We have come a long way since the brutal assassination of Dr. King. All Americans, including the oppressed in particular, have moved forward in the face of failure to advance the civil rights causes for ethnic minorities and gender. Schools have been desegregated and the playing field is fairer than when King died. However, the movement has become demoralized, fractured and rendered ineffective. (Look at Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Louis Farrakhan, affirmative action or the slavery reparations debate and tell me it is not.) Black and white militias still battle for the heart and souls of people, universities still cling to race-based initiatives and the leaders of the movement have either been disgraced or relegated to the shadows while, socially and economically, minorities and recent immigrants, both legal and illegal, jockey for the last slices of a shrinking pie. Looking at the current situation can lead one to become hopeless and resigned in the face of persistent inequalities and the daily struggle for existence. One wonders how we arrived at this point, and we affectionately long for the "good ol' days" when African-Americans and Jews stood side by side marching against inequalities and resisted the evil with an unconquerable will. Nevertheless, we should not be surprised at the collapse of the civil rights movement, seeing how we have strayed far from our model of success, Dr. King. Discerning his success becomes remarkably simple by analyzing his name in three parts: Doctor, Martin Luther and King.
The title "Doctor" represents his intelligence and learning. Like another great American thinker who shaped his era, Thomas Jefferson, King was trained in the liberal arts, the Judeo-Christian biblical tradition and the classics. Because of his training in the classics, especially in the Jewish and Christian Scripture, King wrote about, lectured on and advocated justice and equality for everyone in the universal "brotherhood" of humanity. If one reads his writings (they are found on the fifth floor of Baker library in five green volumes), you immediately notice that black, white, Hispanic or gender special interests are missing. His writings are so refreshing because he does not espouse a militant Afro-centric separatism or a radical feminist philosophy, but instead enumerates a philosophy of fraternity, equality, liberty and love.
Martin Luther, his first and middle names, represent the core of his teachings. All of his ideas about nonviolence and fraternity came directly out of the Bible and from the words of Christ. However, too many historians focus on Gandhi as the main inspiration for his ideals. The popular theory of Gandhian inspiration does not adequately detail King's extensive dependence on the idea of a personal God and his conviction about the dignity of each human being and does not acknowledge his debt to a number of philosophers for some of applications of nonviolent resistance as a workable strategy. Moreover, Christ Jesus and the God who liberated the slaves in Egypt formed the core of his thinking. To Dr. King, Gandhi's method was a tool to utilize the "Christian doctrine of love" as "one of the most potent weapons available to an oppressed people in their struggle."
His surname, King, represents an activist leader of the oppressed who rejects Booker T. Washington's doctrine of acceptance and assimilation. Previously, Theodor Herzl had risen up and declared that the Jews should no longer live in oppression and endure anti-Semitic racism; likewise Dr. King declared the American system unjust and that people have a right not to live under oppression. King led the people toward freedom by borrowing a doctrine of Paul Tillian: the union of love, power and justice. King maintained, "Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is love connecting everything that stands against love. Justice is a part of love's activity."
In purview of the thoughts of Dr. Martin Luther King, it's obvious why the civil rights movement is falling apart: the rise of secular militaristic "African-American" activism, a de-emphasis on Christ as Savior and Jehovah Jireh (God our provider) and emphasis on racial diversity instead of treating people as human beings and individuals.
King criticized the "Black Power" movement for its separatism, Afro-centrism, retaliatory rhetoric (a.k.a. Al Sharpton) and hatred for whites (a.k.a. the Nation of Islam abomination). King would be appalled by the enlightened policy of stressing the "diversity of cultures and multitudes of backgrounds" as a means of eliminating racism and promoting equality; he, instead, called for the education of all people (i.e. through the classics of the Western canon), political action (freedom from bias) and litigation (confrontation of the evil). Thus, the idea of ensuring "racial balance" and "diverse representation" do not appear in his framework. He would emphasize the uniqueness of each individual divorced from socio-economic status, race, gender or sexual orientation. He did not ask us to study the different cultures but to ensure the social framework was just and harmonious in order that all may live comfortably.
King would also have been appalled at the state of the church in society and the lack of a role for Christ in the individual lives of the people. The modern enlightened man, unlike Dr. King, creates a God to embellish his own fantasies or like Nietzsche feels he has no need for God and thus tries to pursue a worldly course of political power as an end. When our so-called Reverends can deny the resurrection and still try to fight for civil rights, it is little wonder that the movement is collapsing. It seems that we have become ashamed of our exclusive God who forbids violence and intervenes on behalf of the widow and the oppressed; instead, we embrace either a militant, bloodthirsty deity of black power or run toward a secular racist ideal motivated by a love of power and fame.
At this critical juncture in the civil rights movement, we, including blacks, minorities, Americans and people everywhere, need to extend King's message of Christ, justice, fraternity and equality to all the oppressed. After extending the message, we need to claim Yesha (salvation) for ourselves. Having departed from such perversions as the Nation of Islam, black power and "racial diversity," let us keep on and fight the good fight by remembering King's definition of proper race relations: "not by the color of their skin (and by extension their gender, socioeconomic status or sexual preference) but by the content of their character."
