Why We Must #ReclaimMLK | Sojourners

Why We Must #ReclaimMLK

A memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr gazes towards the Washington Monument i
A memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr gazes towards the Washington Monument in DC. Image courtesy Steve Heap/shutterstock.com

“Radical simply means grasping things at the root.” — Angela Davis

In cities and towns across our nation, this weekend’s coordinated actions for the #BlackLivesMatter movement center on reclaiming Martin Luther King Jr.’s radical legacy. As you may recall, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon and President Barack Obama — among others — invoked the nonviolence of King in their calls for peace following the non-indictment of Darren Wilson. As Martin Luther King Jr. Day approached, organizers had to field countless criticisms by white people telling them, “King wouldn’t approve of what you’re doing” and “I’ve studied his work, I know he wouldn’t react like you have.”

Based on comments like these, it stands to reason that white people in the United States may need a jolt of reality about King’s anti-capitalist agitation.

King was outspoken against capitalism’s oppressive clutch on both the national and global levels. King made it clear that racism and economics were intimately intertwined. I’m reminded of his classic quote, “What good is having the right to sit at a lunch counter if you can’t afford to buy a hamburger?”

King acknowledged that the discussion of class couldn’t be divorced from the discussion of race. While both conversations make us uncomfortable, somehow we would rather remember King as a civil rights leader only, and not also as a vocal critic of capitalism who instead favored a form of Democratic Socialism.

I often hear criticisms that protesters are disturbing the peace, employing overly aggressive tactics, and generally making people too uncomfortable. The hypocrisy in these claims is that King disturbed the peace, used aggressive tactics, and made people extremely uncomfortable. Why do we call for peace when what we mean is order?

King famously stated, “True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.”

Calling for the new movement leaders to take a lesson from King means, well, telling them to keep causing economic and social disturbance. Keep disrupting brunches in New York City. Keep blocking traffic in almost every major city across America. And keep agitating, organizing, and galvanizing.

Why is King’s message so palatable to the average American when he was actually quite critical of America’s chronic case of moderacy? I have never read such apt words from King than these:

“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action’; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a ‘more convenient season.’”

These words pierce straight through our misguided calls for “negative peace,” our frustration at being stuck in traffic, and our critiques of the methods used by seasoned organizers. White America is guilty: we are guilty of only allowing progress on our watch. We are guilty of desiring order rather than questioning the status quo. We want unity under the American identity, but are not willing to do the hard work to create an environment that makes unity possible.

King gets lip service in textbooks, streets and libraries named after him, and serves as an inspiring, warm light in our collective history. But never forget the violence inflicted by whites against him, his family and his fellow movement builders — violence inflicted because his message was genuinely threatening to business as usual. Reclaiming King’s radical legacy means grappling with the true meaning of his words and being willing to be changed by them. This Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I pray we will do the hard work of grasping racism at the root.

Charissa Laisy is Mobilizing Assistant for Sojourners.

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