On this day of memoriam for the slain civil rights leader, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a time of reflection and perspective seems appropriate. Looking about at the seemingly pervasive culture of incivility and self-indulgent divisiveness today, it is difficult to see a way forward towards a more humane society. When even the suggestion that all people in the United States should have access to basic and affordable health care brings a chorus of derision, how can one hope for restoration of a social contract that affords liberty to all while protecting the most vulnerable? When education is touted as the key to global competitiveness and the future, teachers are being demonized by the top Education official of the land, and funding is doled out to the privileged at the expense of large numbers of children denied adequate resources for educational opportunity, what realistic hope can we see for that golden future? Yet Dr. King saw a world and a society that was at least as divided and in which the soil for growing a verdant future seemed even more barren, and he did not despair. He acted.
In that time, a Black man could be lynched simply for being on the road alone at night. A Black family could be denied public lodging simply because of skin color, as happened to me. The Governor of a State, supported by barricades and police, could stand in the doorway to publicly funded educational institutions reserved for Whites and deny Black youths entry. People did not talk about discrimination in employment based upon race and ethnicity; they simply did it as a matter of common practice. Black people who misunderstood the plain words of US Constitution, and thought that it provided a right to vote in public elections faced potential arrest or worse if they sought to go to the polls. The right of assembly to protest these injustices was a doubtful proposition, at best, that could lead to serious consequences, including death. This was the “America” that Dr. King faced.
He called upon the people of the country to look within and decide whether the society that they were actually living in reflected the kind of society that they aspired to live in. And despite the resistance to change that would undermine unjust privilege and ability to abuse power, the consciousness of the society changed. There was a belief, not in a perfect society, but that the fabric of society had become soiled and tattered. There was a consensus that the country could do better, be better, than it was. The vicious response to freedom and civil rights protesters, especially Whites who went to the South to support civil rights, sparked an awakening that transformed the nation.
Progress and change are not linear processes. There are steps forward and faltering retreats. We believe Human evolution is inexorable, but it is not constant or as persistent as we might like. There will be dissemblers and prevaricators, beyond the pale of honest debate, who seek retreat to the baser levels of humanity. Some will argue that maintaining the right to self defense and protection requires the permission of individuals to carry lethal weapons of indiscriminate and massive destruction in public, and try to wrap that justification in the cloak of patriotic rights. Some, who themselves are descendant from illegal immigrants to North America, would deny basic human and civil treatment of other immigrants who seek only a chance to invest their hard labor in order to build a life for themselves and their families. And there are those who claim the benefit of a nation of laws founded upon a principle of religious freedom and tolerance who would demonize, discriminate against and preach hatred against people because of their religious faith. Government of and for the people cannot do everything, but there are minimal things it must be willing to do to hold faith with its principles and ideals.
The outlook today seems bleaker, perhaps because there is at least some awareness that the vision described by Dr. King is potentially more attainable than ever, though it is at the same time more fragile. When we have made manifest laws and standards that prohibit unjust discrimination against people because of their race, gender, sexual orientation or religion, there is a subtle gut wrenching when we see public pronouncements by so-called leaders calling for revival of such base practices. There is, on some level, a fear of going backward into the pit from which we have climbed. We know that such “leaders” make such calls out of greed for privilege and power, not from any sense of integrity or belief in the common welfare. Yet they are listened to and followed nevertheless. Leaders are not rebuked or shunned who publicly advocate violence, directly or through rhetoric, against those who disagree with their agenda. This despite a basic understanding that the society can survive only if a system of change based upon the vote and not the bullet is preserved.
And so, in the wake of the recent attempted assassination and murders in Tucson, we honor the life of Dr. King who was taken from us by the same type of violence that is being condoned and even fomented by purported leaders of government and society. Many of the accepted “conservative” mantras faced by Dr. King have been proven false: Black and White children could not learn together, Catholics and Jews should not be allowed to live among “respectable” White folks, women did not deserve equal say with men on matters of importance, etc. Many of the ideas now being touted by today’s conservatives are equally unfounded: corporations have the same right to participation in the electoral process as human citizens, trillions of dollars can be spent on foreign wars while billions for health care and education at home is too expensive, fundamental rights of speech, privacy and against unnecessary search and seizure must be surrendered to meet some vague and pervasive notion of “national security,” etc.
Perhaps it is time to once again ask the question that Dr. King posed so eloquently. Is this the kind of society that we want to live in and maintain? Can we do better, and if we can, why don’t we? No one ever said that the climb would be easy. But the future is still within our grasp. We must decide whether to stand shoulder to shoulder with others to pull ourselves upward. We must lend our efforts along with those we disagree with on some issues, while agreeing that there is a common desire for all to succeed. Dr. King reminded us of the wisdom of Sir Edmund Burke: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” Dr. King declared, "History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people." People of good will and honest desire for a better society must do more than rue the decline, they must act.
If we can recall this, perhaps we will do honor to Dr. King, not just give lip service.
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