This year marks the 40th observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. As communities search for ways to honor him beyond a long weekend or retail sales, it’s worth asking whether we truly understand the measure of Dr. King’s legacy.
We need more than “I Have a Dream” and “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”
These, as taught and promoted, only touch the surface of the depth, breadth, and true genius of this thinker, scholar, sage, and pillar of strength and courage. The more I read, the more I change. His words, like those of any prophet bearing witness to me, capture not just my thinking but my heart. I don’t agree with everything, but for each point of disagreement, I can point to exactly where our thinking diverges because he was prolific, clear, and expansive in expressing his thoughts.
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All this leads me to believe that his best speech is the lecture he gave in Oslo, Norway, during his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance in December 1964.
The Rev. Dr. King lauded the achievements of man in soaring language. He said that despite all the “awe-inspiring” enduring progress, we are deficient and poor in spirit … “something basic is missing. … We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers.”
He explains that we have allowed the external, the things that help us in our daily lives, to eclipse in importance the internal, the things that are the reason we live. He called this imbalance a “lag” and admonished us to eliminate it. “When the ‘without’ of man’s nature subjugates the ‘within,’ dark storm clouds begin to form in the world.”
What strikes me the most is how, 40 years later, we still find ourselves in the same place.
Progress Made — and Reversed
1964 was a big year for King. His milestones that year signalled forward progress for the United States. His impact gave a hard shove to the ball already rolling towards Civil Rights for everyone: Blacks, the differently abled, the LGBTQ community, and women. In his lecture, he spoke of the progress and the hope it gave him.
He said, “The American people revealed great maturity by overwhelmingly rejecting a presidential candidate who had become identified with extremism, racism, and retrogression. … They defeated those elements in our society which seek to pit white against Negro and lead the nation down a dangerous Facists path.”
It is clear that, despite the gains, because we still have not eradicated the core problem he identified, our ability to live together as brothers, our world is now shifting back to where we were headed when he spoke. Clearly, the elements in our society he thought had been conquered were not, as we find ourselves with a president and Congress similar in philosophy to the one King proclaimed vanquished.
King talked about a freedom explosion. Many believed it was largely realized shortly after his death, and they rested in the belief that the vestiges of that miasma had almost dropped away. We can see that is not the case, as we watch “the few” hoard resources, invade sovereignties, demolish infrastructure, and strip supports and rights from still marginalized groups and criminalize their existence, under the mantra of “me first” and patriotism.
In his lecture, King reminds us: “… violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones. Violence is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding: it seeks to annihilate rather than convert.”
Time after time, we have seen that to be true. Instead of healing or resolution, our current approach to addressing disagreements of any kind (economic, moral, verbal, physical) widens breaches and seems to breed more of the same.
How Far We Still Have to Go
King was clear, saying, “The problem is far from solved. We still have a long, long way to go before the dream of freedom is a reality for the Negro in the United States.”
And despite how far down that road we have come, it still feels like we have at least that distance again to still go. Now we need the spirit, energy, and will that Dr. King said existed in 1964: “What the main sections of the civil rights movement in the United States are saying is that the demand for dignity, equality, jobs, and citizenship will not be abandoned or diluted or postponed. If that means resistance and conflict, we shall not flinch. We shall not be cowed. We are no longer afraid.”
The lecture discusses the enduring, devastating poverty that existed at a time when resources were available to eliminate it. Again, how is 1964 just like today? He said so much of value and substance on this subject, but this call to action stood out: “Ultimately a great nation is a compassionate nation. No individual or nation can be great if it does not have a concern for ‘the least of these’.”
War and seeking peace were other themes in the lecture, with King making the distinction that the absence of war was not the same as peace. He said, “We will not build a peaceful world by following a negative path. It is not enough to say ‘We must not wage war.’ It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it. We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but on the positive affirmation of peace.”
Correlating the survival of mankind to fixing major issues, Dr. King said, “All that I have said boils down to the point of affirming that mankind’s survival is dependent upon man’s ability to solve the problems of racial injustice, poverty, and war; the solution of these problems is in turn dependent upon man squaring his moral progress with his scientific progress, and learning the practical art of living in harmony.”
Take That Call to Action
To bring meaning to this holiday, we must take that call to action Dr. King so meaningfully put before the world in this lecture: “This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all men.”
Stop and read the lecture. It will give you the strength to answer the call.