Today is the day we celebrate the life of civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The Public’s Radio political analyst Scott MacKay says the best way to honor King’s legacy would be to restore his commitment to a just society. (Advance copy of commentary scheduled to air Monday.)
King will be commemorated across New England and the nation today with soaring gospel hymns, earnest sermons and readings of his “I have a Dream” oratory. Then we’ll clasp hands and sing that stirring civil rights anthem, “We Shall Overcome.”
The King that is celebrated in our mostly white region is the early civil rights crusader. With his biblical rhetoric and message rooted in Christainity, he was a minister who caught the conscience of white America, insisting that we all live up to the spirit of a nation founded on the belief that all are created equal.
Some perspective here: It’s nearly impossible to explain what King was able to accomplish in his too short life without running the reel back to the 1950s.
The American South was an apartheid society. Blacks couldn’t vote. They couldn’t attend the state universities their taxes helped pay for. Segregation and Jim Crow laws reigned, from whites only lunch counters, to schools, parks, hotels and workplaces.
King built a non-violent movement that transcended race. He was a minister of peace, a prophet and an American Gandhi, leading his country out of the savagery of lynchings and racial violence.
He was also an all-too human figure who broke his marriage vows and put children’s safety and lives on the line to advance freedom for his fellow blacks.
“He was a man of incredible courage”’ says Jim Vincent, president of the Providence branch of the NCAA. “He faced down dogs, fire hoses and police and death threats on his life and his family. But he persisted and changed a country forever.”
New England was not in the forefront of the civil rights movement. Our region had evolved from a slave trading bastion in the 18th and 19th centuries to a linchpin of the underground railroad and an abolition movement forged by whites and blacks.
Yet King was no stranger to New England. He received his divinity degree at Boston University. He visited Rhode Island three times in the 1960s, all on college campuses. In 1960, he spoke at Brown, pleading for an interracial civil rights coalition and hailing the election of John F. Kennedy, the first Roman Catholic president as a victory for tolerance. At the University of Rhode Island in 1966, he told an audience of 5,000 that he was worried that the country had become reactionary, which could create tensions and challenges for the civil rights movement. His last appearance in Rhode Island came at Brown in 1967, where he delivered an anti-Vietnam War speech at Sayles Hall.
The next year, King was murdered as he stood on the balcony of a Memphis motel. He was in the city to support a garbage workers union drive.
King died without a will at age 39. He left a net worth of less than $6,000.
At his death, King faced a movement that was splintered, with some blacks shedding his non-violent approach and challenging his interracial narrative. Some whites who had initially been supportive abandoned King after he embraced anti-war dissent and economic justice issues, including support for unions and a government jobs program for the unemployed.
Had King lived, he would have loved the election of Barack Obama and disdained Donald Trump. Race relations have deteriorated under President Trump’s shoot from the tweet administration.
A Washington Post poll released last week showed that 65 percent of black Americans believe it is a “bad time” to be a black person in the United States. And more than 8 in 10 blacks say they believe Trump is a racist.
King changed American laws as he led the civil rights movement. Changing hearts and minds is a steeper mountain. The saddest aspect of Trump’s reign is that blacks believe he has emboldened prejudiced whites to publicly display racist tropes, such as waving Confederate flags.
Were King alive, he would say that we are better than this.
Scott MacKay’s commentary can be heard every Monday morning at 6:45 and 8:45 and at 5:44 in the afternoon. You can also follow his political reporting and analysis at our web site at The Publicsradio.org
