always important to have Mr. Blow’s perspective. Those horrific times are deep in our psyches. When I was in Rwanda several years ago, many people wanted to dismiss the genocide - avoid it and behave as if it was a bad dream, even with the museum in Kigali giving us the ugly reality of why it happened - Belgian and German interference, and later indifference. I get angry with anyone suggesting we just “get over it.” We should never get over it, because that is not healing. That’s avoiding. There are white people who did terrible, evil things to black people for years and they were never punished for it. That, alone, makes me furious. There is no “getting over it” except for anyone who was never hurt.
4
Great comments. Claes
The day Dr. King was murdered I dragged myself to Riverside Church, near where we lived in Manhattan. The preacher kept talking about the sanitized Dr. King, a man who resembled a black Mr. Rogers.
Now I loved Mr. Rogers, but that was not the Dr. King that I had also grown to love, an edgy and often uncomfortable speaker of the truth and its implications.
I finally left the service , in tears, before it finished, so I could mourn the real man we had lost, not the man everyone in that church seemed want to believe he had been. The prettified image being presented was akin to killing him again.
6
I’m so sorry. What a painful memory.
We are all so complex. I love Dr King's ability to touch hearts, souls. I remember the times. I was a young mother, product of the South, Jim Crow. Because of him and others, I looked at the reality.
His courage was most compelling for me. He had to be afraid at times but he "persisted". I remember his last speech, the night before he was killed. "I may not get there with you." I'm feeling particularly sad this year.
78
Tranquility and Order. It’s always easier for those whose basic human rights are NOT up for discussion to use those words. Have patience, wait for your turn, get in line, know your place. A slippery slope to nowhere, a way to crush hopes and dreams. No thanks. Personally, I’d rather face hostility than condensation, it lets you know who your enemies are.
Just saying.
139
@Phyliss Dalmatian Condescension?
Anyway (as usual) great comment.
@Phyliss Dalmatian
"just saying " you are perfectly correct.
3
It's weird how tributes to MLK Jr. focus on civil rights and barely mention that he was an outspoken advocate against the Vietnam War and economic injustice. He advocated for a universal basic income (sound familiar?). He was also a vocal supporter of "family planning."
In other words, MLK Jr. was a progressive and still would be progressive today. As we choose our Democratic nominee let's not forget this part of his legacy.
231
@Ivy - Thank God for YouTube. You can go and listen to that speech coming out against the Vietnam War right now. I've listened to it a number of times. My draft number 121. I don't forget and remind myself that I'm lucky to be alive. Other people took my place and died or were injured and destroyed in Vietnam.
4
@Steve
Yes, Steve: "Other people took my place and died or were injured and destroyed in Vietnam." (To say nothing of all the Asians we pummeled.)
Our Defense Department leader, Robert McNamarra, later claimed he didn't know the Vietnamese had been unwilling to bow to outsider control for at least 1000 years. For him, any harm done to our side or theirs was worth the price. MLK saw the folly of America's "vision" and the triumph of immorality it would take to implement it. One was feted a hero; the other, of course, assassinated.
5
"White Backlash" was just subliminal communication from the white media to white people to react violently every time black people made any progress toward the rights they were legally entitled to. "What about white backlash?" I remember the network reporters asking on virtually every story about civil rights. In other words: "Cue the white backlash." After nearly seven decades of witnessing this nation's race war, I have come to realize that the root cause is competition. White men were privileged to not have to compete with black men for jobs, wives, sports, politics, housing, loans or status in any form. That legal protection was aggressively enforced. Civil rights meant white men would lose that protected status. Then came women's liberation. That meant that white men would have to compete with white women in the jobs arena. Cue the "White Male Backlash." The reason that women and minorities are always talking about "white men" is because ONLY white men had the special protections of the law and customs that they had in 1950. That doesn't mean that all white men, or even the majority wanted it that way. But, by decree, they were supposed to want it that way. When Trump's cultish clan urges us to "Make America Great Again," it means "Restore the White Man's Special Status Under Law." The dog barks, but the caravan moves on.
4
I'm a white guy who still remembers (I was a student then) the horror and sadness I felt when Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were murdered within months of each other. The feeling that all my reasons for hope had been snuffed out with them, and that I was living in some kind of nightmare nation.
But over the years I have grown really, really weary of the annual sentimental mediafest reduction of Dr. King to The "I-have-a-dream" Guy.
Not because his best-known speech wasn't profound. Of course it was. But that obsessive focus of remembrance is so limiting to his legacy.
In particular, during the final period of his too-short life, he came to understand, and preach, that never-ending war (in his time, Vietnam), and permanent war-preparednedness, were ideological and financial threats to social progress and to the government programs needed to address inequality and other real human needs.
A lesson which this nation still hasn't learned--or perhaps doesn't want to learn. Which is why it is still so much easier to celebrate this man's holiday with rote-like reminders about "I have a dream" and "content of their character" but not so easy to remember that the great man was trying to educate people about economic justice as well as racial justice; and about the threats posed by imperialism and warmongering; and that he was in Memphis to support workplace resistance by poorly paid and poorly treated garbage collectors.
Everything he said then still needs saying now.
470
@TimesChat And it just wasn't that long ago.
8
@TimesChat
A powerful human motivation is tribalism. In America it has been about skin color, and to some extent religion. In other countries it's about religion, language group, or maybe geography. We need to stop labeling "others" as enemies, or inferior because of their group or tribe.
Culture has a huge impact on our thinking, voting, and identity. Martin Luther King helped us to see others in a new light. We indeed are all brothers and sisters in the same Human family, and should treat each other with dignity and respect. Whatever we can do through education, Arts, and cultural exchanges to encourage acceptance is important. I applaud King's efforts and legacy to do that very thing.
7
Let's not forget about Malcolm X too!
14
Success in America is essentially economic. To seek inclusion, hope of fulfillment by political means usually leads to disappointment. Economic success comes through individual effort, not in groups, not through marches, not from visionary speeches; it doesn't result from somebody handing out success like free coupons at some grand opening. It results almost exclusively from individual initiative, saving, working, investing. Am I seeing a commitment to this in America's minority communities, or do I see indignant expectation of 'fair shares' handed round as of right? Is this the 'vision' the left is trying to sell? It looks like it is. Where is the visionary who tells people to just get to work?
5
Ronald B. Duke
The right has been telling people to 'get to work' for next to nothing ever since 1981 when Ronnie Reagan decapitated labor unions and fired 11,345 striking air traffic controllers and banned them from federal employment for life.
Part of economic success is a level playing field, where individuals and workers have some semblance of civic, social, legal and economic power against vulture capitalists.
Today's America is a Robber Baron wonderland stacked in favor of the greedy donor class.
Hard work and education are important, but in a country that suffers from record income inequality and serious systemic racial ghettoization, there is plenty that the government of the richest country in the world could do better to give the average American of any color a more level playing field.
America can do better than a frozen minimum wage worthy of the Grand Old Plantation era.
42
@Ronald B. Duke
"Economic success comes ... almost exclusively from individual initiative."
This op-ed cites MLK on how 19th century government assisted European peasant immigrants: land, agricultural training, visiting mentors, low interest loans. They did not "hand out success", they gave opportunity. Those who seized it are to be applauded. Perhaps you have such ancestors?
None of this assistance was available to the newly liberated black American peasantry.
After WWII, the GI Bill created the opportunities on which American middle class prosperity was built. Black American GIs? Effectively excluded.
"Where is the visionary who tells people to just get to work?" Practical advice if your history enables you to take it, and if you have opportunity. Otherwise, useless.
People cannot/will not "just get to work" if something has rendered them unable to choose to do so.
After one generation of economic decline, a new mid-west underclass urgently needs renewed opportunity and restoration of the ability to seize it.
No group is entirely unique, but black Americans carry the cumulative effects of centuries of almost every form of brutal injustice. For them, the moral arc of the universe is indeed long.
9
Workers have strength when are unionized. That is working together. Minimum wage will always be starvation wage unless workers come together and fight.
6
And don't forget that before the United States gave away those millions of acres to those white settlers through the Homestead Act of 1862, and while refusing to use the military to redistribute Southern land to the newly freed slaves, among various nefarious means, federal and local governments saw fit to dispatch the United States Army and local militias to murder and remove the Native American people from that land.
34
Thank you, Mr. Blow, for the leavening for revealing the man behind the saint. Now we will enter a period where white republicans claiming to be moderate will make a mockery of what remains of the republic.
3
The founding of this nation, its immense wealth and power originates from the Virginia Company’s commercial ethos: kidnapping and pure unadulterated, multi-generational brutality that hasn’t ended.
Truth and reconciliation: YES.
Reparations: YES.
16
@Annabelle K. How much of your personal wealth in the form of reparations taxes would you be willing to pay? Or do you expect that enormous wad of money to come out of somebody else's pocket?
9
Do you ever question another trillion thrown at our bloated military industrial complex? Or another trillion for another war oil?
3
Us white people need to read your essay and MLK's Stanford speech and ponder both not just today, but enough days so that when hopefully the day arrives when justice will prevail. The justice that tears down public housing, that integrates all the schools and colleges, that allows black citizens to live the lives that white people have inherited since 1776.
5
"Moderate" whites are important to improving the racial climate in this country. Branding us hypocrites will not win us over.
The historical record of 19th century racism in our country must be taught as part of our historical record. The land grant disparities were exactly what they appeared to be: racist barriers against freed slaves preventing them from taking advantage of the bountiful land taken from the Native Americans.
So too must the historical record of the 20th century Jim Crow laws and the resulting Civil Rights movement which over turned them. Jim Crow is as shameful legacy as the Civil Rights movement is a period of righteous progress to redress historical wrongs.
More progress needs to be made. That progress will not be realized if "moderate" whites are not part of the effort to make that progress. It's math.
"Moderate" whites have their own expectations of what African Americans, at least those who most closely align to the views of such opinion writers as Mr. Blow, must do to warrant such support.
We have seen decades of wasted time and money since the 1960s accompanied by an African American culture of parentless children, a dropout approach to schooling and violent crime a multiple of moderate people of all ethnic heritages.
Branding white moderates as hypocrites won't do the job. We're actually agitated, exhausted and even a bit angry about what we see as wasted opportunities on the parts of way too many African Americans.
19
@TDurk Whoa. I am a white liberal (who also is part of the problem) but I think it is wrong to accuse African Americans of wasting opportunities. On the one hand, many have made significant strides out of poverty. On the other hand, having lived in Chicago and Trenton NJ, I have seen too many false opportunities touted but not structured in any way to help people overcome the deep heritage of slavery and enforced inferiority.
13
Please comment on deaths of despair that we are nw paying for. I remember when the scourge of substance abuse and despair ravaged our community we were jailed
6
@TDurk
So well stated, my friend. As a fellow moderate I must say I am relieved that I am not the only one who expresses this nuanced view.
I am just glad the NYT published your comment and it has not been flagged by an uncompromising progressive.
2
Well, this is a wonderful column. One has to wonder why then Mr. Blow supported Hillary Clinton's campaign in 2016 rather than Bernie Sanders. And I am so curious to whom you are throwing your support this time. Everything Dr. King mentions in those speeches are ideas and policies which Bernie Sanders and the Justice Democrats more broadly are supporting as well as the wonderful Dr. William Barber.
50 years later how can you support someone who proposes "incremental" change?
16
@lzolatrov Where to start re. Mr. Blow's support of Hillary: Maybe the notion that a declared "Socialist" would have a very hard time actually winning a Presidential election. Maybe because Hillary actually spoke about support for minority populations - and had done so for years. "Incremental" can win.
@lzolatrov I don't think Times columnists are allowed to endorse any candidate.
1
Dr. King was a great man who did great things for his own people and for all Americans. And he was a hero who paid the ultimate price. But he was also, like all great men, significantly flawed. And in these days when we allow the New Puritans of the left to tear down statues to other flawed heroes and take their names from streets and buildings, we should remember that Dr. King is also very vulnerable to them. So let us praise Dr King while pushing back against the New Puritans.
4
@ehillesum
Who are these flawed heroes whose statues are being "torn down"? The anonymous Confederate soldier? That accounts for a large number of statues. Robert E. Lee, that "flawed hero"? Stonewall Jackson? Jefferson Davis? I'm still not seeing any "flawed heroes".
16
@Thomas Zaslavsky
If you take off those leftist blinders you might be able to see what the real world sees.
Heroes that fought for their beliefs.
2
@Zejee. Thomas Jefferson had slaves. Robert E Lee remained loyal to the southern State he considered home. They were flawed, but still heroic and great. And not nearly as flawed as the hateful and naive far left in this country who constantly in the comments posted in the NYT show a deep hatred for this country.
A message from Bernie Sanders on MLK Day
https://twitter.com/People4Bernie/status/1219264941879779328?s=20
1
Thank you, Mr. Blow.
2
Great column Mr. Blow. I love columns that give me a new perspective on things, as this one did.
I often wonder what our country and our world would have been like if these three, JFK, MLK, and RFK, had lived. All were assassinated within five years in the 1960’s - all by ‘lone gunmen ‘. Coincidence? I think not.
I grew up in a very conservative family. I was 18 when King was assassinated. I knew little of the world then. But I remember my Dad saying the Civil Rights Movement was all well and good - as long as it remained peaceful. Yep. As long as we can keep law and order and the status quo for us whites, Civil Rights for blacks is fine.
Post WWII prosperity spawned the myths of American Exceptionalism and The American Dream. But both those things applied mostly to whites. I think now that the murders of the leaders who could have changed the status quo and possibly brought about a more just and peaceful country was deliberate . It rattled the cages of too many powerful men and institutions that had a lot to lose if that happen. Thus we see the America we have today - unjust, extreme income equality, more racist, morally bankrupt, and the greatest threat to peace in the world.
Many days my heart grieves for what could have been. “ Some men see things as they are. I dream of things that never were, and ask, why not.”
4
"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." Progressives and Identity Politicians might well remember this quote for the good reverend.
One of the most cynical manipulations of Dr. King's legacy is the ad I have seen running today, on his holiday, aired by Michael Bloomberg. In this ad, Bloomberg reminds us that Dr. King was against not only racial injustice, but economic inequality as well. Anyone who resided in NYC under Bloomberg's tenure as mayor will remember his anti-union stance, particularly against those municipal unions that had large non-white union memberships. Dr. King was killed while addressing sanitation workers who were on strike. He recognized unions as a true vehicle for economic equality, not the hypocritical plans put forth by billionaire Bloomberg, in a cynical move to exploit Dr. King's good name.
2
I also idolized MLK Jr, and I lobbied hard for this holiday. In doing so, I researched hard. Read collections of his speeches over and over again. His racial philosophy and tactics were love-filled and, as with a caring parent, his guidance was comprised of core gentleness as he pointed up problems for correction. He took a charitable view of persons (i.e., redeemable) entrenched in repulsive behavioral patterns. And the vision of Goodness he aimed to pass along broadened with time -- His national call to love one another in every color became an international cry to stop war. He wasn't perfect (notably leaving room for us to further improve along gender lines) but he was oh so right, and I am every year still thrilled to be reminded of his personal character and his great messages. Lord, indeed, he was a drum major who tried to love somebody!!
3
Simpler for our heroes to be two dimensional cartoons rather than celebrating them as wonderful and fallible humans aiming toward the Good. Two dimensional "good guys" make for boring novels and movies. They are false. They don't resonate. The Hebrew G-d is fascinating because of his diminution in comparison to man in the Book of Job.
Thank you for celebrating the humanity of King and his Birmingham letter. He was not a cartoon saint. He was fine.
I always think of King with the also imperfect Bobby Kennedy. I hope we may aspire to such charitable hearts along with the insistence on justice, both informed by pain and suffering in the world.
I do not begin MLK Day with Letter from Birmingham Jail or a reading rom Ghandi. The best text for me is Frederick Douglass' 4th of July speech. I read he "is an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is getting recognized more and more, I notice,”
Here is his speech:
https://freemaninstitute.com/douglass.htm
1
An excellent, essay Mr. Blow. Thank you for giving me knowledge of that little-known speech from Dr. King.
Excellent tribute to one of the great prophets of the American church.
1
I don't think there was a "white blacklash." The old news magazines, Newsweek and Time, insisted there was but I never saw it. Those of us who supported civil rights in 1960 still supported them years later.
King. though, was a back number by 1968. The media focused on the likes of Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown and Booby Seale -- far more newsworthy in terms of magazines sold.
The Civil Rights Acts weren't "cheap" -- they tore apart the Democratic Party and put the GOP in the White House for years to come.
King's bitterness, if it existed, probably was due to his being shoved aside by younger, more "hip" black civil rights leaders. Most of these didn't "deliver" the way King had done.
“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice.”
My wife and I took an hour this morning to read Dr King’s Letter from 1963, including this excerpt. His critique of “moderates”, who cautioned him to take his time, is as pertinent today as ever. If this country shies away from more rapidly and aggressively addressing persistent institutional racism, income inequality and the existential threat of climate change, the kind of dystopian stories many science “fiction” tell, will become the non-fiction accounts of opportunities missed.
4
I am encouraged because...if you look at the racial and ethnic makeup of our Congress along multicultural lines, you see the democratic side with greater representation of women, color, and faiths. The status quo of old white men running things is coming to an end, and that will inch us closer to MLKs dream. Disclosure: I am an old white guy.
2
The “system of subsidies” that Dr. King illuminated in his later years is much more entrenched and focused today in the form of “tax expenditures.” These are 200 tax breaks that cost the US Treasury over $1.5 trillion annually. They “provide their largest subsidies to high-income people, even though they are the individuals least likely to need financial incentives to engage in the activities that tax expenditures are generally designed to promote” (https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/policy-basics-federal-tax-expenditures).
No doubt the white moderate remains a stumbling block to black progress today. Yet the “complicated” MLK increasingly recognized the greater impediment was extreme wealth concentration, and it was enabled by government and was color blind. This is the lesson for all moderates now.
Thank you once more for an important, insightful column.
Thank you! As an immigrant in my twenties (1987) I knew just the most commonly known facts about MLK. I read quite a bit since, even more about civil rights and the lack there off for Blacks - but the Stanford speech I did not know.
2
This column no doubt will provoke umpteen comments,but I'd hazard the guess most would be supportive and positive regarding Charles Blow's very nuanced and multi-faceted appraisal and reappraisal of MLK's evolving thoughts and legacy. Like all great men who confronted complex circumstances, MLK necessarily had to re-evaluate his stances and strategies about a status quo that was and is still defiant of change- real substantive change. Charles enlightens us that Dr. King eminently fit the bill.
7
"In it, King blasted “large segments of white society” for being “more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity.”"
As society at large should be more enlightened, over 50 years later, why have these concerns changed so little?
Martin's closing paragraph from this speech:
"With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.
With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a
beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to speed up the
day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles,
Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and live together as brothers and
sisters, all over this great nation. That will be a great day, that will be a great
tomorrow. In the words of the Scripture, to speak symbolically, that will be the day
when the morning stars will sing together and the sons of God will shout for joy."
He would surely be frustrated to see that this great day, this great tomorrow, sometimes seems that it might never come. But probably not surprised.
5
Is there an annotated version of this speech to update and compare Dr. King's observations with the current situation? This to combat the idea that his speeches are merely historical and to amplify the idea that the possibilities he saw in 1967 are still highly relevant to format the possibilities of this nation in 2020.
4
Charles this is one if the best things that you have written in the NYT. I am a white guy but I am tired of white moderates “more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity.” Many of these same moderates are only comfortable with small incremental steps in gay rights and immigrants rights. They only want incremental change in economic equality. It is why I don't support the moderates running for the Democratic presidential nomination. Some of us are tired of the baby steps and it is time for dynamic change.
11
@Steve There is a big difference between the issues of 1967 and the issues of 2020. When King spoke of the white moderate, he spoke of people who objected to Bull Connor's tactics but who still favored race-based discrimination in housing and in employment, and who preferred demonstrators' arrests as a way to instill "order" (but that was really a way to preserve the status quo of Jim Crow).
Today's "moderates," Klobuchar, Biden, Buttigieg -- even Harris -- favor broad voting rights, improved economic opportunity, affirmative action and the expansion of gay rights -- all positions that the white moderate oppose in 1967. They're called "moderates" because Bernie and Elizabeth, one an admitted socialist and the other who favors broad-based wealth redistribution by tax-and-spend policies, are in the race. But they don't much resemble white moderates of the 1950s and 1960s and they don't look moderate compared to, say Al Gore of 2000, John Kerry in 2004 or perhaps Barack Obama of 2008. Suggesting otherwise is disingenuous.
2
@Steve Some food for thought: Think about how rapidly gay rights were transformed over the past decade. This did not come by edict or government directive. It came because white folk who were gay or whose children are gay got tired of being otherized. They and their millenial children stepped up and actively changed the minds of teachers, parents, friends, counselors, communities, TV producers, movie goers and movie makers alike such that the politicians just followed suit. This is not to say that gay rights are absolute and that bigotry has been eliminated. So much work needs to be done; but it behoves us to stop and think about the "original sin" that has never been (and I dare say will never be) righted. Everyday, everywhere, we see rampant discrimination wrought against our African American sisters and brothers. And those of us of color, who immigrated from East and South Asian countries are routinely confounded by the access to opportunity that we have in this land of "milk, honey, and money" without ever confronting the extent of hostility and prejudice that we see wrought on those who are African American whose ancestry in this country dates back 400+ years. Whites are more than happy to tolerate and accommodate (never fully accept) yellow and brown, but never black. Nothing will change until white people (of all stripes) see everyone, especially black people as being fully equal and repair the heinous wrongs against black people, especially black women.
1
Re: "...Many of these same moderates are only comfortable with small incremental steps in gay rights and immigrants rights. They only want incremental change in economic equality..." {@Steve}
I want to positively, gag when I see my former (xian) faith used by Republicans for jihadist political purposes, such as trying to legislate homophobia, racism, sexism, etc., into public policy...
A 'moderate' Democrat, such as the NJ Democrat who recently switched to 'Republican', is merely a... republican!
I've been voting since 'Jimmy Carter', and I must note a subtle distinction: I've never voted FOR any candidate; I've always voted in opposition to Republicans at borough, city, county, state, 'N, federal levels!
I expect to do, so, again, roughly, 10+ months, hence.
2
My first editorial opinion was published in 1965 about white racism as the source of our national racial divisions. At that time, it was not MLK, Jr. that I saw as the leader of American anti-racism efforts, but Malcolm.
Essentially, Dr. King made a moral argument against white racism, while Malcolm organized more direct action to protect black lives in a white racist environment. In response, blacks were arming themselves and organizing local militias. "Race riots," essentially self-confined to black communities, were disrupting the peace and calling attention as never before to the core of white racism in American history.
We celebrate MLK Day for the sacrifices and social contributions of this great man, and rightly so. But, were it not for the grounding of the civil rights movement by Malcolm X, understanding of this movement is incomplete.
7
I had the blessing of meeting Dr. King in 1964, when I was 16, and we were awed by his visible magnitude of presence and weight of mission. We went to Oxford, Mississippi to enroll voters and Valdosta, Ga, and were arrested in both cities. I am honored by record. Thank you, Dr. King.
19
Indeed, we need only look to Shelby County v. Holder and its consequences to see how the struggle for equal rights for all people is far from over.
10
Some beings speak from heart and love.
Dr.King often spoke from love and heart, and occasionally from frustration as well.
The author often writes with blame and anger and venom.
Perhaps he is not the enlightened being he thinks he is. I hope the author finds room for tolerance and love in his heart.
4
@Brownie
The author writes from a clear vision. The author reports facts about Rev. King and about our history. I don't see blame, anger, or venom, I see facts. I recommend paying closer attention to both of their thoughts.
We should always be ready to learn something new about our past that can help us in difficult times to come to be better angels ourselves.
By doing so, at the same time, we become better citizens of this country that changes itself regularly and peacefully.
The ideals gathered from historic documents, speeches, and lives that makeup a big piece of our heritage prominently feature Martin Luther King.
Today, we should marvel that his life was possible at all, given the opposition arrayed to counter his movement at every stage of his life's journey.
We are lucky to have had for a brief time this exceptional man, this extraordinary voice speaking out for right in our country. His pleas for justice in the face of tyrannical force and subtler prejudices inspire people of all colors and all religions who devote any time at all to their own growth as human beings.
11
MLK was an exemplary human being who believed in the respectability and right to equality of all of humanity . May his message live in the hearts and minds of all of us who believe in the beauty and the gift of life in any form.
9
Thanks Charles and other NYT reader for sharing your wonderful thoughts and emotions on this important day. I work at an elite university where I think MLK day is celebrated to make us feel better about ourselves. I think as long as we only pray and have no plan/courage for actions to realize the dreams of Dr. King we cannot expect any change.
Any kind of support should include financial benefits. This is the only currency/product that matter in a capitalist economy. Prayers are fake products that I don’t choose to buy or sell. There is a fundamental need to restructure the economy and society to empower everyone!
12
This day of all days I reflect on MLK' s legacy and what his life and death meant to me.
I was a student at University of Illinois in Chicago that day. the black students blocked Halsted street. Smoke was rising from the West side. Anger and comraderie existed together. Thank you for your article today.
7
I agree. You could have gone farther and spoken about how King was against militarization and was in many respects a socialist. Schoolchildren are taught that King was a pacifier whose goal was racial harmony. He would cringe.
14
@Anne
Really? Who are you to declare what Martin Luther King would think of how his life is taught to school children? "Against Militarization", just what does that mean? You mean like Eisenhower warned about with his speeches about the military industrial complex? Do you mean like every Vietnam War protester was back in the day? Socialist meant Stalinist in the early 1960's. And that's how the John Birch Society saw MLK. Does it mean the same thing today?
I say God Bless MLK and Gandhi and every humanist who tried to improve the lot of mankind without bloodshed. God Bless them ALL!
1
I am trying to imagine the candidate King would endorse now. when King refers to injustice it seems to me he sees injustice based on racism in our economy as key. I would think he would endorse someone who had real strategies for fairness in education, the urgency of elevating public schools and the teaching profession. In an era when, rich or poor, education has become more of a race to the top than a civil right, we must lift our standards of excellent education for all. I have not seen any candidate pay enough attention to this. How are we going to anchor our economy in fairness without teaching our children not just ABOUT justice but through actually ESTABLISHING justice through fair education. These are the same children who grow up, hire, fire and work with people.
9
@Amy Mitz ; my guess is he would endorse Yang.
Thank you, Charles, for the recommendation. I just watched the Stanford speech in 1967. I could watch & listen to MLK endlessly. I am a 5th grade teacher, and will put the speech in my students´ Independent Study assignments for tomorrow.
15
Like the Prophets of the Hebrews, MLK saw evil, shouted it out and was castigated and criticized for his insights.
Who among us today has reached such heights and speaks with such vigor.
Yes, MLK was a flawed man, but who isn't ? He risked it all and knew his time was short .
Not even once in a generation do we have such a gift- squandered and misspent- that was a critique of the America that finally made him silent.
But his voice still resonates and that is the price he paid....a short life with a long shadow.
14
Charles Blow's insights remind me of my own experience.
As a practicing Christian and a white college coed in the 1960s I became convinced that Dr. King was a prophet in the biblical sense, like Isaiah, a person who could not only speak of divine truth to people in the present, but also see into the future in terms of attainable human progress.
As a Peace Corps Volunteer teacher in Northern Nigeria with a class of Muslim students when Dr. King was on the cover of Time for winning the Nobel Prize, I tried to explain to them how important King was not only to white Americans but also to African- Americans. It was a refreshing change from studying about the wonders of British imperialism as described in their textbooks.
13
My family had slaves. I discovered this fact about my great-great grandfather in researching my Virginia genealogy. It was a humbling discovery that over time became a liberating discovery. Merging the teachings of Martin Luther King, the heroic life of Frederick Douglass, the economic success of early America, and the very names of family slaves, I came to see the CONTRIBUTION, yes contribution, to America that those very slaves made.
Thanks to King, we're still working on the equal justice and opportunity part. But we haven't tallied economically. Those slaves/workers provided free labor to their plantations. What a contribution to our economic success!
This is not to say, "Thanks for working for me." No. It is to be grateful for a contribution to American success in its early years. In addition to the steps that King illuminated for us, we must also honor what has been given to every American every bit as much as our white pioneers. Museums, statuary, and curriculum are a few of the ways we can repay. Let every slave and their descendant now be honored.
6
Love is the most truly revolutionary of all emotions. Not superficial love, but deep, committed, surpassing love. The kind of love that leads to action.
Love caused Jesus to make a whip of cords, to pour out the coins of the money-changers in the temple who were profiting from poor worshippers, to overturn their tables, and to drive them out.
Dr. King had that kind of love and died during a strike by garbage workers after a newly-elected Memphis Mayor refused to take dilapidated trucks out of service or pay overtime when men were forced to work late-night shifts.
Indeed, the workers earned wages so low that many were on welfare and hundreds relied on food stamps to feed their families.
Putting Dr. King on some high pedestal is a disservice to his memory. His love transcended a speech in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial. It was the strongest fighting for justice for those on the bottom being exploited by those at the top.
It is something we always should take time to remember on this day each year. What are we doing to put our love into action?
12
Remember, this article wasn’t about love, but agitation.
1
"In it, King blasted 'large segments of white society' for being 'more concerned about tranquillity and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity.'" That's true large segments of world society--rather than just one ethnic group then or now.
5
@Edward Quigley Well yes ... and so? I really mean, And so what? What is your point here? This is a story about King, and the history of a segment of America’s and the world’s population known as African Americans. Why demean this article’s importance because such injustices have occurred elsewhere, to other people on this Earth?
Wise minds embrace the teachings of MLK. Dr,King preached love, not blame.
He encouraged individual responsibility and wise action, not blaming others.
4
As I matured, I respected King but thought the “long arc” required “any means necessary” for just the issues raised
2
Dr. King kept growing all through his career. We all need to follow Mr. Blow in coming to understand how Dr. King evolved, because all of Dr. King's insights are necessary to all of us, yet those of us who aren't people of color largely have failed to take them in. Willfully failed, for the most part, even if often we aren't conscious of our defenses against understanding the truth. White people need to accept that our hope of being the best people we can be lies in accepting and embracing change, and not in doing things the same old unfair ways.
9
King also strongly opposed capitalism. In this era in which it seems we have to choose between "identity politics" and "the left," King understood that you can't really have one without the other. Blow is correct to show King's resistance to the white moderate's tendency toward compromise over real justice. King's understanding of the relationship between economic and racial oppression is also an important antidote to the current infighting among the various factions of progressives.
12
@Jeremiah Crotser Every MLK Day, we're subjected to a lecture from leftists about how King hated moderates. But from many people's perspective, socially and economically, King HIMSELF was a moderate. King's dislike of capitalism was proportional to his (mis)understanding of it. Like Walter Reuther, who sought out the youth movement and the civil rights movement (when union membership failed to take off in the way he wished), King no doubt desired something more akin to the Scandinavian model, which Reuther deeply admired even then.
Let's suppose I back the Green New Deal in toto. Someone could come along and say, "These are merely milquetoast, bandaid measures." I could reject their claim, to which he or she would reply: "You moderates are really more trouble than you're worth." What is going on here is an attempt to force-feed the nation bad policy under the guise of the forward march of History, by assuming that whatever tilts further leftward tilts further towards the praiseworthy.
To the radical, whose life depends on devotion to this cause or that, the situation is always equivalent to the segregated South; and moderation is ever to be scorned and mocked. The real reason Blow and Bouie, et al., dislike "capitalism" is because that's the side of the big, bad White Man (and here ensues talk of power structures and "the system"), just as the reason indigent Trump voters elect politicians promising to cut benefits they depend on is because those are seen as Black benefits.
"Without justice, there can be no peace," Dr. King said, though the quotation is often attributed to Louis Farrakhan or others. Some might hear a threat in that, but anyone thoughtful realizes that so long as there are the disenfranchised and deprived in a wealthy country, there will be dissension, conflict and unrest. Now with unequal economic distribution looking more and more grotesque, and with active efforts to disenfranchise black voters underway in a dozen states, King's words are more relevant than they were when first uttered. The "complicated" King is needed now more than ever, and thanks to Mr. Blow for reminding us.
16
While the Martin Luther King that composed “I Have A Dream” is known by all, I think Blow makes an important argument in saying the King beyond the Dream speech is one we must also pay attention to. Radicalism within the dem. party today consists of accusing individuals in the other’s political party. While true our current presidency has amplified our nation’s hatred and divide, issues such as climate change, detention centers, and militarization should be non-partisan issues. The King presented in this article shows things have not changed. He argues that progress came at “bargained rates.” Even now, many dem. candidates ease on their moral ground to cater to conservatives in their party. Where many call for the abolishment of ICE, candidates such as Warren appease “moderates” by claiming ICE not need be abolished, simply reformed. Where many claim free education is impossible due to its costly plan, our country’s leaders in both parties readily approve trillions of dollars to spend on military. These issues of humanity have been ignored by both sides because as King puts it, they're "issues that cannot be solved without costing the nation.” The reform needed now, just as in the day of King Jr, is one that would transform our nation in a way moderators are not willing to take up. The King that is “agitated, exhausted...angry” is the King we should pay attention to as political unrest increases, both for the sake of learning from our history, as well as improving our future.
7
I was too young to have a direct experience of Martin Luther King before he was killed, but I resonate with his message, strength and impact. His message included some things many have forgotten today, such as how success among black people is dependent on self determination, resiliency, honesty and integrity.
. ..”one of the most common tendencies of human nature is that of placing responsibility on some external agency for sins we have committed or mistakes we have made” was a sentient quote that became an integral part of his overall message. The ideas fomented today by so many tend toward anger, idolization of victimhood and retribution and seem to overpower his desire to reach equality through the power of knowledge, understanding and perseverance.
Contrary to what some tell now, he believed in the founding principles of this Nation, the Declaration of Independence and bill of rights as was written. We should remember all that he stood for and not just the burning flames of past sins or the perceived inaction of others.
12
The main goal of the 1963 March and King's speech there was to get the Civil Rights Act passed. As frustrating as it was, this required getting a super majority of the Senate to shut off a Southern filibuster and getting the strong support of President Kennedy was needed to persuade some of those "moderate" Senators. It's not that the King of 1963 or the March were less "radical" than the 1967 King. Rather, the goals of the movement kept shifting. The Civil Rights Act was widely regarded as radical at the time, as sad as that is to recall. It's also important to recognize that King (and Abernathy and others) were organizing a "Poor People's Campaign," not a "Black People's Campaign." King understood that, even in the wake of the so-called white backlash, social justice in America would be achieved only by a multi-racial coalition based on African Americans, the labor movement and white liberals.
18
I an older than you, Charles, and worked with the Howard branch of Sncc that respected King as well as the leader who wrote some of his speeches, Bayard Rustin, but didnt think them radical enough. When the Reverend began to speak against poverty and Vietnam, engaging poorer white people--That's when he was killed. J. Edgar Hoover called him " The most dangerous man in America." It has also been said that being remembered for that Dream speech,so powerful, yet so comfortable for white people, was the worst thing that ever happened to King,. Meanwhile it was the wild and crazy James Bevel who got the children marching in Birmingham ( King ,as well as Hannah Arendt) didnt like the idea) and the great Charles Shuttlesworth , the true Birmingham hero, who wouldn't allow King to compromise on the big issues there.
10
I haven't read enough about Martin Luther King. However, our local NPR station here in Seattle (KUOW) annually broadcasts a handful of the well-known and more obscure speeches throughout the day.
Spellbound may be too much to describe some of his thoughts, but it's a day of thoughtfulness for me.
8
I am also in Seattle, a city that impedes justice while hiding under the label of liberalism, and I would say a great example of what MLK might have been warning about. Today is the annual MLK March, which starts at Garfield HS, the only place in Seattle where MLK spoke. It is in a district that has been gentrified cruelly, an area refused by the city the protection of being designated “Africatown” to protect the remaining residents: rich developers rule here. While calling itself liberal, seattle also supports war deeply, and the liberal governor and mayor encourage more military contractors. Few non- tech people can afford rent in an already segregated city, and the mayor actually reversed a city council decision to tax Amazon. There is no conception of justice or equality here, in practice, except for some such as our socialist city council member Sawant who is regularly labeled as uncooperative because she doesn’t go along with the corporate blood of the city.
Liberal is more than recycling.
12
@Kathy Barker
I live near that neighborhood. There are crosswalks with the African Union flag colors on them and tons of taxpayer subsidized Afrocentric programs. That neighborhood was once Native American, Jewish, Asian. They get no remembrance. The black population in that neighborhood is less than 10%, not due to being "displaced" but due to the choice to sell at high prices a modest home bought for almost nothing.
There is a huge taxypayer subsidized organization called "Africatown". They are a black nationalist, anti-Asian, anti-Semetic group that gets million in funding. The city built new subsidized housing and didn't release it to the public but just through black organizations to keep non-blacks out. So 87% of the units were to blacks despite making up less than 10% of that neighborhood and 6% of the city. And you are complaining about being shortchanged? Really?
2
The letter he wrote for jail in Birmingham should be forwarded to the times editorial board who just endorsed A moderate for president.
10
Thank you, once again, Mr. Blow, for your own eloquence, as well as your complexity and your eloquent anger.
12
King blasted “large segments of white society” for being “more concerned about tranquillity and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity.”
And he declared that true integration “is not merely a romantic or aesthetic something where you merely add color to a still predominantly white power structure.”
“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice.”
Should be mandatory reading for comfortable white moderates.
10
Great column about the maturing of Dr. King and his message. Not wanting to distract, I am pulling a quote from another NY OpEd from today: “Martin didn’t make the movement,” she said. Rather, “the movement made Martin.”
I believe King would agree with that assessment, and Americans who thirst for social and economic justice and a cleansing of racism from our society need to understand that no leader can make a difference without a committed base. We must be persistent and realistic about the the deep opposition to progress.
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” —African Proverb
14
Yes.
Also: "America was giving millions of acres of land in the West and the Midwest, which meant that America was willing to undergird its white peasants from Europe with an economic floor..."
Actually the government was not "giving" land to anybody. They were helping white settlers seize the land from the non-white people who were already living there.
24
An excellent article, unfortunately the countries greatest stumbling block continues to be the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice.
17
Thank you so much for this eloquent piece that reminds us our devotion to righting the wrongs of racism and fighting against backlash are never over. Like you, I revere the human King, the one who could feel rage and disappointment at the slow pace of change. Now that white supremacists are again on the rise and our own president can barely conceal his own racism, we need this King more than ever.
14
We must study and remember and emulate the King they killed, not the King they promote.
12
Thank you, Mr. Blow, for the excellent piece--and for the wonderful comments it inspired. This felt like a significant way for me to start MLK Jr. Day, and to continue to fight racism within myself and help deter racism in my community. Thanks to all of you commenting.
12
He was extraordinary. I lived in Wash DC studying at CUA as a Franciscan Friar the day he was shot and killed. I posed a brother seated on floor in front of tabernacle with front page of Washington Post facing camera. The composition of the photo was instructive -- here was another Christ murdered for preaching peace, brotherhood, service, and equality. That was 52 years ago. MLK was an inspiration and a model of active theology. My heart remains sad. My hope is dimmed. But my love for him and those he urged us to honor and serve remains deep and enduring.
12
In a country that gave the Vote to black men long before it allowed women (of any color) to vote, you can see the problem. It takes loud mouthed, persistent people to get what they need and deserve. Are American women now equal to American men in opportunity? Many would say no. It isn't fair, but it will take hard work and patience to create equality for all. Dr. King was a great leader who never gave up the fight, a role model for all of us.
13
@Daphne ---Beware of "patience." I still recall arguments my teenage self had with my father in the 60s. He kept pointing to the injustice-incited unrest in African-American communities as "proof" that African-Americans were not "ready" for full civil rights. (He conveniently overlooked the violent "unrest" we call the American Revolution.)
Dr. King's profoundly nonviolent response can be seen superficially as a form of patience. That's a mistake, a failure of perception. As in Gandhi's India (though playing out differently there), nonviolence at its root demands a sweeping re-ordering of human societies. Nonviolence is not patience; it is revolution. I wonder how many among us see and fear the savage connections between today's pro-gun-rights rallies and today's "might makes right" racism.
9
@Jane Hunt
I agree with you, but those of us who would like to see a sweeping revolution of our own society must be ready with a comprehensive plan to replace it. At present, there is no such plan, just divisive squabbling. I believe in the Constitution as a guide, but it must occasionally be amended to suit the times. Term limits for all branches of government would be a start as would repeal of Citizens United. In the last election, disgruntled and disaffected citizens didn't bother to vote. We can't change anything if we don't exercise our basic rights.
1
@Daphne Term limits simply shifts more power to big money and their lobbyists. It is no solution to our current situation.
That is the reason the "conservatives" and "moderates", whose enemy was FDR, our only four term president, amended the constitution to limit the president to two terms.
us army 1969-1971/california jd
3
This is a compelling, and very necessary piece.
And, oh, so timely.
Let us all love the "agitated MLK".
13
Thank you, Mr. Blow, for the reminder of how complex and insightful of a thinker and leader Dr. King was (and his legacy still is). I remember the first time I met the man through his words about whom you write in his Riverside Baptist Church speech on Vietnam. After years of looking at and reading about the caricature of Dr. King as constructed by White people to suit their own fragile narratives, I read the Riverside speech as if I had finally been born into a more real, thoughtful world that made me examine and re-examine everything I ever knew or held to be true but realized that I had been living under layers of delusion and shadows. I will go and re-read this speech, and once again, thank you for your columns too.
13
Having written an M.A. thesis on women's efficacy and the healing arts, taught sociology at university, worked as prosecutor and then defense counsel for public servants for several years, and having researched and written a novel exploring the tension between civil rights and the Homeland Security effort in the wake of 9/11, I have seen primary, secondary, and anecdotal evidence of white moderates who would endorse and have in fact endorsed order over justice.
What I have always found both deeply disturbing and powerfully suggestive is what Mr. Blow underlines--that Dr. King was murdered just as his Poor People’s Campaign was about to gain serious momentum. Indeed, I find that fact doubly significant today, when this newspaper has chosen not to endorse Sanders largely because he is deemed too radical in comparison to the comparatively moderate and orderly Klobuchar.
Mr. Blow is not only correct to suggest that the standard dichotomy between, say, Dr. King and Malcolm X as analogues for levelheaded and reckless activists is reductionist. To this social scientist, novelist, and longtime litigator, what Mr. Blow is pointing to is a much more fundamental problem with American society--a thread that has never been tugged with any vigor since Reconstruction and perhaps much earlier, and which may or may not be basic not only to something to which many whites believe they have sworn allegiance, but to the continued oppression of black people in this country.
15
the author responds to the message of blame, but not Dr.King's many messages of love.
King preached endlessly about tolerance, and little about blame. King preached about the importance of lifting ourselves up, about demanding respect by acting worthy of respect. He encouraged us to respect the law and value education. His life speaks grandly to his words.
The author cherry picks fragments of King's teachings that imply blame.
7
Mr. Blow, an excellent column on Dr. King. While he promoted non- violent change he too was human. He had to experience the anger that comes from white moderates who continue on the road of good intentions to Black repression. Full disclosure I was raised in a white middle class family and my parents were very liberal. I believe in reparation but haven’t a clue as to how to implement. That is for those who are wiser than I and have experienced the institutional discrimination.
3
All leaders balance idealism with realpolitik. Certain personalities lean more one way than the other. However, the difference isn't binary or fixed. You're operating on a fluid spectrum that might change dramatically over time or even from moment to moment. There's some reason to believe indigestion contributed to Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo for instance. Something as simple as your stomach might determine whether you're feeling idealistic or not in a given moment. Not to mention the fate of Europe.
However, we mustn't confuse realpolitik with cynicism, a bitterness borne from experience and disappointment. You can judge a situation honestly and harshly without begrudging the circumstances which forced you there. I would like to believe Dr. King falls into this latter category. I must admit these excerpts do make King sound like something of a cynic though.
Charles Blow, thank you for a powerful tribute to this man who paid the ultimate price for speaking out in truth. His memory must not be coopted by those who twist his words into useful tools with which to control the message and feel good about themselves.
There was much to be done three years ago when our country fell into the hands of the wrong person, and now we have even more to fix. The best way I can think of to honor Dr. King is by electing a government whose officials see every American as an important constituent. Not just choosing Democrats, but the right ones. In seeing this paper’s double endorsement today of Sens. Warren and Klobuchar, I am aware of how very difficult it is to commit, we’ve been burned so many times. The primary goal-get that man Trump and his bigotry out of power, but we can also demand fairness and responsive action to give every American the means to have a decent life. We all know what those things are.
9
Charles, thank you for this article, for sharing this speech of Dr. Kings, shedding light on an aspect of the great western expansion of this nation that has not had a just focus. One can even wonder what the agriculture of the Midwest might look like if it had the benefit of a different range of crops. My “other state”, New Mexico, has a history and culture different from most of the US. Compared to Arizona, it is a totally different place with its’ Hispanic and Native American cultures embedded in its soul. How different our entire nation might have been had the west been open to all.
9
Thank you for this fine coverage on MLK Day. I opened the NY Times expecting a number of articles of MLK. Which only points out King's final observation - that it is the white liberal concerned about order more than justice, who is the great impediment to dealing with the racism at the core of America's imperialist history built on slavery.
13
There's plenty of anger in the 1st half of the "I have a dream" speech. There is evidence that King sensed that he was losing the audience, & switched over to the "dream" section - somewhat abruptly, & at the urging of Mahalia Jackson, who was standing nearby & had heard other renditions of that theme:"Tell them about the dream, Martin!".
8
I don't know what "white moderates" Mr. Blow is referring to who would"endorse order over justice" but for many of us who remember Dr. Martin Luther King's words and presence with a ringing sting, it is, in fact, justice and equality for all that is the primary outcome we strive for, must have, and hope one day to embrace.
6
@Sally The white people that supported/support the war on drugs, mass incarceration, stop and frisk, cash bail, the militarization of our police forces, etc...
So basically the entire Republican party and a good chunk of Democrats.
6
I clearly remember how I felt on the day Dr. King was murdered. I feel that same sinking, tearful shame. and loss, on every MLK Day. Thanks, Charles. We're so lucky to have you.
11
First Mr. Blow, thanks for another well-written piece. As a young 'northerner', Martin's message didn't resonate much with me or my community. It was only after reading and gaining knowledge did I come to realize that as time passed, Malcolm became Martin and Martin became Malcolm. Not exactly, but their messages more closely aligned than the establishment, who has always tried to downplay Malcolm's contributions, would like for you to believe. Martin was so much more than turn the other cheek. He fierce advocacy on poverty and a war that most of the dying was by people of color are things I will remember fondly of him.
2
Well, maybe this is a day to let a bit of anger shine through. I’ve liked and agreed with most of your columns, but in many/most of them you deal in stereotypes- of whites. As with all stereotypes, there may be grains of truth, but painting with a broad brush is equally unjust when creating portraits of whites as a group- here, moderate whites.
Reprising Dr. King’s discouragement, understandable when writing from jail, ignores the realities, then and now. Those three civil rights workers killed, mentioned in another of today’s columns, were white. The thousands of whites that marched, pressured, passed civil rights legislation in that era- easy now to discount- but most were motivated by anger at injustice.
Another of today’s columns, deals with proposed new regulations at HUD, making it virtually impossible to challenge unfair housing practices. Check your portrait gallery. Ben Carson isn’t a moderate white. This being a moderated forum, I can’t give my stereotypical version of what he is, however.
Shall we discuss Justice Clarence Thomas?
I fight stereotypes learned as a child. Every day. Try it sometime.
15
How about your doing more on what he loved most, Charles: Peace in our time. Not more strident shouting, but peace. It comes from listening to each other, no matter our differences.
It's not too late to make a needed resolution for each of us: Speak out, but listen first...then seek a common ground.
6
@Lake. woebegoner In his nonviolence (like Gandhi), Dr. King was not a pacifist; he was willing to disrupt 'peace' in the name of justice. A people who are entirely and brutally subjugated and cowed by the powerful are 'peaceful.'
6
Today his speeches would still be called “strident shouting” and “divisive”. You need to hear him, as I did.
1
Dr. King was a complex and pragmatic individual. He was a man of incomprehensible patience and restrain. His pursuit of love and equality for all was his legacy. He was imperfectly perfect and someone we should all respect and honor.
6
Martin Luther King was greatness incarnate. But if the NYT had been in charge of picking the top Civil Rights leader when he was alive, the Times would have picked Rosa Parks and Diane Nash as the most important civil rights leaders of the 1960s. It’s a good thing that the New York Times covers (and does not make) the News on most days.
2
It’s interesting that Blow’s description of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s contributions to American society completely disregards the role of his Christian faith in his life.
A gifted orator, an ordained minister, and a scholar with a PhD in systematic theology, Reverend King’s speeches and writings are permeated with Christian justifications for his assertions. Even the famous “Letter from Birmingham” that Blow purports to revere uses many biblical examples to support his case.
Instead of acknowledging and honoring these realities, Blow whitewashes Reverend King’s significant religious legacy and, instead, portrays him as some sort of secular SJW. Reverend King and his legacy deserve better.
5
Thank you, Charles Blow, for shaking off the myths surrounding Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement in general.
As with others, such as Ghandi and Mendella, the powers-that-be, who were challenged by these people, like to promote benign myths that glorify the individual and let the causes for which they fought drift into obscurity.
6
The embarrassing irony of King's annual celebration, the height of a simplistic honoring of his legacy and the co-opting of his dream -- is the January MLK Sales advertised widely in papers and on television.
As a white male 71-year-old I well remember the day he was shot, and have visited the site. I've also heard many in Atlanta, as well as in Oklahoma and Texas, jeer about the MLK holiday.
I often recall the notion that power is not given -- it is taken. King increasingly recognized, and preached, that those who dominate a country will not hand over the reins to those who are not like them. Struggle, conflict, even physical confrontation will almost always be involved.
Trump, in another irony, has brought that dynamic to the forefront, with a vengeance, in the guise of neo-nazis, white nationalists, and fascists who fear a changing world. We're seeing the consequences -- a 'leader' without a conscience and followers without a moral compass. King was never needed more than now.
11
Dr. King was far from ‘angry’.
He feared no one and would embrace any powerful person with persuasion..
I think Dr. King and President Trump would have gotten along quite well.
5
Dr King did not like dishonesty.
Thank you for this insightful and startling reminder about this little known speech of Reverend Kings. The contrasting of how Black Americans and European immigrants were treated in the later 19th century is really quite telling. It underscores, and deflates, the misconception that American citizens whose ancestors did so much to build this country are not asking for handouts, but for recognition, appreciation, and simple justice.
8
“A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.
A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”
Now, “Our Revolution” against Empire is coming by firing a “Shout (not a shot) heard round the world” to ignite an essential Second American people’s peaceful & complete “Political/economic & social Revolution Against Empire” — like our first but without the muskets.
6
The ways that whites established policies that systematically helped whites only - and prohibited blacks from accessing that help is the definition of structural inequality. It’s the opposite of all American ideals. It happened (and happens, I presume) and few whites know of it or the details. Thank you Mt Blow, for stating the problem so clearly.
4
Omitted by Mr. Blow was Dr. King's address on April 4, 1967 at the Riverside Church. In this address he said the U.S. foreign policy was facilitated by the three evils of consumerism, militarism, and racism. He objected to the war in Vietnam. He didn't but could have asked the following question: How many Americans were killed on American soil by the Vietnamese? The obvious answer in none at all. On the other hand how many Vietnamese were killed in Vietnam by American troops? The answer is almost one and a half million. The black and white POW & MIA flag at post offices suggests to many Americans that some how the USA was a victim in the Vietnam War. Quite the opposite is true. Vietnam was the victim of American aggression.
17
Gone too soon. One wonders what miracles our Martin could have accomplished bringing us together even sooner than we did.
Maybe he would have morphed into a government leader who would certainly have curtailed our current cynical partisan political hatred that drives much of our activist-led attempt to get us to forget that we are All Americans in this Together.
Yes, there are quotes from MLK that allow his rhetoric to be bent to the current politics, but his soul, the words that snapped all of America to attention, the ad-lib at the end of his most famous speech, urged us together -- not apart.
Of course I am angry at that demented coward who took his life that day on that motel balcony, but furious that we all were deprived of a great leader who listened -- and taught.
How much sooner would America have achieved our current racial transparency? And saved us from those who would twist his words urging judging "... by the content of their character" into evil division.
3
I share the same sentiments on Dr. King as Mr. Blow. He was a much more nuanced man than the whitewashed history books would lead you to believe. And it's not a coincidence that he was assassinated just as he was announcing that Black folks were "coming to get our check." This country still owes a great debt to the descendants of slaves and the bill is past due. One cannot look at the current rates of poverty and poor education in the Black community in a vacuum without looking at what we were intentionally deprived of for so long. A debt is owed, and it must be repaid.
7
Thanks for a very inciteful article. Indeed, King was more than "Turn the other cheek"; a man of humility and courage who fought injustices in the face of overwhelming odds; out numbered and out gunned. Thank you.
6
I worked in the Texas Legislature in 2017 for a black representative, who authored and passed a jail reform bill. He fought tooth and nail to get it passed. The first thing the sheriffs wanted stripped from the bill was a non-binding preamble that simply stated the fact that there were racial inequalities in traffic stops in Texas. They didn’t like the fact that the data exposed their racial bias and refused to negotiate on the bill until that was taken out.
After months of fighting to pass the bill, my boss’s version was killed in committee and the senate companion was passed by a white senator as a watered down version. He got the credit for the bill and my boss got the blame for its perceived shortcomings. That is the state of race in America. Black people are treated this way because white people give each other a pass. White people are too afraid to confront each other.
18
I was lucky enough to be standing at the bottom steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the Dream speech. I’m glad you have come to see the speech and the man in his entirety but as you belatedly find, he was always the complete advocate for justice. He spoke out against the Vietnam war and was murdered while advocating for underpaid workers. The nation is remembering the great man today but his dream is not yet reality.
166
A couple of years ago I was sitting in the audience for a MLK Day lecture at a large university. The president of the institution stepped up to welcome the assembled and spoke of some good news, that she just appointed new Diversity Officer for the school. Now, while "good" as a necessary element to insure equality, I found the news "sad" that here we were all these years after MLK shook the Nation into examining once again the aspirational goals of our founding, that we STILL needed a Diversity Officer. Much more work to do ... agitation needed. Thanks for the thoughtful essay!
6
@Will Logan
You ask, where is the evidence that millions of acres were given to white people, and government money was used to establish land grant colleges? We know those things happened, because they are part of history. Westward expansion by mostly white settlers occurred throughout the 19th century. The land they settled was free for them. The land grant colleges are still there, which is all the proof you need, I would think.
8
Please provide a reference of some sort.
@Will Logan
The following is from Wikipedia:
The Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889 was the first land rush into the Unassigned Lands. The area that was opened to settlement included all or part of the Canadian, Cleveland, Kingfisher, Logan, Oklahoma, and Payne counties of the US state of Oklahoma.[1] The land run started at high noon on April 22, 1889, with an estimated 50,000 people lined up for their piece of the available two million acres (8,000 km2).[2]
The Unassigned Lands were considered some of the best unoccupied public land in the United States. The Indian Appropriations Act of 1889 was passed and signed into law with an amendment by Illinois Representative William McKendree Springer that authorized President Benjamin Harrison to open the two million acres (8,000 km²) for settlement. President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act of 1862 which allowed settlers to claim lots of up to 160 acres (0.65 km2), provided that they lived on the land and improved it.[2]
Also, look up "Land-grant university" on Wikipedia. The page contains a wealth of information.
3
a good article with a poor title.king was a hero, brave, bright and passionate. that is not agitation, except in the sense white segregationists used to talk about outside agitators.
9
The saddest tragedy will be having to tell our children that we still cannot find within ourselves the courage to fully realize Dr. King's dream.
And that we hope they can find forgiveness in their hearts for us having to pass the burden on to them.
142
@Blue Moon
Yes. It seems that ‘The Promised Land’ will remain illusory, real in our mind’s eye but out of grasp. We just have to strive to inch ever so slowly but surely towards ‘living the dream.’ Someday, we shall overcome.
Thanks for what you wrote, as always. Take care.
18
@Blue Moon
And it's not just his call for racial justice. It was also his "agitation" for peace and social justice for all Americans. It is for that I still remember him:
"I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government."
We needed his voice then. We still need it today.
17
@NM
I tend to think a lot about the future of humanity. I'm not talking about climate change or nuclear war, although I do worry about those things, but more about the ascent of AI. We have some immediate issues with that, but I am more concerned that it will mean the end of us; not in ten years, or a hundred years, but perhaps on the order of 1000 years from now. But that is just the blink of an eye on the grand scale of things.
I suspect that the gap between us and those who come after us will be far greater than the gap between us and those who most immediately preceded us. I wonder what these future beings will think of us.
They will surely make progress in math and science at an infinitely faster rate. What will we wind up leaving them that they might consider to be of lasting value?
Maybe if we continue to honor the vision of MLK Jr. by expending considerable energy on issues of equality and justice, despite our myriad flaws, frailties and limitations, that will be most significant to them.
Perhaps it will even prove to be our most important contribution on the infinite staircase of evolution.
2
As a New York City kid who has lived and worked in the deep south for 15 years, it is clearer to me than ever that racism is America’s original sin, one that may never be overcome. Yes, there had been some progress thanks to Dr. King and other great leaders. But we are a long way from achieving the dream he so brilliantly articulated nearly 60 years ago. Given our current hate-filled environment, it seems like we’re losing the gains we have made.
237
@Mark Siegel Maybe those gains were illusory. If there was a referendum today in the eleven states of the confederacy, Jim Crow laws would be reinstated.
12
@Mark Siegel
I completely agree - and all you have to do is read the front page of NYT today. If blond, white girls (from "good homes") were disappearing from any part of this country, as native American girls/women are, there would be overwhelming ongoing investigations, with continual press coverage.
Yes, racism exists in many forms.
9
@Mark Siegel
Acknowledgement and acceptance of "America's original sin"is an imperative first step toward reconciliation and peace .
5
As a young white girl (I am now 71), I, too, idolized Dr. King. I lived in a Boston suburb; we had no black children in our school, and it wasn't a wealthy school district. My mother was from a poor area of Boston, my father from the south. When I was 15, I heard him speak against the Vietnam war and the inequalities of sending young black men from the inner cities to fight (and die) while wealthy white men were buying their way out of being drafted by getting into the National Guard (in the days when the National Guard didn't go overseas), or by going to physicians who diagnosed them with, oh, say, bone spurs. I did some work in Mississippi teaching people to read when I graduated from high school, but I didn't have the courage to stay long. I have no idea where MLK got his courage. I didn't have it. Don't know where Viola Liuzzo or Rev. Reeb or the Freedom Riders got theirs, either. Let's not forget that he was fighting for a living wage for the garbage workers in Memphis when he was killed. And he was only 39 years old at the time. Thirty-nine! His work against income inequality was what I admired most. Thank you, Charles, for reminding us about his dedication to the poor as well as civil rights, especially in these days as we watch that gap grow ever wider. Yes, he was complicated. He knew this was no easy problem to solve. And he gave his life for it.
457
@Zander1948
My parents were aghast at "hippies" and other bums protesting the war in Vietnam. But I still remember the profound relief and joy when my older brother received a 1Y rating on his pre-induction physical. Of course there was worry too - and my mom immediately took him to a cardiologist who said he couldn't hear the heart murmur that got him out of the army. At 72 he has never had any heart problems since then!
10
@Zander1948
We still have courageous, honest and truly civic minded leaders. They're there. The hard part is recognizing who they are through the noise filters we now have to contend with.
75
@Rima Regas
Who do you have in mind? I need a shot of optimism...
I’ve read many of King’s writings and listened to many of his speeches, and, from what I can remember, he never attacked “white people’s” hypocrisy, at least publicly.
Instead, King attacked the hypocrisy of those whites who claimed to be supportive, but who preferred tranquility to justice, who temporized, saying “Not too fast, not now, don’t be radical, be patient, careful of the backlash, we have to move slowly.”
King was smart enough to realize that by creating racial categories, by being racist and casting all white people as enemies of progress, he shrank his support instead of expanding it. So he didn’t.
Instead, he cast the problem as “moderates.” He gave whites the choice: are you an obstructionist moderate or are you truly supportive? And if they said, hey, you are right, moderation is obstruction, he gained another white convert and didn’t alienate his white allies.
Unfortunately, too many people, clearly including you, Charles, have forgotten that simple lesson.
White people are not the problem. People who are not truly supportive of equality, moderates and the racists and sexists they protect, are the problem.
Ironic, though, that many black voters, and a majority of older black voters, are a key part of moderate Joe Biden’s base and were a key component of moderate Clinton’s base in 2016.
Want change? Support change. Don’t complain about white people when it’s moderates of all colors, including blacks, that are blocking progress.
And racism doesn’t help.
14
Give in to anger and resentment? Where does that get you? How is that being better than the people you denigrate and oppose? We honor MLK because he (mostly) did not.
2
He didn’t give in to it, but Dr Martin Luther King was angry.
I wonder if the Stanford speech was the first famous use of the conservative “by your own bootstraps” image. How ironic to see the phrase used with such piercing subtle perception by Dr. King to demonstrate white sanctimonious inconsistency over so many decades. Reparation for our nation’s negligence is only fair, and TV pundits who call it an “extreme” position are complicit in this longstanding hypocrisy.
5
Charles, besides King’s Stanford speech, where is the evidence that millions of acres of land in the West and the Midwest were “given” to white settlers? Or, evidence to show that the government “gave” the land to these white people and “used government money to start land-grant colleges to teach them how to farm, sent out county agents to further their expertise, offered low-interest loans so that they could mechanize and instituted a system of subsidies for them”?
2
Ah, Logan, You have missed a lot of history:
@The Homestead Acts were several laws in the United States by which an applicant could acquire ownership of government land or the public domain, typically called a homestead. In all, more than 160 million acres (650 thousand km2; 250 thousand sq mi) of public land, or nearly 10 percent of the total area of the United States, was given away free to 1.6 million homesteaders; most of the homesteads were west of the Mississippi River.Will Logan
12
It should also be pointed out how many Blacks took advantage of the Homestead Act (http://www.oxfordaasc.com/public/features/archive/1013/essay.jsp).
I am a white man who lives with my two black brothers, a grandson, and a friend in the basement room. You could say we've adopted each other. It's brotherly love plain and simple.
I too revere the real Dr. King, but I don't remember what he had to say on the topic of homosexuality.
Dr. King's actions spoke as loud as his words as they both continue to echo through the consciousness and consciences of America and throughout the world. Alas, his work was never finished, nor is ours. That's why we remember him so often.
Thanks for sharing and affirming his legacy, Mr. Blow.
4
I've enjoyed Charles Blow's writing for years. It can't be easy to write about race and politics at the same time. But he manages to write with a lot of clarity on the intersection. I'm glad he found King's admonition to keep "justice, equality, and humanity" in our focus (or to bring it into focus if it's been lost).
But I don't think Dr. King would use the word "blasted" to describe this admonition. "Blasted" is a word that will get you invited onto TV panels where everyone screams but no one is really heard. Dr. King wanted to be heard.
And I think we need to be careful about loving anger, as Mr. Blow allows in his conclusion. Barack Obama proved that progress and tranquility can co-exist. Trump proves that anger leads to clueless flailing and self-defeat. I think we should find productive outlets for our frustrations over slow progress and back-sliding on these issues and make the choice not to let anger sabotage whatever progress is possible.
9
@Jeromy Righteous anger is not only justified but appropriate in the battle for equal rights in this country.
Dr. King believed in non-violent action to to defeat injustice. The non-violent resister seeks to defeat evil, not people.
1
"Freedom is one thing. You have it all or you are not free." MLK
Beginning in the 90s and for 14 years, I belonged to a union and for the first time in my life, worked with others who didn't look like me. It was also the first time I heard a white person refer to a black person as "brother" in a way that was free of all condescension and irony. We were all union "brothers." It was not a trouble-free experience for me but there was no more grief from my black brothers than I experienced with other ethnicities, including my own. Mostly we got along. Hondurans, Nyoricans, Yemenis, African-Americans, whites, we were union brothers. It feels weird to say that word today but I think if I went back to that job that I left nearly 20 years ago, some of the same feeling would be there still. I miss it and I miss the wonderful feeling it gave me to call a co-worker "brother" and mean it.
On this day, and in the spirit of NOT being a white moderate, I remember my black friends "T" and Jessie, and all my classmates at the union school - Roy West, Frederick Miller, "Cool Cat" Thomas, whose lives intersected with mine and opened my eyes to the world. I wish you well, wherever you are, and also thank you, for your eyes which never saw this 18-yr-old white boy from rural Maine as anything but a brother.
In the absence of Dr. Martin Luther King, that experience never would have happened. Therefore, to all my brothers out there, I say, a good Doctor Martin Luther King Day to you all.
37
@DC
Thank you for that beautiful comment. It brought tears to my eyes. We are all connected to one another regardless of our differences. You gave that concept such heart.
3
When we were at the King Center in Atlanta we visited the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church. Words can't describe the impression one receives while walking through the center, the church, and the neighborhood. There is such respect, curiosity, admiration, and love. While we were in the church, I heard an impossible sound: the sound of Martin Luther King's voice, speaking in from below. We went down to the hall in the basement and heard MLK speaking in his distinctive ringing tones. The effect was electric, shocking, thrilling, powerful. It was a young student and actor reciting a speech that King had given decades earlier. We spoke to him briefly after he finished to thank him for an unexpected gift. On top of King's moral clarity, his compassion, courage, and political wisdom, was his skill at writing and oratory.
9
Honor Dr. King by doing the one thing that creates the most change and that is relatively easy to do. The thing that is so very powerful but simple.
REGISTER AND VOTE.
30
Magnificent. Thanks Mr. Blow. Dr. King would want us to continue in the struggle. He was very human and so we can be inspired to be more human and more courageous in being ourselves and allowing others their unique humanity.
13
We see the same issue in today's GOP politicians who choose to treat Trump like a normal politician. Instead of taking a stand against his actions, they bury their heads in their various committees, pretending that the US is fine. Mr. Blow illustrates that this is normal US behavior. Thus, this is another point about America that is being "conserved" by the GOP. Conservatives, and some progressives, are willing to overlook racism, sexism, and xenophobia in the name of tranquility.
4
I teach the Stanford MLK speech in a seminar called Black and Blue: The Policing Crisis. It was King who went to Watts and understood (and was horrified by) the way the state perpetuated violence against blacks in the name of policing. The Stanford speech comes out of Watts. And back then, the LAPD was the focus of King’s deep concern. The Stanford speech grew out of a sense that while violent uprising was not desirable, it was most assuredly understandable and quite possibly justified. King was so ahead of his time, so much more relevant than today’s activists appreciate.He was defining the parameters of the contemporary black lives movement 50 years ago. I often wonder what King might have done today with the power of social media in the era of Trump in the wake of Trayvon, Ferguson and Baltimore. I doubt he would be most associated with his I Have a Dream speech.
29
King understood that civil rights were only going to go so far. Real change that affects the everyday lives is not going to come with just a change in abstract rights. He knew that the only way to make those rights real was economic change. What made him great in my mind was not only what he accomplished with civil rights, but his vision of what was needed to fundamentally change this country for the better after civil rights. Unfortunately, he was murdered before he was able to make progress on this second phase of his fight for American ideals. We will never know what could have been, but we do have the opportunity to pick up where he left off and push for real change that truly delivers the rights that are promised in our constitution and the civil rights laws of the 1960's.
21
By tomorrow when our three day weekend is over we will have forgot what MLK was fighting for. That’s why the problems he was trying to bring to our attention (never mind solve) are still there.
9
I am at a loss to explain why no one has emerged in this day and age with mass murder in the streets, white supremacy on the rise, and hatred toward other people as the next MLK . The right seems to have their adored leader in Trump, but for decades no one has captured the hearts and minds of the left to bring the people together. Obama is the closest thing I have seen since the 60's. But, I think, you could argue he fell short. Whoever it is, I think, really needs to be outside the political world to be most effective. The best leaders aren't looking for something for themselves. Not running for anything. No ulterior motive beyond the cause. Years ago, I could understand why no one would be willing to take the risk associated with leading such the movement. That risk is likely much higher today. There are certainly lots of people on the right who would be willing to sacrifice their life to prevent another civil rights movement leader to gain traction. But if ever there was a time and a need , now is it.
19
If I have come to one compassionate conclusion about Martin, Jack, and Bobby, it's this: They were very human. They were also very courageous; a courage that needed more than ever in this world, and that makes their stories still as compelling today as they were 50 years ago. As always, great writing, Mr Blow.
45
@Tim McCracken :
What so sadly comes to mind after reading your letter is the missing postscript. Yes their contributions were historic as were their lives but where are we as a country since then?
3
Who does not love MLK? He is loved all over the world. He is in the same team as with Nelson Mandela and Gandhi. His “ I have a dream “ is unparalleled inspiration for all humanity . In American politics MLK, Lincoln and FDR are the people’s leader. I love Rosa Parks for courage. At this moment of our history, we need another MLK like courageous honest compassionate leader in America———black or white.
21
I love a story about King early in his career. It was 1956, the beginning of the Montgomery bus boycott. King had spent uncounted hours preaching, marching, and in strategy sessions.
It was a rare night when he was home, but he couldn't sleep. He sat at his kitchen table with a cup of coffee (and horrors maybe even a cigarette!). "I tried to think of a way to move out of the picture without appearing a coward." In other words, he wanted out -- of the fight, the leadership, everything. Then he prayed. He confessed his fear to the empty room. He was "at the end of my powers. I have nothing left. I've come to the point where I can't face it alone."
He says he experienced "the presence of the Divine as I had never experienced God before. It seemed as though I could hear the quiet assurance of an inner voice saying: "Stand up for justice, stand up for truth; and God will be at your side forever." Almost at once my fears began to go. My uncertainty disappeared. I was ready to face anything."
Three days later, someone detonated a bomb at his house, barely missing his family. Yet he felt he had the strength to continue in the movement.
Thanks, Charles, for reminding us that real people make change, not saints.
127
@Robin
Thank you for remarking on the power of MLK’s Christian faith to deter the all too human fear of failure . He asked for God’s help and received it - and the country was the better for it. While MLK’s courage, moral imperative and political intelligence are always applauded, the divine source of his message and commitment to continued sacrifice and action was the core of this mans life.
5
@Robin
What a beautiful comment, thank you.
4
@Robin A Garden of Gethsemane moment.
1
Again and again and again:
All members of the Sapiens species
are PEERS,
NOT EQUAL,
PEERS.
It is as simple as that.
4
@Luisa
Peers for sure, but only one race. I think biology would disagree with the idea that humans with lighter skin colors are “not equal” to other humans. Inequality is social constructed and rooted. Women are only “not equal” to men in the social context of sexism and patriarchy. People of color are only “not equal” to white people in a social context of racism and discrimination. Etc., etc., etc. with all socially constructed identities. They are essential to creating and maintaining a social hierarchy.
9
@Trange It is progressively fashionable to think there is only one race and gender, and that race and gender are a social construct, but that ignores irrefutable biology. We are all created equal refers to the basic rights we are all given by virtue of being human. Individual humans are unique however, and most of that uniqueness is determined by biology. We are strongly influenced by our social constructs, but cannot escape our DNA.
3
@Dr B
That is precisely why I say that we are all peers, NOT equal.
However, I believe peerness is about more than basic rights. It is about accepting that, although for a society to function some kind of hierarchy is necessary (at work, in sports, in the military, in church, within our family, we all have superior/inferior roles to play), outside that role we are all entitled to stand as equal--as peers. For me, in my daily life, realizing this has had subtle, profound implications.
1
"As a child, I idolized the narrowed King. As an adult I love the more complicated King: agitated, exhausted and even angry."
Your idolization of Dr. King as a child is what psychologists call healthy illusions, they help support us during transitions in life and give us hope. People wouldn't get married without the illusion of romantic love. Illusions are not bad unless we hold onto them too long . . beyond their usefulness.
Good column, Charles. MLK Jr. complicated human being . . . like me.
18
Mr Blow thank you once again for pushing the envelope we all need to hear and see . . . or had conveniently forgotten. It’s not easy to be reminded of our collective responsibility to our fellow human beings. Envisioning a just democracy is a challenge King insisted we put our sights on and that is nothing destructive but rather constructive for us all.
23
Excellent article- Thank you.
10
My esteem for Dr. King has diminished over the years as revelations of his womanizing have come to light.
4
Thank you for sharing the more complicated Rev. Dr. King, Charles. I personally become so frustrated seeing the whitened, sanitized version of MLK, far removed from the visionary agitator I recall most white people hating back in the 1950's and 1960s. I can only wonder what trouble he would be stirring up today!
19
Thank you for this piece.
6
Fabulous column. Thank you.
7
America has always wanted its black heroes to be saints, not human beings.
Thus Rosa Parks was a seamstress who refused to give up her bus seat because she was tired and her feet hurt, NOT as part of a planned act of civil disobedience.
Her life after Montgomery has receives almost no attention, her participation in black nationalist politics, her move to Cuba etc...all contravenes the image of a humble seamstress whose feet hurt.
Like Dr. King, like all of America's black heroes, white people paint them as saints instead of the complicated and vital human beings they actually were.
23
I think back at what we, Black and White together, endured during the turbulent 60's. A president, an aspiring president - another Kennedy - and an iconic leader for equality and justice were all assassinated. We came out of it somehow, and when Barack Obama was elected I shed tears of joy thinking, America has done it. At long last discrimination and prejudice toward our African-American community has ended. Oh, how wrong I was. What we are experiencing now under the "leadership" of a sociopathic bigot is reminiscent of the early and mid-20th Century. Pandora's Box has been opened and now includes, the Brown-skinned, the Jew, the Muslim, the Gay. We need a MLK now more than ever. I am sure that if he were alive today he would march and protest and be jailed and magnificently orate his defense of this increasing number of "others." On Monday, we will remember and will be grateful for Mr. King's life and contributions. But our words and gestures mean nothing unless we together continue his work. It is far from over.
49
@Kathy Lollock
We need a leader who inspires.
Rev Dr William Barber needs to decide to take up that mantle and dial up the volume
Mr. Blow, as a white person, the "I Have a Dream" MLK speaks to me, while today's discourse about institutional racism and the perpetual guilt of white people does not.
If we're not aspiring to a world of universal mutual respect, based on our individual characters, then we're doing it wrong.
11
@ Patrick, “If we are not aspiring to a world of universal mutual respect, based on individual character, then we’re doing it wrong”. We cannot leap-frog over the redress and reconciliation that needs to happen. A growing chorus of black voices are urging/demanding this to happen and hopefully won’t be dismissed because their truth makes white people uncomfortable. At the heart of this I do hear the hope for mutual respect based on individual character. The the path there won’t be smooth or pitch perfect. No quest for equality has ever been. “Doing it right” is a privileged critic.
5
@M
There is no way to enact reparations that will resolve the ills of the past, or satisfy everyone. Privileged black Americans will use reparations effectively; underprivileged black Americans will not be any better off. For the underprivileged, the question of "redress and reconciliation" will remain, because we've come to see black poverty itself as evidence of institutional racism. No attempt at reparations will accomplish what it's proponents imagine, and will only serve to deepen racial resentment and animosity.
For real evolution on racial and social justice, the "I Have a Dream" MLK is still a visionary role model, and the best one we have.
2
@Patrick
“ Privileged black Americans will use reparations effectively; underprivileged black Americans will not be any better off.”
How do you know? Please cite your proof and authority.
We know that Jim Crow (created to legally and violently thwart the social and economic progress of newly freed slaves) worked. I’ll answer the question before you ask - how do we know? See NYT’s 1619 series, or for statistics of the socially engineered economic and social divide between blacks and whites, just google it and pick which site you like. So, just to be fair, why not give the flip-side of Jim Crow a try? Instead of government sanctioned and assisted efforts to prevent black Americans progress and maintain artificial white supremacy, let’s turn it on its head. Oh! But without all the lynching, raping, domestic terror, and torching of entire communities this time.
3
If Dr. King were running for president today, the Editorial Board would brand him as too radical, a divider not a unifier. The Times beat writer would write negatively, telling him to stick to civil rights when suggesting our current system provides socialsm for the rich and rugged individualism for the poor. His criticism and connecting of racism, US Imperialism and Capitalism would get him called a communist from the right, and disparagingly a democratic socialist from much of the liberal class... which is what he proudly was. You know who else best represents Kings vision and beliefs? It wasn't Klobuchar or Warren...
Bernie Sanders
17
@Sean If a President Sanders tried to rave and rant his way to defeat a Senate filibuster of a bill that copied the 1964 Civil Rights Act, then black people would still be unable to drink from public water fountains in thirteen states and black tourists would still need the Green Book. Bernie Sanders may espouse the same radical socialism that Dr. King thought was necessary in the long run, but Dr. King also knew that to achieve short-term progress, a wily pragmatic practitioner like LBJ was also necessary.
9
@Buster Bronx
Buster, Bernie Sanders’ new TV ad shows JFK, FDR, and LBJ — today JFK would be recognized as being Revolutionary, FDR would be recognized as being Revolutionary (and were an example of ‘social democracy’ we may get back to 88 years later), but as Walter Cronkite recognized and exposed after his trip to Vietnam, LBJ was only memorable for the Gulf of Tonkin lie (and all consequent War crimes, as Judge Jackson wrote in his Nuremberg ruling).
“Our Revolution” is something that Bernie needs to strategically focus on further defining for ‘we the American people’, more than LBJ being a Democrat.
3
I have worshipped Dr. King, Martin, my whole life. White woman, for full disclosure. His was murdered when I was 10 years old. Ten years later I was living in Alveda King Beale's district in Atlanta and got to vote for his niece. I hoped we would grow further, maybe that can happen.
5
No American but a foreign white man who inherited money from a farming family in a somewhat decolonized state (as is said), I do not quite understand what one could mean by “a still predominantly white power structure”! Black investment for the offspring etc. of those enslaved in the past is placed under Government support in the United States, as a way of addressing what King referred to as regards the discrimination in land allocation in the period after the Abraham Lincoln war?
@Mark C. Major I think any form of discrimination can cause problems if one views others derogatorily on the basis of such discrimination. Yet discrimination is important when it comes to identity formation. I see a problem in having an incorrect attitude, or judging others moralistically on the basis of some irrelevant as well as particularistic category in which they are placed.
The most overrated person in US history.
I’m sorry, but someone had to say that.
2
No, that would be our current president.
1
No, Trump is exceeding expectations. You never over-estimated him. He gets credit for zilch!
He’s responsible for the passage of two pieces of landmark legislation: the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. Name someone else associated with ONE such law.
MLK died at 39 having accomplished more than anyone else of that era, except perhaps LBJ, and didn’t have a war to account for. We’re still living with his legacy. If he’s overrated, as you say, pray, tell how.
4
"not only did the government give the land to these white people, it also used government money to start land-grant colleges to teach them how to farm, sent out county agents to further their expertise, offered low-interest loans so that they could mechanize and instituted a system of subsidies for them"
This contributed to making America an economic superpower, and would have made America great if equally provided to blacks.
The irony is that this would have been cried out as communism and rejected by today's conservatives.
8
"Letters From a Birmingham Jail" should be required reading for everyone in a high school civics class - and, quite frankly, this narrowed interpertation of Dr. King seems to exonerate exactly the sort of white moderate that is such a great stumbling block, both in the 1960s and today.
6
Free at last - none of us, we’re not.
5
You only have to read one document from Dr. King to understand his entire life's work: "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." The letter the New York Times was too afraid to print first, when it was smuggled out of the jail. It should be mandatory reading for all Americans on King's birthday. I require my young college students to read it, and they are astonished, flabbergasted and moved as no other reading accomplishes during the semester. It is the document we still need to begin again and again and again the discussion of race and racism in America.
15
Thanks again Mr. Blow! I believe this is the second article in a row where you don't simply bash Trump, bash whites (males) or spin a subjective victim story. Thanks for this interesting article, and while I'm far from extreamly knowledgeable with respect to Dr. King and the civil rights movement of the 60's, I believe Dr. King's courage and intelligence was the catalyst for one of the most important aspects of the 20th century--the civil rights movement. The "Dream" speech is the best and most moving speech I've ever heard, and I'm a 58 yr-old white male, and NOT a bleeding liberal for sure. Please keep the interesting, thought provoking articles coming, as you've wrote enough anti-Trump, anti-White male victim stories in the past three years to suffice for the entire 21st century.
2
Mr. Blow, I idolize the Rev. Dr. King when he spoke out against the Vietnam War. Dr. King spoke for all Americans, poor and working class Blacks and Whites subjected to fight a war that excluded the one percenters. Dr. King saw the injustices of the Vietnam War as a clear example of how upper class Americans continued to wage war on the poor and working classes. Let's not lose sight of the fact that Dr. King's message evolved as he saw the excessive inqualities existing in America - inequalities that were the result of corporate capitalism growing in power as the labor movement was declining and the rigid class system that exists in America. Let's hope you one day see what Dr. King did for all of us as he spoke out against the Vietnam War and learn about the backlash he experienced from the elites who rule America. That's the challenge Dr. King has left for all of us to meet.
7
Thank you, Mr. Blow. You taught me something about my great-grandparents, peasants, who immigrated here from eastern Europe in the late 1800s. My grandparents took over their farms, and my mother told us stories that made me admire how strong they were and how hard they worked. How the government helped my ancestors, and how the blacks were shortchanged back then, was never a part of the story. Thankfully, though, my parents did manage to raise four of us without prejudice in a mostly white community, and today none of us is okay with the status quo. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
8
He wasn't too tired to cheat on his wife, though. We really need to be careful about making anyone, of any color, into an all-knowing hero. King was not entirely opposed to the objectification of women.
4
The arc of the moral universe has gone out of view. It may be sagging in the time of Trump, Putin, and the rising authoritariat. The arc may have flattened. Would that we had another King to assure us that it will yet bend back toward justice.
2
Well, times have certainly changed! We're now at the point where our government no longer subsidizes poor Caucasians any more readily than it does poor African Americans. The only folks who now receive financial subsidies are the rich. In that area, at least, we've attained racial equality.
23
@stu freeman I haven’t examined the numbers, but I suspect that if I did, I would find that the rich in the U.S. are disproportionately white.
3
MLK is widely respected and admired throughout the world and, in particular, in the US. So why is his most profound statement : "judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character" totally ignored by those who indulge in identity politics (and not only those who 'identify' by skin color)
6
Same with Nelson Mandela who is revered as the saintly uncle preaching reconciliation. We deliberately ignore the Mandela who underwent military training in the Soviet Union, smuggled in arms from the Eastern bloc and was much closer to communists than he ever was to western democrats. In addition he founded the armed wing of the ANC. But that view would also expose the western alliance with Apartheid South Africa which was why he had to go the So over Union in the first place.
6
He paused a lot when he gave his famous “I Have A Dream” speech; he seemed to let every word sink in, by enunciating each phrase and then pausing – possibly so that the people in the audience could consider critically what he was saying to each of them.
1
Yes Martin Luther King was a very great man but how about a holiday for Frederick Douglass who even President Trump has celebrated as “ … an example of somebody who's done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I notice."
At the very least, I think Trump should have taken Douglass along with him today on his trip to Davos.
6
This is completely irrelevant. But I love the idea that a white man may have a black soul, a woman a man’s, and so on – so long as we do not make much about it – i.e try to own culture that isn’t ours. Personally, I also think who we are open to great change as we meet with others’ ideas and significant signs and symbols. This may correspond with some theory or religious doctrine – maybe Buddhist. I know but very little.
1
We all have the same radicalism and the same realism within us along with the possibility for justice, freedom and equal rights for all.
We do not have to do speeches, but we do have to stand up and be heard or counted - especially when it matters.
Of course many of us weigh the cost of a possible backlash, a possible shunning, a possible cost to ourselves in doing so.
Many of us are not prepared to pay that cost, so we go about our daily lives making rationalizations to ourselves that we are not this or that. We put our blinders on and smile or nod when absolutely required, but not much more. It is why there are still such wild and disparate injustices within our lives, nation and world.
Dr., King's words matter to all or they mean nothing.
9
Thank you, Mr. Blow for highlighting Dr. King's brilliant and courageous "The Other America" speech. It's as relevant in 2020 as it was in 1967 and a stark reminder that any perception that "the white comfort zone" is being infringed upon is still largely taboo in today's political landscape.
12
What is wrong with America now?
I bought the message of the past and it was vibrant in the 1960s.
America is not condemned to the current violent and virulent of attacks on truth, freedom and justice.
Nothing is beyond future dreams and shock of the past when Martin, Robert and John got shot.
Australians don't tote guns.
My comment to Americans is to vote thoughtfully.
Vote for America not mini court frumps adulating he, Trump.
Mitch and Pompeo have written their footnotes as closet royalists without vision for the US and the world in two hundred years.
Loyalty sans morality is classic regal privilege sad but vulgar and a practice revolted by Europeans.
America might try placing Ms Pelosi as head of state according to traditions of European parliaments while US faces examination concerning complicit winks and nods re Trumpian defiance of Court and Congress.
Ms Pelosi is ethical.
18
We still have John Lewis who walked and believed and worked with Mr. King. For Lewis I am so grateful. I am so sorry he was diagnosed recently with pancreatic cancer, but notice even so, he remains active as can be, and always will. We can depend on him, and how many people can we say that about?
Many will never know the depths of what it took to try to make a difference for Civil Rights. We may go about our business like nothing is wrong, like everything is just ok. We may not take the time or credence to be aware.
And that is why King’s work and message resounds yet today, and why people like John Lewis are still devoted. Things are not ok. They will never be ok until everyone is treated with respect, no matter color of skin, religion, culture, background.
Martin Luther King would want us to still live for equality and the right in what we do, what we say, what we teach our kids, how we lead our lives. His message was that in living in decency, without prejudice, in treating people with dignity and standing for right and justice and living it, life for good will prevail and his message will be everlasting. He asked not extraordinary, but what should be ordinary, what should be part of life - every single day.
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Here in Atlanta, MLK's hometown, we take great pride in his lasting achievements while embracing the memory of the living, breathing, blessedly imperfect individual who prayed, preached, led, and walked among us.
His wisdom is still needed in these confusing times, where hypocrisy, groupthink, and double standards can be seen in some surprising places.
As a member of Atlanta's Jewish community, which played a major, if under-recognized, role in the civil rights movement, it pains me to see the Anti-Semitism that has taken hold more strongly than ever within certain African American communities--something Dr. King would have condemned.
It's also difficult to see our young generation too often overextend the word "racist," substituting emotional reasoning for logic and shutting down discourse. It trivializes the misery that African Americans suffered here for centuries and contributes to the cult of "wokeness" that can feel closer to egoism, pretension, and fashion than to the humanism of King or Gandhi.
Today we live in an imperfect but amazingly evolved country, a dazzlingly diverse nation where cultures co-exist and dreams come true for anyone who values education, hard work, accountability, respect for others, and thinking for oneself.
The biggest "sin" of young Americans today may be their ignorance of the extreme racism, sexism, and xenophobia that flourish in so many countries (China, Japan, Korea, Iran, Mexico, etc) where diversity would be but a dream.
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@Dr. Warren
Excellent comment.
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“It’s worse somewhere else” is a really weak way to critique the modern strategies of young people in combating racism, sexism, xenophobia, etc. as they experience it.
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@Leah T. Nice, except I am not critiquing strategies. I am lamenting their mindsets, which too often seem narrow, conformist, fragile, and lacking in awareness of far more authentic, overt bigotry often unaddressed by civil law in so many major countries around the world. It renders their perspectives extreme and, ironically, out of touch.
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It is well to remember that land grants and public education empowered a "white European peasantry" who responded by behaving as though it was their just desert. Instead of prompting a spirit of generosity it spawned the religion of entitlement, that "manifest destiny" which haunts our country to this day. Those who rally for making American great again would do well to remember that greatness is a measure of size. Making America aware and mindful of the needs of others is a far more radical stance.
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May Charles Blow's NYT colleagues read and understand the importance of this remembrance. It is a condemnation of the moderation upon which this paper relentlessly insists. Time has not diminished the urgency of Dr. King's message. It calls for radical systemic change, and is as powerful today as it was over 50 years ago.
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As children we often see people and events through a telescope. As adults, with a different perspective, we often see them through a microscope.
They are the same, but simply subjected closer scrutiny.
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At the Riverside Church speech, that King on display. There is the barely concealed exasperation with those who ask to "give it some time," as well as the "silent" majority.
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MLK really hit white moderates specifically win the quotes in this article. Those who are too comfortable with the status quo to accept change. That’s something which a lot of people nowadays don’t realize.
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Thank you for writing this articles Charles Blow. Martin Luthor King was agitated and exhausted but you can still lionize him as the truly extraordinary man that he was. No human being is perfect, but he truly changed our country for the better.
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Dr. King has been turned into an icon of peace to disempower his message. As Dr. King moved from organizing against segregation in the south to fighting black poverty and powerlessness in the north, he learned racism in jobs, education, housing, and politics was systemic, and white liberal politicians were not allies but opponents.
I taught history in an urban public high school, where my black students complained about repeatedly memorizing a King speech for black history month, sensing it was meaningless. We don’t teach that millions of black people rebelled in the 1960s to early ‘70s, from the Birmingham bus boycott to civil rights demonstrations and urban rebellions to the Black Panthers’ breakfast for children program.
Dr. King died supporting a black union in Memphis, opposed the war in Vietnam, advocated socialism. He was a radical who knew only upending American complacency and power could lead to equality and justice for black people.
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@Bruce Shigeura
I agree, Bruce, that our making MLK a national saint has, sadly, blunted his essence as a radical. Nevertheless, one should not therefore proclaim him a Critical Theorist: MLK’s mentors were Jesus, the Hebrew Prophets, Gandhi and Howard Thurman, and not Herman Marcuse and the rest of the Frankfurt School. Losing sight of King’s “beloved community” in the process of promoting some sort of reconstructed power dynamics is a disservice to history, too.
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Few people remember that the Black power movements were critical of Dr. King's relative moderation at the time of his death. He became the martyr of the movement for civil rights and his towering leadership became apparent after his death. Just before, it was the Carmichaels and the Panthers that were on the ascendant. I do not know to what extent his Stanford speech was affected by the increasing cynicism of the younger leaders and their embrace of rage, but he had to inspire in order to change society. He prevailed.
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And a lot of people don’t remember how unhappy black moderates were when MLK decided to speak out against the Vietnam War. He was early in his opposition and a lot of people saw it as either diluting the movement or unnecessarily bucking the status quo. Don’t pigeonhole him.
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I appreciate Mr. Blow's obviously heartfelt consideration of Dr. King and the complicated nature of the man- however, his reflections are grounded in Dr. King's writing, and I think the Times could do a great service by interviewing those who actually knew Dr. King, and could comment more directly on his frustrations, hopes and aspirations.....maybe next MLK Day will bring such a direct, first-hand account....
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MLK and Bobby Kennedy too, will always resound as advocates and champions of social justice. The huge difference with today’s left wingers is that they were fierce but not confrontational. This is the key issue that repulses moderate people from being in the left.
I am one of them.
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@sebastian -Sebastian, white people of the 1950s and 60s considered Martin Luthor King to be confrontational. People who press viewpoints that you don't want to hear are often considered to be confrontational.
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Two people who were shot for their beliefs weren’t confrontational.
Yeah right.
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@sebastian
King was getting confrontational, and moderates did not like it. Bobby Kennedy was getting confrontational, too.
Moderates like moderate attempts to deal with injustice, attempts that leave much of the injustice in place and do not unduly upset those who benefit from the injustice. Moderates want the doers of injustice and the sufferers of injustice to split the difference, so that the doers of injustice continue to somewhat prevail while we celebrate a reduction in their power as justice and progress.
A fierce advocacy of social justice will inevitably produce a strong backlash and therefore a confrontation. King managed to set up the confrontation so that it made the other side look bad to many moderates.
Segregation was evil, and there is no nonconfrontational way to call it evil. That is how the evil survived for generations -- moderates dislike confrontation.
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After reading this op-Ed. I understand more deeply the necessity and rightness of reparations. Thank you.
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@Judith tanzer And where will that money come from? Who will receive it? How would it be distributed? What proof would be required, if any, to receive it? It really doesn't make sense.
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@Judith tanzer We should not assume that Dr. King would have advocated individual payments to black Americans, instead of a massive increase in government spending on programs benefiting all poor people. I have not seen any evidence that Dr. King specifically endorsed reparations as some have promoted it in our day involving individual payments.
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@atb, you ask perfectly reasonable questions about reparations. And then you just assert that reparations don’t make sense because you haven’t had those questions answered to your satisfaction yet. I guess you don’t really want answers after all.
But you are looking at the problem backwards.
When you cause injury, you pay compensation. That’s a pretty basic tenet of life that even children understand. Slaves and victims of Jim Crow were injured, and their descendants have also suffered some of that injury. So clearly they are due some recompense.
Now that we’ve agreed that decency requires addressing past injuries, we can ask the hard questions of how to implement that compensation. We’ve figured out compensation before, we can do it again. It’s not too hard... unless, of course, you want it to be too hard.
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This is an area of recent American history which needs to be rewritten. For too long we have thought that only nonviolent civil disobedience of the most passive variety is appropriate. It’s the same type of politics which paints Jesus and Gandhi only as passive non-resisters. None of them were that. All of them engaged in active resistance, and all of them were acting at a time when others were carrying on another more violent type of revolution. MLK, for one, acknowledged that. He knew very well that the reason that white people were willing to accept his message, in many cases, is because of how scared they were of Malcolm X’s message. I do not advocate violence, but I think that it is in service of the state that Americans have been taught to think that only the most passive and nonproductive types of protest are productive.
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Tax strikes and general strikes, if you’re wondering about what could possibly constitute nonviolent hardball protests. The French know a thing or two about them.
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@Jackson: My wife and I make our living primarily off of international tourism, specifically in Europe. While Italy was traditionally our biggest market, France has outpaced it in the last year. Yes, this is anecdotal. But there aren’t many people who know more about this subject than my wife. She is a true expert.
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@Jackson I would remind you that France is the most visited country in the world with 89.4 million international tourist arrivals in 2018, an uptick of 3% over 2017. Our strikes in the last year have prevented our current government from force feeding us oligarchic changes in our retirement programs (among other initiatives). The French enjoy universal health care, free schools and universities, a maximum 35-hour work week, six weeks’ annual vacation, paid parental leave and an enviable welfare safety net. These rights and benefits did not fall from the sky fully formed, they were fought for over the years. French workers are prepared to consistently fight for their rights that they have won and retained and we look to countries like the UK and the US as a cautionary tale.
Thank you for your reflections. I agree with you: When we idolize someone, we see only one side of them. Something else that must not be done is to continue to erase the richness of the visions for the future of Black intellectuals. By celebrating only Dr. King, we seem to be celebrating only one vision, perhaps the most comfortable one for preserving the status quo. I so wish that there was a way to do justice to his power and grace and at the same time weave him into a richer tapestry.
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I appreciate the change of headline from "know" to "love" because it sounded like Charles personally knew King. The attention to King's later writings is important and long overdue. Whether his later views represent a revolutionary change in his worldview is debatable and hopefully that debate will shed more light on the man (rather than those who would simply use his authority to justify a feel good racial reconciliation without real change or nationalist seperalism.)
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I taught the Letter from Birmingham Jail for many years, and never read it as overly optimistic. But it was brilliant about civil disobedience, and that is perhaps the lesson of his that will become necessary.
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This is a great column. Let us honor Dr. King for who he truly was. We would learn something.
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Having read and immensely enjoyed Taylor Branch’s superb biography of King, perhaps the ultimate irony was that much of the richness of his work owed itself to J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover hated King and as head of the FBI, authorized a continual program of surveillance of the civil rights leader, including extensive wiretapping and eavesdropping of his activities and conversations in hopes he could discredit King. It was, in the end, the fruits of that work, often illegal, that helped Taylor so deeply chronicle King’s life and help us understand his true role in the American civil rights movement
20
It is concerning that as we celebrate another Martin Luther King Day some white supremacists are reportedly headed to Richmond, Virginia, the state capital, to start a race war according to people have read their messages. These white supremacists are apparently hoping to use a day for lobbying against gun control laws in Virginia to start a domestic war and cause chaos, assuming they will come out on top. This is where we are in third year of Trump's presidency. What seemed like an upward trajectory of success in the fight against white supremacy is now very much in doubt.
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We live in a country where many have lost their moral compass. Trump's election is merely a reflection of that.
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@Bob I'm not a gun owner and don't have a use for one, but it sounds like you are saying those fighting the Virginia law implemented without input from the people are white supremacists? Hopefully, I've misunderstood. PS, there are far fewer white supremacists than one would believe given the media attention and the misguided fact that one is labeled a white supremacists for saying okay.
MLK left a brilliant motivational blue print and strategic plan for action. The whole country will win when it actually happens. Sadly, we haven’t seen enough African American leaders anywhere near his level of commitment who are able to coalesce the African American community in a meaningful way - some will disagree. There are and have been great people in Congress -Elijah Cummings and John Lewis for one - but this community needs a lot more and better leadership at the local level. The upcoming elections is a great opportunity to prove that votes can’t and shouldn’t be taken for granted. Until dirty money is taken out of politics, there should be a “Lobby” that demands and influences Congress to got to war against poverty and inequality, not Iran - but, that’s how special interests work in the country right now.
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History is not a minutiae of facts. History is lessons.
What lessons, you say? Well, that quite depends on the era.
In 1963 I was a student intern at the Munitions Building on Constitution Avenue, that day of the "I have a dream" speech. I recall the mounted police, anticipating trouble I stayed at my desk, and missed history. Much to my regret.
The history lesson WAS that all are created equal, and are meant to be judged by the strength of their character. It WAS the reaffirmation of an ideal that, like any ideal, lies beyond the grasp of most people, but that guides their reach and aspiration.
Of course, King was complex, Of course, he rankled in the moment with the shortcomings of the society he was courageously wanting to change. Of course, those complexities are worthy of honor.
I consider it vital that aspirations not blind us of the realities of our shortcomings. Those realities are the vital focus of history lessons today. But such reflection should not obscure the ideals that should inspire us to keep battling the shortcomings endemic to us.
What we celebrate on his Day is his reaffirmation of the ideal that we share as a nation.
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It is fascinating that Malcolm X and MLK started out on opposing spectrums on the issues of race in America but at the end of their lives, both which were taken away by the extreme violence of assassination, they had ultimately reached similar conclusions about the practical solutions of race in America.
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Blow quotes King's analysis of the free land in the West that the government made available after the civil war. Blow attributes to King:
"America was willing to undergird its white peasants from Europe with an economic floor that would make it possible to grow and develop, and refused to give that economic floor to its black peasants.”"
King was incorrect in his conclusion, and Blow is incorrect for embracing that conclusion. The government's purpose for giving the free Western land was not to undergird anyone. The government gave free land to homesteaders. It also gave a great amount of land to railroad companies that constructed rail lines in the West. These "gifts" were not to undergird homesteaders or railroads. The land was essentially a bribe to entice railroad companies to build a Western rail system and a bribe to homesteaders to populate and develop a largely empty and undeveloped West (there were only about 325,000 native Americans at the end of the Civil War and most were not US citizens).
Furthermore, the 1866 legislation that opened the free land to homesteaders was specifically made available to anyone who had not taken up arms against the US. It was also specified that land was available to blacks, to women, and to immigrants.
Essentially the only substantial group of people denied access to the free land were Southerners who had served in the Confederate army (nearly all of whom were white).
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@Errol This distinction is legalistic only. There were significant barriers to black migration west.
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African-Americans were technically eligible to homestead, but in practice were unable to take advantage of the law as written in large numbers due to discrimination, racist bureaucracies etc. Real estate redlining has a long history here. And of course Jackson promptly undid efforts to give former slaves land of after the war ended. Gave it right back to southerners.
I don’t know whether your point here is simply to be pedantic or to suggest poor white southerners were the ones who didn’t get a fair shake but - um, no on both counts.
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@Errol I believe also Native Americans were initially excluded from the Homestead Act.
10
Great opinion piece, thank you for writing and sharing it. I've just about finished Why We Can't Wait. Such courage, grace, and eloquence. I wish I could make complex ideas and comparisons that accessible. (He shouldn't have had to make complex ideas accessible. At the root of his message was a very simple principle.)
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Brilliant insight, as ever. Let's have our greatest statesman and visionary in his fullest dimensions. We deserve the whole story, what the great shaking white fist meant to silence and did--or seemed to for a time. Let's hear him in us--where he belongs. And lives.
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As an 82 year old, born in the South to Liberal northerners, I am painfully aware of the continuing blind barriers to persons of color, but today I observed a biracial couple and feeling some progress is being made.
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Hear, hear! A great article. I also loved King, while I understood only the more socially palatable easy-going optimistic King of the March on Washington. He was always brilliant, always quotable and admirable, but there is much more depth to his understanding of our nation's histories.
Then I was heartily surprised to read his great speech in Riverside Church in 1967, where MLK made the connection between the Vietnam War, and those who encourage and profit from armed conflict, with the demise of America's anti-poverty progress. A quote from that remarkable - and controversial - speech:
"“There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I and others have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor, both black and white, through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched this program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war. And I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic, destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.”
Thank you, we need that depth now.
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@Mary Excellent comment. Ironically, LBJ was responsible for both and he and Dr. King were allies on the civil rights act and the voting rights act.
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It’s ironic mostly just to those who lived through Vietnam - a disaster for which he bears the greatest accountability - but succeeding generations tend to have a much more balanced view of Johnson.
9
You are completely right about honoring the whole Dr. King, not just the Dream King. All that he spoke and wrote about in the way of continuing unequal treatment from 1863 to present day accounts, on one scale, for Trump today. He is both a continuation of that trend of unequal treatment and a more specific white backlash to the civil rights act, the voting rights and the fair housing act. It is backlash delayed by 50 years, but part of the continuing 1863 trend. Today the free land and universities are the specific tax giveawyas for particular industries, such as accelerated depreciation (real estate), petroleum depletion allowance, carried interest (hedge fund managers), etc. Direct subsidies include farm and bank bailouts, etc. No wealthy person or large corporation really wants to stand on its own two feet. That is why these special interest giveaways can never be eliminated.
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I believe that the only true alternative to white supremacy is the abolishment of race itself. We accept all the benefits of modern technology but hold-fast to a anachronistic concept that has no scientific basis.
We don't take 'flat earth theory' seriously, and in that vein, we shouldn't take race, seriously. There's no purpose for race to functionally exist in a scientifically advanced society.
In other words, whenever we start a serious conversation about race, we've already lost.
10
@dad Isn't it pretty to think so? I agree with you about race being scientifically meaningless, but we cannot pretend slavery did not happen. We cannot pretend the pervasive racism of the 150+ years since the Civil War did not occur. Suddenly deciding that from now on, race doesn't exist, will not reassure the mothers of black teenagers that they no longer need to have The Talk about being wary of police. I believe, as Theodore Parker and MLK said, that the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice, but the arc looks more like a line than a slope.
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@dad That’s okay so long as it is not employed as a pretext to avoid compensating the people who were disadvantaged for so long on the basis of this invalid concept of race. Real people have been harmed in real ways.
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@dad
I suppose it is obligatory to inform the reader that I am a 67 year-old white American man who has lived outside the USA (Africa and Europe) for nearly 40 years
I mostly agree with you, @dad, but I would add:
Any serious conversation about race must recognize that without an all-too-common desire of human beings to dominate one another, skin color would be a mere detail of our existence, nothing more or less than one of the infinite signs of minor biological variation within our species.
But because so many other human attributes have been erroneously seen to be the "result" of having one skin color or another, and because some parents - by definition ignorant - teach their children all sorts of untrue "facts" about people who look different than they do, racism is still alive and thriving in the USA 155 years after Lincoln's assassination and several generations since the life and death of MLK, my two favorite Americans, both gunned down by racist yahoos.
Which is to say that our society (among others) is still beset and weighed down by mass irrationality - call it idiocy - with no basis whatever in biology or anything else that is... real. If we weren't affected in some way by racism, it would be unworthy of discussion, non-existent, really meaningless. But it affects us all.
That we have managed to elect a practicing and outspoken racist as our President is proof of how debased we have become as a nation.
4
Teddy Roosevelt said
"Only those are fit to live who do not fear to die and none are fit to die who have shrunk from the joy of life and the duty of life."
Duty of Life--MLK definitely fulfilled that part
29
even Dr. King's "dream" speech should be listened to in its entirety. the first part of the speech expresses frustration with the state of progress in the civil rights movement. king truly was a visionary but he was also a realist. I think he possesed a better understanding of human nature than most people. If he were to come back today and see the backlash of racism that we have experienced in this country, really with the election of Obama all the way to today, three years into the Trump presidency, he would be disappointed but not surprised.
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The aftermath of King's religious conservatism is something that the Democratic party has not been able to deal with out of the fear of defaming the leader of the black movement. The black community has been inert in accepting the progress on gender discrimination, sexuality, and role of women in the society, to name a few. In a way, King's doctrine is a dream solution for Republicans today: making sure that black voters are conservative enough not to support gay, female or unmarried candidates is a perfect road to keeping the liberal movement divided and unable to put the GOP nightmare behind us.
23
@Paul
You've made some fairly broad pronouncements...without the requisite backup.
"The black community..." "King's religious conservatism
that Democrats can't deal with..."
It appears you view Black Americans as a great monolithic community of one-mindedness. In fact, every time I hear or read someone using the non sequitur "black community" to represent the collective thinking of 42 million Americans- I am tempted to ask "What street does the black community reside"?
And yes, Dr. King was steeped in a religious conservatism of the gospel- he was by no means a conservative in the realm of firing up black Christians for "secular" activism. In fact he used biblical doctrine as evidence for social, political, economic activism; in and out of the church.
7
Gandhi's image after his passing went much the same way. Idolized past his more complicated legacy.
This is probably true with most individuals we've deemed worthy of statues.
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So Dr. King was in fact just a human being. An amazingly intelligent, decent, visionary, long-suffering, brave and kind human being.
You don't need a fictional hero when the real thing is so tremendously admirable... flaws and all.
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@trudds Heroes can have flaws or shortcomings, King included. Sometimes these "warts" drive their most admirable of acts, if not the heroics. Something for us all to remember in an era of demanding perfection.
15
@Allentown 100 percent agreed. I teach US history and so many of our heroes either aren't all that heroic or "white-washed" to the point where the most important lessons are lost.
We are all flawed but the rising to do the right thing is in reach of most.
17
Dr. King undoubtedly had flaws. However, I don't deem his anger and frustration to be among them, and I'm certain that Charles Blow doesn't either. Indeed, suggesting that King's radicalism was a flaw negates Blow's point. King is a more challenging figure than we tend to be taught; the easy version diminishes him.
6