Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stopped just short of calling the United States government a terrorist organization. He labeled it "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today," adding that we were a nation approaching spiritual death. He railed against the Vietnam War and American capitalism, reproaching the social and economic fundamentals of our society. And, while you may or may not have known about these radical positions of Dr. King, one thing is certain: you would never have learned about them from the sterilized, whitewashed portrayal of King so commonly presented today.
The Afro-American Society was responsible for organizing this year's Martin Luther King Day celebration. The slideshow preceding the keynote address was a montage of photographs from the civil rights movement. The theme was "Getting to the Mountaintop," a reference to one of King's most popular speeches -- one almost entirely about race. I doubt that anyone found these organizers, this introduction or this theme unusual. But, if the Afro-American Society had hosted a speaker who solely addressed King's opposition to the Vietnam War, chaos would have ensued.
If, instead of relating King's dream to Obama's inauguration, the keynote speaker had theorized about King's reaction to the Iraq War, he probably would have been accused of disrespecting the fight for racial equality. If you recall the Martin Luther King Day celebrations you've seen, they probably all focused on race. This theme is so prevalent that it seems almost mandatory.
Explicit or not, the African American struggle for racial equality has an undeserved monopoly on Dr. King's legacy. While King's contributions to the civil rights movement are absolutely both important and relevant, praise for such contributions almost always comes at the expense of discussing other beliefs of his that were equally important. Furthermore, even discussions of King's work for racial equality are usually narrow in scope.
I saw 13 Martin Luther King Day assemblies while in public school. It may be my own, limited experience to blame, but I never learned about the oppression of interned Japanese families, or of the brutalization and relocation of much of the Native American population, to name just two of the race-related atrocities that have occurred in this country over the past two hundred years. It seems counter-intuitive to discuss racial equality while consistently talking solely about one racial group.
Race relations in America undoubtedly have a long way to go. Try, if you can, to name a prominent Asian-American politician. But it is equally important to note that the other fundamentals of our nation that King criticized have hardly improved at all. The campaign on which King worked before his assassination was not related to race; rather it was a poor man's campaign. He remarked then that, "A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth." But, since the 1960s, economic inequality has only increased. And, whereas King said of warfare, "Injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of people normally humane ... cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love," we are now involved in two seemingly endless wars.
Dr. King was a polarizing, divisive figure in his era. This was not just because prejudiced bigots refused to acknowledge the equality of African Americans, but also because King advocated radical ideas. Fortunately, his message of racial tolerance is no longer radical, but I would argue that this makes his other messages even more salient.
Speakers such as those at "Getting to the Mountaintop" habitually tell us that, if he were alive today, King would applaud our progress, but remind us of the long road ahead. As the United States' military budget swells -- almost equaling the military budgets of the rest of the countries of the world, combined -- and the dichotomy between rich and poor expands, I believe such speakers grossly underestimate how far we are from fully realizing all of King's dreams.
