Who is Martin Luther King Jr.

Entire generations have seen, and future generations will continue to see, the famous speech delivered in Washington during the height of the civil rights movement, I Have a Dream. Here stands the inspiring image of a man who had devoted his entire life to improving the rights of African-Americans, not only in the South but also the segregated cities of the North.

First and foremost a pastor and a religious leader, he gained prominence as a persistent, nonviolent revolutionary whose sole mission in life was to change society’s understanding of what was right and legal and reasonable. How, he asked, could an entire segment of the United States be relegated to second- or third-class status? How was it possible, 100 years after the Civil War, that blacks had less freedom and equality? Why was it that the religious and political leaders in the United States did not do something about this? Well, it was his mission to do something about it, regardless of the cost or sacrifices.

What made him the Civil Rights Activist

Martin Luther King Jr. was born a preacher’s son in Atlanta, Georgia, in January of 1929. He would follow his father’s footsteps, first taking a degree at Morehouse College, a traditionally all-black school, and then ultimately a Ph.D. from Boston University. Interestingly, historians and others have looked back at King’s writing and a great deal of concern has been expressed about plagiarism in King’s dissertation work. The controversy was so great that the university did an analysis of the dissertation and concluded that a substantial portion was taken from other students’ efforts. Perhaps greatness-in this case a Nobel Peace Prize-allows for another standard: Boston University decided not to revoke the degree even though there was ample evidence for them to do so.

King began his formal tenure as a Baptist pastor in 1953 in Montgomery, Alabama, and used the church and its pulpit to launch his formal entry into the existing civil rights movement. (King did not start the movement; rather, attempts to get blacks equality with whites had been going on since the end of the Civil War.)

The essential elements of King’s leadership style surfaced very early: nonviolence (as practiced by Gandhi and A. J. Muste) and the power and influence of the media. King intuitively understood that using force against the existing political and social structure would be futile and only inflame the situation. He understood the importance of image, as presented by the media. If blacks, striving for their rights, were the aggressors, they would gain little sympathy from the rest of America. Further, he knew that the image of innocent and passive people, abused and beaten by the police in full view of the cameras, would have a tremendous psychological effect.

One of the first opportunities to practice these combined principles came with the Rosa Parks incident and the Montgomery bus boycott of 1956. For more than a year, citizens refused to ride the buses, and downtown merchants lost a tremendous amount of business as a result. Tensions were so great that King’s house was bombed and he was put in prison (not the first time and certainly not the last). The boycott was a huge success, however, resulting in national recognition of the problems of segregation in the South and of King’s new prominence in the movement.

“It is a testament to King and the civil rights movement that it provoked even the U.S. Supreme Court into action when it outlawed segregation on public transportation. This was the first of many court decisions on civil rights that changed the face of American society forever”.

The creation of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is the enduring legacy of King. He founded the organization to channel the combined power, moral and otherwise, of the predominately black Baptist churches throughout the South. The SCLC was hardly the only organization working for civil rights, and there were huge differences among them on the use or nonuse of violence as a means to an end.

Two particularly noteworthy campaigns are the marches led by King to Washington and Chicago. The demonstration in Washington was controversial before it began. President Kennedy and others used their influence to tone down the demonstration-basically to make it less critical of the role of the federal government in the civil rights movement. No matter the original intent, the demonstration was ultimately a huge success, culminating in the famous speech, I Have a Dream.

The march into Chicago was a dirty little affair; the leaders of SCLC were shocked to see how people lived in the slums of the big cities. Further, the rancor was worse than any southern protests that the demonstrators had encountered to date. The reaction by whites in Chicago was extreme and the enthusiasm of the city’s politicians can be described as tepid at best.

In 1965, King announced his opposition to the Vietnam War. Because he was early in his opposition, he lost support from middle-class groups and organizations that found his view too radical. Vietnam was merely a subset of the larger criticism he leveled against the American government, corporations and the general moral tone of the day. From his critics’ point of view, civil rights were only part of this distasteful troublemaker; he was also unpatriotic and un-American.

A fascinating relationship between King and the FBI (and its leader, J. Edgar Hoover) began in 1961-62. In an ever-growing effort to discredit King in any way possible, the FBI used a variety of tactics-accusing him of being a Communist and of having extramarital affairs-to peel away his credibility and his moral authority. There are some who say that King’s death at the hand of James Earl Ray in Memphis in 1968 was actually contrived by the FBI. However, the fact remains that he was killed by an assassin and that his work would remain unfinished-or at least that it would remain for others to complete.

The Legacy of the King

How do we understand this man? He won a Nobel Prize and a national holiday is named for him. He was a religious man with an almost obsessive compulsion to see changes on the local and national levels in terms of race relations and greater openness for African-Americans throughout society. He had a quiet, deliberate and highly motivating personality, capable of using the media and few words to make a highly effective impression on his people and on the country at large. He was ranked in recent polls as one of the top three greatest Americans ever.

Yet he was a man of many messages, a far more complex hero than is immediately apparent. He was not the only leader of the black movement and was often in conflict with other leaders and other organizations because of his unwillingness and inability to change tactics-he would not become violent or more radicalized, no matter how great the injustice.

He found himself the center of great controversy-which many considered a distraction and off message for his primary goal. He advocated reparations to former slaves and their families (an idea which is still current among some black leaders). He took on an increasingly anti-government and anti-business stance, again causing some confusion as to what the real goals of his movement might be.

Although those around him insist that his personal behavior was above reproach, there are persistent rumors of infidelity and the seemingly very real problem of plagiarism in his academic career.

Martin Luther King Jr. gave his life for his cause. He inspired, he challenged, he acted and he led in a way that few men or women the 20th century did. He inspired a new generation of leaders not only to be active in the movement but also to join the established order and make continuous improvements. Most importantly, his legacy is reflected in the fact that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed and became law.

Courtesy 

A terrific Website with information about the King holiday, excerpts from various speeches, information about his wife, Coretta Scott King, and much more can be found at www.holidays.net/mlk.

Information about King’s award of the Nobel Peace Prize can be found by visiting the Nobel Foundation’s Website at www.nobelprize.org. Stanford University, at the request of Mrs. King, has been assembling the papers of Dr. King’s life, both primary and secondary sources. For more information about this project, visit www. Stanford. edu/group/King/mlkpapers.