In my previous two posts in this series on Dr. King, I’ve tried to point out some of the ways that the United States no longer understands his true legacy. In this one, I’ll try to address the question of why. What follows are some of my views on the matter. My goal is to raise the ideas and hope they lead to greater discussion.
Part of the problem, I think, is that most of the nation regards the civil rights movement as something that is over. For them, civil rights are an item the country checked off its collective “to do” list in the 1960s. No one disputes that things are much better now than they were fifty years ago. However, as I often mention to my students, merely pointing out that things are better than they used to be seems too self-congratulatory. It’s been more than fifty years since the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968. It’s been more than fifty years since Dr. King’s death. Isn’t fifty years long enough to move our expectations from “better than it used to be” to “as good as it should be”?
Dr. King & Changing Personal Outlooks
To make that change, however, requires a major reconstruction of values, and that is hard for people to do. As Thomas Jefferson famously once wrote in a different context, “All Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed.” Although written in 1776, it seems self-evident to me that Jefferson was correct in this characterization of human behavior. Dr. King lamented the stranglehold that poverty, racism, militarism, and materialism held on America during his life. How much easier for one to just ignore them as long as one’s evils are sufferable.
Besides, some will argue rhetorically, some parts of our nation’s history may show flaws, but hasn’t that history gotten us to where we are today? Again, this sets the bar of expectations too low. It relies on two assumptions that we shouldn’t takes as givens. First, it assumes that where we are today is the best place we could possibly be. Second, it takes for granted that how we arrived at the present is the only or best way we could have done so.
Political Control Tries to Silence Dr. King
I also suspect that we’ve forgotten Dr. King’s legacy because the powers that be want it that way. Look back closely at the three major pieces of civil rights legislation from the 1960s. They involve civil rights, voting, and housing. All three are things that are legal in nature. They are enforceable—each declares certain actions against the law. That means politicians and the court system can control the outcomes.
This is especially true of the Voting Rights Act. What better method of political control than to channel people’s anger into voting and make it part of the political process? This allows politicians to make changes that are just minimal enough to keep people happy but not significant enough to threaten stability. And, make no mistake, politicians want stability. It doesn’t matter what kind of politician they claim to be or what philosophy of government they espouse. (Think back to the first post in this series. How could anyone consider a man like Dr. King the most dangerous man in America, given his commitment to nonviolent protest and social justice? The answer, of course, is that he threatened order.) As long as things remain stable, politicians remain in control. Just so long, as Jefferson reminds us, that the evils produced by the system do not become insufferable.
Not a True Conspiracy
It is too easy, however, or at least insufficient, to blame all of this on some quasi-government conspiracy to subdue people through complacency. Sad to say, people practice plenty of self-censorship. For instance, the reader might have noticed that the first two posts in this series previously appeared in modified form in the self-proclaimed “academic journal” of the college where I teach. It was no problem getting this printed precisely because people now consider Dr. King a safe topic.
The next piece I submitted to the journal had to do with the longstanding role of government in the US economy. It was a good article—a short overview offering examples demonstrating there has never been a time in our nation’s history when the government didn’t have an economic role in our nation’s development. The journal rejected the piece, however, as unpalatable with the editor’s views despite the obviously factual and documented information it contained. It might have challenge someone’s viewpoint or threatened someone’s self-righteous religious faith in the infallibility of the market economy, and thus the editor would not print it. (Perhaps I should also have cited a chapter from an economics textbook on market failures. Sigh.)
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Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta
The Costs
The point is that by refusing to recognize reality, however uncomfortable they may find it, people hurt their collective well-being. That certainly applies to issues such as the influence of militarism and materialism cited by King. It applies to additional issues today such as global warming. People resist change on these issues because change requires new priorities and charting new courses of action. It requires leaving what’s comfortable and possibly even admitting that the way one used to do things was wrong or, at the very least, maladaptive. That’s never easy.
Perhaps, in conclusion, we can turn to more words from Dr. King. Speaking about the nation’s economic priorities, in the last sermon he ever gave King outlined what was on the line if the nation didn’t modify those priorities. When he phoned his weekly sermon to Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church on the last day of his life, he titled it, “Why America May Go to Hell.” For those who put personal ease and materialism before love for those around them, King wrote, “What you’re saying may get you a foundation grant but it won’t get you into the Kingdom of Truth.” For a nation that claims to have as many enthusiastic Christians as the US does, it’s a statement that should echo long and loud.
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