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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 13, 2016)
January 13, 2016 The Skanner Page 13 Honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Restoring the Memory of MLK — A Militant for the 21st Century D r. Martin Luther King, Jr. hasn’t been this alive since 1968. He’s no longer that visually distant, two-di- mensional figure, limit- ed to speaking a single sentence taken out of context and shorn of its true meaning. Instead, the honest scholarship and media commentary considering what King faced and what he did have broken through the obscuring fog of conser- vative and, yes, centrist propaganda. In part, that’s because today, the confrontation between the forces of progress and the racist reaction to that progress is sharper than any time since the 1960s. Today, as in the 1960s, American society is grappling with elevating new groups of Ameri- cans to full citizenship. Today, as in the 1960s, it’s being forced to con- front the meaning of Lee A. Daniels NNPA Columnist its widespread poverty and joblessness, and its diminished educational opportunity. Today, as in the 1960s, Black Ameri- cans’ right to vote is un- der siege from conser- vatives, as are women’s “ individuals’ access to opportunity. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s words and actions seem relevant again be- cause they’ve al- ways presented a challenge to the sta- tus quo and always urged individuals to live up to humanity’s best possibilities. That command has be- come particularly com- pelling again because of the remarkable juxtapo- when the conservative political ascendancy was at its height, Rev. Hosea Williams, one of King’s lieutenants during the civil rights struggles, said, “There is a defi- nite effort on the part of America to change Mar- tin Luther King, Jr. from what he was really about — to make him the Un- cle Tom of the century. “ Williams insisted, “In my mind, he was the militant of the century.” Dr. Martin Luther King Far less acknowledged is the courage it took for King – after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and his being awarded the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize – to resist the temptations of partial suc- cess and his own fame reproductive rights. And today, as in the 1960s, the country is debating the extent of government’s responsibility to protect sition of present-day de- velopments and anniver- saries of past landmark events. In the early 1990s, Jr.’s 13-year life on the na- tional stage brilliantly represented the courage it took in those decades to challenge the seeming- ly overwhelming power of the South’s racist pow- er structure. Far less acknowledged is the courage it took for King — after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and his being awarded the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize – to resist the temptations of partial success and his own fame. Instead, King kept mov- ing leftward, to confront the racial and economic injustice that had created and maintained the Black ghettos of the North, and the national hubris that had led America into the quagmire of war in Southeast Asia. His insistence that nonviolence was still a viable means of social change was ridiculed, as were his plans to stage a multiracial Poor Peo- ples March on Washing- ton and involve himself in the bitter sanitation worker’s strike in Mem- phis, Tenn. But those difficult years were actually King’s fin- est hours. At the moment of his assassination, he was standing where he had begun his public life: with ordinary Black people who were being unjustly denied their hu- man rights. King’s refusal to sub- mit offers a lesson to take to heart at this moment when conservative poli- ticians and theorists are trying to restore inequal- ity of opportunity as the law of the land. It tells us we should adopt King as The Mili- tant of the 21st Century, too. Lee A. Daniels, Lee A. Daniels is a longtime jour- nalist based in New York City. His essay, “Martin Luther King, Jr.: The Great Provocateur,” appears in Africa’s Peacemakers: Nobel Peace Laureates of African Descent,” to be published by Palgrave Macmillan in March.
