A few weeks ago my wife found a copy of Time Magazine’s May 17th, 1963, issue in a used bookstore in Austin, TX. On the front of this issue was a picture of James Baldwin and inside the section called “The Nation” had a subsection on “Races” where this description of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. can be found on p. 23:
For more than a month, Negro demonstrations in Birmingham had sputtered, bursting occasionally into flames, then flickering out. Martin Luther King, the Negroes’ inspirational but sometimes inept leader, had picked this bastion of racial inequality for the crusade, “because Birmingham is the symbol of segregation.”
It was a very odd experience reading this 1963 article in 2013. Dr. King is a legend to us now. He is considered one of our nation’s prophetic voices. We have built a statue of him in Washington D.C. Our cultural memory has rightly enshrined him as a great man, but it may wrongly lead us to think that Dr. King has always been admired, and that what progress we’ve seen is something that was destine to happen, and that Dr. King completed his mission, and that his dream has been fulfilled.
As we remember Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream Speech” on its fiftieth anniversary (several months after this edition of Time Magazine had gone to print) it is helpful to remember that while we admire and respect the man now he faced great opposition then. We must not let our admiration for the man lead to a cultural memory that sanitizes the past. If we do that then we are bound to forget how much work and suffering it has taken to change what has been changed and how much more work it will take to “survive as a democratic experiment” in the words of Dr. Cornel West.
This video that my wife posted to Facebook today begins with the man who introduces Dr. King. He calls him “the model leader of our nation.” Indeed, he was/is, but we must remember that model leaders are sometime seen as “inept” by their contemporaries. May our modern “inept” prophets and leader bare the the fruits of justice that we have seen come from Dr. King’s life.
I was reading the comments at a well known Christian website earlier. The original post was a good one about the importance of the style of the I Have a Dream speech. I was going to post it on facebook because I know the author of the piece. But 18 of the 20 comments on the piece were about how bad of a man MLK was and a Christian website should not be celebrating him. Shows we have a long way to still go right now, and not just then.
@Adam:
Excellent point. Modern racism often masks itself in piety claiming objectivity and spiritual high ground on the basis of its ability to point out the obvious: a human was not perfect; a human was flawed. Imperfection doesn’t denounce his message though. What he said was true and remains true and when we consider our own frailty Dr. King still emerges as a prophet and hero from among us.
Brian wrote “Dr. King is a legend to us now. He is considered one of our nation’s prophetic voices.”
Therein lies the problem – American popular culture is lionising a man, an imperfect man with a great dream perhaps, but still a man.
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King attended no seminary and was never ordained. (So is he really a Rev.?)
Dr. Martin Luther King is a ‘doctor’, in part, because he plagiarized heavily from another author. The university could not revoke his degree fearing popular reprisal — though in any other case the result would have been expulsion and denial of degree. (So is he really a Dr.)
Martin Luthers legal birth name was ‘Michael King’. He went by ‘Martin Luther’ for effect but it was never legally changed (So is he really ‘Martin Luther’?).
His closest friend’s Rev. Ralph Abernathy wrote in his 1989 book that he was a notorious womaniser who fixated on white prostitutes. Rev Abernathy’s narrative documents how Martin Luther would use church money to host sex parties.
The FBI watched him for years because he took money from organizations with communist ties (and has since provided evidence of this publicly to show that their efforts were not anti-the-man but anti-his-actions).
Yes, many American’s view Martin Luther King a saint because of the work he did in the civil rights movement but this is a skewed lens. His civil rights work is one facet of the man’s life, and a facet to be celebrated certainly, but many other facets of the man’s life left much to be desired including his false masquerade as a Reverend, a doctor, a man whose life should be emulated.
Before someone jumps down my neck for saying something that may be objectively and true ask yourself; is it better to have an honest picture of the world or to live in a fantasy? We all have faults – by pointing out Martin Luther’s I’m simply trying to resist the trend to construct false images …..
Voilà! that was quicker than usual.
@Brian – it isn’t racism to advocate for objectivity. It is racism (and indeed false) to deny something true because a man happens to be one colour or another ….
He was ordained in 1948 and went to Crozer Theological Seminary. All kinds of people are called by names other than their legal ones. So three of your claims are wrong or minimal. FBI watching him and tapped his phone for years for reasons that are far more complicated than recieving money from communist groups.
My guess is that it is far worse to paint false images of him than to ‘clarify’.
.. and incidentally the way to deal with an argument you disagree with is not to label the person making the argument ‘a racist’.
Rather, it is to deal with the substance of the argument itself. All of the points I made are true (so far as I am able to verify – and I have taken steps to verify my claims).
Do you believe it is OK to construct false histories about those we admire?
Adam, he did not complete his work at Crozer. I have no problem with people acting as Pastors without official credentials. I do have a problem with people pretending to be pastors in their public life, while in their private life being hypocrites!
Even if Martin Luther was a hypocrite however, that does not detract from the fact that he advocated for a raceless society. I too yearn for a raceless society. Perhaps one day we’ll see it ….
@Andrew: One warning: this blog is not your platform for espousing your opinions on anything and everything. Everyone knows Dr. King was imperfect. Your agenda here is not to “be objective,” for if this post were about George Washington or Abraham Lincoln you’d feel no obligation to highlight their imperfections. I’m going to ask kindly, once, for you to refrain from this mini-smear campaign if you want to continue commenting here.Thank you.
I think it is important to have a full picture of the man. But not to make up things that are easily disprovable or of no importance. That was my problem with the comments on the other article I referenced. There were all kinds of claims, some true, some not that had nothing to do with the actual content of the post as it was written. The comments were there solely to distance the work of the man from Christianity (at least in this case.)
The problem is that there are all kind of false claims about King both pro and con. It is easy to find something to say bad about him. I am all for getting full picture. What irritates me is when anyone writes something about him, there are others that jump in and write bad things about him that seem to be only for the purpose of minimizing the actual work done. So yes we need a full picture. But we need a full picture in the context of the whole man. Otherwise it seems like smear tactics or attempts at guilt by association.
Exactly, it is the quickness with which some people feel obligated to point out Dr. King’s imperfections that tell us everything we need to know about motives. There is no grand conspiracy to bury the man’s faults. Comments like these aren’t shedding the light on some hidden agenda. We know these details, but he was a great man nevertheless and he did wonderful things for our nation, even for the world. If every prophet had to be perfect to be given his/her just due then no one but Jesus would be discussed. Honoring Dr. King is not worship, but merely giving due respect.
@Adam. Agreed.
Brian you raise the issue of how odd it was to read about Martin Luther King from a contemporary TIME magazine. I quote “It was a very odd experience reading this 1963 article in 2013.”
You invite comment.
Obviously it’s odd because American popular culture has constructed a mystique about the man that does not exist in 2013 or outside of the US.
If I have not been object – by all means ban me. But it is intellectually cowardly to threaten to ban me because you don’t want to see your hero portrayed in anything less than a heroic light.
Martin Luther King is your idol – not mine.
sorry – that should have read .. .that did not exist in 1963 .. or outside of the US.
@Andrew:
Newsflash, this is my blog. No, I don’t invite any and every kind of comment. In fact, read the “Commenting Policy” link on the top of the page (which is worded very strongly). There are many reasons that I might decide to block a commenter, even as simple as I find them annoying and/or disruptive to what might be enjoyable, cordial conversations. One example: deciding that it is one’s obligation to respond to a positive post about Dr. King with a smear campaign in the comments section of my blog. You don’t need to say anything further in response. If you want to keep commenting here let this one go and we’ll see you on another post.
Oh and please don’t ban me for pointing out the Martin Luther’s influence did not extend outside of the US contrary to your claim he had a global influence.
For example, in Canada, the country north of the US – civil rights preceded the US (remember Uncle Toms Cabin?) and in Mexico Martin Luther’s influence pales in comparison to César Chávez. So if his influence doesn’t even extend to the hemisphere – it’s doubtful it extends globally.
In Europe, interest in him exists because he is a footnote to American history – which itself is interesting.
Ok, that’s enough.
@Andrew, you start listing off problems with the man in response. That is not a conversation. Especially when several of them are just not true. You are helping to construct a mystique that is just as false as one that pretends he was perfect (which Brian did not suggest to start with.)
The point isn’t that you are being objectionable, but that you are claiming to be after a greater goal based on imperfect and inaccurate perceptions of the man. (Yes several of the things are true, but others are quite easily verifiable wrong.)
And then you pretend innocence and objectivity. You are not either in this situation.
@Adam
Well, your comment was timely, eerily so. Sorry our conversation was derailed like that. Apparently, some people don’t get it. They don’t know how to behave online. It’s can be so annoying, especially when one’s own blog is mistaken for “freedom of speech forum,” which it is not (I want to hear opinions, but not grossly motivated opinions masked as objectivity). These types seem bent on intentionally distracting readers from the message of a given post desiring to hijack other people’s blogs in order to gain the attention of those bloggers’ readers. In this case it was with nitpicking at best (MLK has no international celebrity, really?) and a downright smear campaign at worst. Are there no social cues in the blogosphere (or are some blog commenters that socially dysfunctional online)? No commenting etiquette? Ugh!
Rachel Marie Stone has a post on the cycle of angry comments today that you might want to check out. I think that there may be something to her point – http://rachelmariestone.com/2013/08/28/kicking-the-outrage-habit-in-the-blogosphere-with-stick-figure-cartoons/
But I am more concerned about this as a Christian manifestation. I don’t want to make too much of this, but I think this type of ‘corrective comment’ is at least partially related to the general distrust of institutions. It also seems to be correlated with belief in conspiracy theories. If you can find someone, somewhere that agrees with you, it must be true.
So Andrew’s comment about ordination. That is pretty easy to disprove. But he claims that he verified it. Andrew claims he didn’t go to seminary and then changed the claim to didn’t graduate. But both are wrong He went to Crozer Theological Seminary and graduated in 1951 before starting his PhD work at Boston.
So it is hard for me to understand how Christians that claim to be holders of the truth of Christ can be so lax with the concept of truth in other arenas, especially when making claims about basic facts.
You handled it as I would have. Sorry you had to.
No worries, I am hesitant to block anyone from commenting. In fact, I haven’t blocked Andrew T. from commenting on the blog, yet, but I am quite close to it. Some people think blogs are open invitations for no holds barred debate. Theoretically, I understand why that may seem like the purpose of blogs, so I try to be patient and explain that while I am open to debate about many things on this blog there is a line that can be crossed. I may need to put more aggressive language in the “Commenting Policy” section to convey that point.
And yes, you are absolutely correct: Christians in the blogosphere are far too often the ones making things uncomfortable and uncourteous. Earlier this summer I took a short sabbatical from blogging because I was burnt out on this very thing. I hated receiving comments and I didn’t want to respond to them because so few were constructive. I know this may sound shallow, but sometimes it is nice just to see a passer by say something like “Nice post” or “that was helpful” because all too often blog commenters are looking for nothing more than a few fights to pass the time.
Oh, and thanks for the link. I’ll check it out.
I understand the burnout. Luckily, my blog has virtually zero comments and I have only had to delete inappropriate comments a couple of times.
I do appreciate your work here (even if I don’t often comment just to say so.)
Brian – I recognize there is no freedom of speech. I also recognize this is your blog and have always said you decide what’s welcome and what’s not and when your commentators overstay their welcome.
Whether or not Martin Luther Kings had faults (and I’m sure we all have them) there should be not so much sensitivity in pointing out the Martin Luther King of American popular culture in 2013 is not the man Martin Luther King or even the public persona of 1963.
I have no doubt you see him as a Saint, and it is not my intent to lessen this image of him. If we had been speaking more generally about some other person perhaps you would agree that popular culture, indeed even history construct false images of people.
As it stands, however, my comments are taken as iconoclastic. Instead of having a fruitful discussion about how why the 1963 perspective differs from the 2013 perspective – all we’ve done is offend one anther, and nit-pick the communication itself, rather than the topic of the communication.
If I have offended you – I am sorry.
To get this back on track I do happen to think Martin Luther King is a noteworthy person whose sum influence on American culture is, on the whole, positive. However, as time advances the popular culture ‘canonization’ of Martin Luther in American society constructs an image of this figure that strays from reality. One which cannot be discussed objectively (too much emotion embedded).
Accordingly, objective discussions about what he did and what his accomplishment were become taboo – as this very own thread seems to attest. (People are more comfortable knowing the image of a man than knowing the man behind the image).
If it were me that had read that 1963 article – I doubt very much I would have experienced tension between the man he’s know to be now, and the man he was known to be then ….
Apology accepted, but I don’t want to hear anymore from you on this post. Today is a day to honor a man who is very meaningful to Americans. He wasn’t perfect, but he did a lot for our nation (he helped us see that we needed to change and that we could become a better democracy), and I think he did a lot for many people outside our nation (like Gandhi, for instance, whose impact is more widespread than India or Nelson Mandela as he relates to South Africa). There may be a time and a place for a so-called “objective” conversation about his biography, but today is not the time nor is this blog the place. You’ll have to go elsewhere for those conversations if that is something you need.
( I didn’t realize this was Martin Luther King day – so another apology is necessary – this time to your readers ). Sometimes context is everything.
I will move on …..
I thought you might be interested in this article. The Wall Street Journal had an article about their coverage of the March on Washington and linked to a PDF of the original article. Their article (and several other major newspaper articles) didn’t mention MLK at all. This is partially because he was the last speaker and a lot of the reporters either left or had a deadline. But it is interesting that today we don’t think of all of the other speakers that much. http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/08/28/how-the-journal-covered-the-march-on-washington/?mod=e2tw
Reblogged this on Movers, Shakers, Leadership Makers.
Great reminders, and interesting flash-back info. Thanks!
Reblogged this on Natural Spirituality – Loving Forum for Spiritual Harmony & Growth and commented:
Fascinating look back to just before the “I Have a Dream” speech; perception of “prophets”, etc. Some excellent reminders here.
Thanks Adam, I’ll take a look at that!
@Howard: you’re welcome!
FYI: T. Michael Law notes in this brief post that he has had the same experience as regards people questioning why he’d celebrate the life of Dr. King: http://www.timothymichaellaw.com/the-most-dangerous-negro-in-the-world/
@Adam:
That WP article was eye-opening. So odd to think that such a great speech was ignored by so many.
Sorry to keep feeding links. But the theme of Christians, truth and personal histories keeps coming up. Books and Culture magazine has a review of a documentary about a Russian Defector that lived for a short time in Canada raising money for bibles to be smuggled back into Russia. It seems most of his story was fabricated with complicity by the christian bible smuggling group. Sounds like a facinating documentary
http://www.booksandculture.com/articles/2013/sepoct/strange-story-of-sergei-kourdakov.html?paging=off
I know this thread is about worn out now, a day later. But the important dynamic seen and discussed in the back-and-forth comments I think is worth at least one more. I presently have nothing real specific, but wanted to observe that the last several years (particularly since Pres. Obama’s election… probably not a coincidence) have seen a big stir-up of emotion, from various “camps”, on issues of race and political polarization. As some of that is expressed by Christians, it has sadly shown how immature and non-self-reflective are so many of us, how unaware of how issues of injustice and systems of prejudice (often subconscious) work and manifest in our society, etc.
While this is not directly “theological” I do think it is sufficiently tied to religious sentiments, to religious history, etc. that it is fair to mention: It does seem that there are still unhealed wounds from our north/south division as well as the slave/free division that peaked during the Civil War and Reconstruction. Just yesterday, a local radio talk-show host was marveling (and decrying) how so many can hang onto things people long-departed have done. He didn’t seem to get (as I think is true of so many) that the same underlying dynamic and the perpetuation of the offense/hurt/reaction/further-offense/hurt…. cycle goes on and on. It rarely dies out in a generation or two or even three. We may be a few generations beyond the widespread slavery of the South, but virtual slavery and severe oppression of blacks was still widespread in the earlier lives of many still alive. This affects both blacks and whites… and everyone.
The situation of horror in 1926 depicted in the great movie “The Butler” (highly recommended!), for example, I understand was not that rare an exception in that time. And of course, the begrudging removal of vote-denying and segregation, etc. in the 1960’s is really RECENT (especially in “emotional” or “cultural” time). And I find it’s not just current Southerners but whites (often Christians) out here in the supposedly progressive West, sometimes with Southern roots, that seem to subconsciously carry on resentments and (again, largely subconsciously) fear and blame blacks (along with Northern whites, esp. “Yankees” from the Northeast, no doubt).
Christian theology certainly carries perspectives and reasons to let all that go and receive healing, but I can’t say I personally know of a single church that seeks to include these kinds of wounds and sins in its emphasis on forgiveness and healing; or to minister directly to them. I know I’m probably just unaware of some, perhaps many, but I DO know quite a bit about many churches.
@Howard, you ask lots of good questions.
I would suggest that one person thinking about this systemically from a Christian perspective is Miraslov Volf. He is not particularly talking about race, but rather about forgiveness and grace. His primary context is genocide and Serbia, but I think a lot of the context is transferable. For Volf, the important part is that there has to be an honest acceptance of responsibility before there can be forgiveness and grace. And I think that is at least partially the problem in the US context. White privilege is real but denied. And I think that what your radio talk show host doesn’t understand is that white privilege is real today. Not just in the 1960s or the 1850s.
Three posts I have read/watched in the last 24 hours have talked about the role of white privilege.
This one talks about police invading their home because they thought there was an active robbery going and then reflecting that had they not been white things might not have ended as they did http://boingboing.net/2013/08/29/the-police-an-open-door-and.html
This one about the role of whites in using white privilege to respond to injustice (best of the three) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wf9QBnPK6Yg
And this one is a discussion between two Christian leaders about listening to those that are not priveldged in order to do the right thing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFxC8MEOnhg&feature=youtu.be
I do think there are churches that are leading on this. But there is not enough. And I don’t think it is necessarily a north/south thing. If you look at the recent segregation maps that are using 2010 data, cities in the north are just as segregated as those in the south. There is problems on all sides (and far beyond white and black).
But I do think you are right that this takes time. There are people alive today that were part of sharecropper households. There are those that still had black servants that were little different from slaves. But there is an explosion of multi-racial families. In my experience, the churches with the highest percentage of multi-racial families are leading. They are usually in locations where there is a real overlap in racial communities and often in cities.
One of the biggest problems is that in spite of the fact that we are a much more racially diverse country as recently as 1990, just over 50% of all African Americans in the country were inside the city limits of just 10 cities. And in 2000, 60 percent of all hispanics lived in 6 states. But 70 percent of whites lived in counties that were 80 percent or more white. (The stats are off the top of my head. I have done some work on them a while ago, so they may not be exact, but they are close.) We are just ignorant of one another in large part because we don’t know one another.
Thanks for the response and the referrals, Adam. My time is real limited right now. But I did want to affirm what you are saying… I see those factors also. And thanks for the focus on white privilege. I guess when times are hard for so many whites (as I am) also, we tend to forget how much harder they are for minorities. And many in the “take personal responsibility” (which is valid in and of itself, if not isolated) camp look at just the successful examples and assume all other minority (or otherwise less-privileged) people can/should do the same.
And I agree the issue is well beyond north/south. I maybe didn’t qualify adequately. I guess what I had mainly in mind there, without spelling out, is the “red state, blue state” phenomenon getting more pronounced, with the mainly-southern states pushing so hard on what I think are rightly called “voter suppression” laws and otherwise being almost totally obstructionist to federal controls (and to a President who happens to be black), etc. Some of that is not tied to north/south resentments, in many states, but in the South, I think a lot of it is, and race issues are wrapped right up in it.