tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/martin-luther-king-day-14497/articlesMartin Luther King Day – The Conversation2024-01-10T19:11:47Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2201292024-01-10T19:11:47Z2024-01-10T19:11:47ZMartin Luther King Jr.’s moral stance against the Vietnam War offers lessons on how to fight for peace in the Middle East<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568105/original/file-20240106-29-vtf394.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=269%2C287%2C1769%2C1708&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., center, leads an anti-Vietnam War demonstration on March 16, 1967, in New York City. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/civil-rights-leader-rev-martin-luther-king-jr-is-news-photo/150253595?adppopup=true">AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since the onset of Israel’s deadly assault on Gaza and the West Bank after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack, <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/11/martin-luther-king-jr-mlk-israel-palestine-1967-video/">debates have arisen</a> among historians and media pundits about Martin Luther King Jr.’s stance on Israel and its conflicts with Palestinians.</p>
<p>Some claim King was a <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/martin-luther-king-and-israel">fierce Zionist</a> and point to his speech on Mar. 25, 1968, before the annual convention of the <a href="https://www.rabbinicalassembly.org/story/conversation-dr-martin-luther-king-jr">Rabbinical Assembly</a>.</p>
<p>“Peace for Israel means security, and we must stand with all of our might to protect its right to exist, its territorial integrity,” King said. “I see Israel as one of the great outposts of democracy in the world, and a marvelous example of what can be done, how desert land almost can be transformed into an oasis of brotherhood and democracy.” </p>
<p>Others, like American-Israeli scholar Martin Kramer, have pointed to <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/11/martin-luther-king-jr-mlk-israel-palestine-1967-video/">King’s views on Palestinian rights to their homeland</a>. During a 1967 interview with ABC News, shortly after Israel launched the <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/arab-israeli-war-1967">Six-Day War</a> against Egypt, Syria and Jordan and seized control of land in Gaza and the West Bank, King said that Israel should return Palestinian lands. </p>
<p>“I think for the ultimate peace and security of the situation it will probably be necessary for Israel to give up this conquered territory, because to hold on to it will only exacerbate the tensions and deepen the bitterness of the Arabs,” <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/11/martin-luther-king-jr-mlk-israel-palestine-1967-video/">he said</a>. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=J44UCvEAAAAJ&hl=en">scholar who researches social movements</a>, racial politics and democracy, I believe there is a larger story beyond King’s stance on Israel and Palestinians. That story is on King’s views of war – and his courage to stand for peace.</p>
<p>This is the story of the anti-war King who understood that <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/loving-your-enemies-sermon-delivered-detroit-council-churches-noon-lenten">violence begets violence</a> and that the political courage to speak for peace is essential to democracy. </p>
<h2>Breaking his silence</h2>
<p>For King, joining the peace movement was tantamount to walking a political tightrope. On one hand, the Civil Rights Movement had <a href="https://prde.upress.virginia.edu/conversations/4002519">a great supporter</a> in U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson, who signed the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2004/summer/civil-rights-act#:%7E:text=On%20the%20same%20day%20President,Voting%20Rights%20Act%20of%201965.">Civil Rights Act of 1964</a> and the <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/voting-rights-act-1965">Voting Rights Act of 1965</a>. </p>
<p>But LBJ was also at the heart of the <a href="https://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/11202009/profile.html">escalation of the war</a> in Vietnam, and many believed <a href="https://time.com/5505453/martin-luther-king-beyond-vietnam/">King’s anti-war statements</a> could and would be used against him.</p>
<p>The U.S. government’s hypocrisy in supporting the Vietnam War was not lost on King.</p>
<p>In 1965, <a href="https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/active_learning/explorations/vietnam/vietnam_pubopinion.cfm">61% of Americans supported</a> U.S. military involvement. </p>
<p>At the same time, King was asking hard questions about Johnson’s wartime decision-making and unmet promises of social uplift through his <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/22/opinion/vietnam-war-great-society.html">Great Society</a> programs. King wondered how a nation could drop tons of bombs and napalm on civilians in <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/vietnam-war#:%7E:text=In%20his%20last%20Sunday%20sermon,Remaining%20Awake%2C%E2%80%9D%20219">the name of peace and freedom</a> while violently subjugating its own Black citizens. </p>
<p>How could a nation spend so much money on a war, King asked, when it could not feed or protect its own people? </p>
<p>“The promises of the Great Society have been shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam,” <a href="https://www.aavw.org/special_features/speeches_speech_king02.html">King said</a> in a speech in Beverly Hills on Feb. 25, 1967. “Billions are liberally expended for this ill-considered war. … The security we profess to seek in foreign adventures we will lose in our decaying cities. The bombs in Vietnam explode at home. They destroy the hopes and possibilities for a decent America.”</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.nps.gov/gwmp/learn/historyculture/lbjandmlk.htm">Johnson administration</a> argued that military force was essential to protect South Vietnam from the encroachment of communism from the north. As Johnson saw it, North Vietnam and its National Liberation Front were a threat to democracy in Southeast Asia.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A white man is shaking the hands of a Black man as a crowd of other men stand behind them." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568329/original/file-20240108-19-jsmytv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568329/original/file-20240108-19-jsmytv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568329/original/file-20240108-19-jsmytv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568329/original/file-20240108-19-jsmytv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568329/original/file-20240108-19-jsmytv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568329/original/file-20240108-19-jsmytv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568329/original/file-20240108-19-jsmytv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson, left, shakes hands with Martin Luther King Jr. after signing the Civil Rights Act on July 3, 1964, at the White House.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-lyndon-johnson-shakes-hands-with-the-us-clergyman-news-photo/150253569?adppopup=true">AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>King’s <a href="https://www.thirteen.org/blog-post/martin-luther-kings-most-controversial-speech-beyond-vietnam/">advisers pleaded</a> with him not to speak out and argued that the political costs would be too high. Most importantly, they reminded King that there was more than enough work to do in the U.S. to end poverty and secure equal rights for Black citizens. </p>
<p>But King ultimately broke with his advisers and President Johnson. </p>
<p>By 1967, King followed the lead of his wife – and anti-war activist – <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/02/coretta-scott-king/552557/">Coretta Scott King</a> and began speaking out. </p>
<p>In March 1967, King led his first anti-war march in Chicago. <a href="https://www.jofreeman.com/photos/KingAtChicago.html">At the rally</a>, he called on peace activists to organize “as effectively as the war hawks.” </p>
<p>A month later, on April 4, 1967, King gave the speech at the Riverside Church in New York City that changed the course of the last year of his life – <a href="https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm">“Beyond Vietnam − A Time to Break the Silence</a>.” In that <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/beyond-vietnam">revolutionary speech</a>, King described how he was morally compelled to speak out against the war.</p>
<p>In the days and weeks after, he would lose masses of supporters, Black and white alike. He lost hard-earned political allies, <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/johnson-lyndon-baines">including President Johnson</a>.</p>
<p>King was also shunned and denounced by <a href="https://www.npr.org/2010/03/30/125355148/the-story-of-kings-beyond-vietnam-speech">168 newspapers</a> that questioned King’s failure to condemn the enemy, fueling long-standing rumors about communist ties.</p>
<h2>Saving the soul of America</h2>
<p>King had no regrets.</p>
<p>He understood the difficulty of speaking out against the war. “Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government’s policy, especially in time of war,” he said. </p>
<p>For King, a preacher at heart, silence had become betrayal.</p>
<p>Calling the U.S “the greatest purveyor of violence today,” King said the soul of America “can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over.” He warned that America had lost moral authority abroad and derided “the deadly Western arrogance that has poisoned the international atmosphere for so long.”</p>
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<img alt="A Black man wearing a dark suit stands behind a lecturn atop a sign that says clergy and laymen concerned about Vietnam." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568104/original/file-20240106-27-wlq19b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568104/original/file-20240106-27-wlq19b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568104/original/file-20240106-27-wlq19b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568104/original/file-20240106-27-wlq19b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568104/original/file-20240106-27-wlq19b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1265&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568104/original/file-20240106-27-wlq19b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1265&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568104/original/file-20240106-27-wlq19b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1265&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Martin Luther King Jr. speaks at an anti-Vietnam War demonstration on Feb. 6, 1968, in Washington, D.C.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/view-of-american-civil-rights-leader-dr-martin-luther-king-news-photo/156039788?adppopup=true">Joseph Klipple/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>King pointed to the role of the U.S. in prohibiting the realization of “a revolutionary government seeking self-determination” in Vietnam.</p>
<p>Most poignantly in that 1967 speech at Riverside Church, King detailed the devastating costs of the Vietnam War and described the millions of children and women who were killed by American bombs and bullets and the poor masses who were spared slaughter only to face a slow, painful death by disease and starvation. </p>
<p>Then King turned to the so-called “enemy,” the North Vietnamese. “Even if we do not condone their actions,” King said in the speech, “surely we must see that the men we supported pressed them to their violence. Surely we must see that our own computerized plans of destruction simply dwarf their greatest acts.” </p>
<p>Then King called for a cease-fire. </p>
<h2>The fight for justice and humanity</h2>
<p>King’s words resonate today. </p>
<p>Unlike in King’s time, <a href="https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2023/12/5/voters-want-the-us-to-call-for-a-permanent-ceasefire-in-gaza-and-to-prioritize-diplomacy">61% of potential voters support</a> a permanent cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. Anti-war <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/12/09/palestinian-protests-us-israel-gaza-war">protests abound across the nation</a> and <a href="https://acleddata.com/2023/11/07/infographic-global-demonstrations-in-response-to-the-israel-palestine-conflict/">around the world</a>. </p>
<p>How can the U.S., as King would ask the nation, move forward from here? </p>
<p>In the 1960s, King grappled with this very question. On the one hand, he felt a deep solidarity with the Jewish struggle against persecution, and on the other hand, he rejected the violent occupation of Palestinian lands that would run counter to the noble cause. </p>
<p>He saw resolution through a commitment to breaking cycles of violence and practicing radical peace, “a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class, and nation.”</p>
<p>Nearly 60 years later, the fight for King’s “radical revolution of values,” where human life and dignity were the most valued, still rages. But as the life of King reminds us, speaking out for justice can be costly. Yet he would also say that the cost of remaining silent is far greater.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220129/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hajar Yazdiha does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. knew the political consequences of speaking out against the Vietnam War − and he did it anyway.Hajar Yazdiha, Assistant Professor of Sociology, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and SciencesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1699162022-01-12T19:54:42Z2022-01-12T19:54:42ZHow the Vietnam War pushed MLK to embrace global justice, not only civil rights at home<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438266/original/file-20211217-25-1otqfqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C22%2C2964%2C2133&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Lyndon B. Johnson, right, talks with Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders in his White House office in Washington, D.C., Jan. 18, 1964.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/USPRESIDENTJOHNSONKING/d22cce379ce5da11af9f0014c2589dfb/photo?Query=King%20johnson&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=689&currentItemNo=5">AP Photo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On July 2, 1964, Martin Luther King Jr. stood behind President Lyndon Baines Johnson as the Texan signed into law <a href="https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=97">the Civil Rights Act of 1964</a>. Although not the first civil rights bill passed by Congress, it was the most comprehensive.</p>
<p>King <a href="https://taylorbranch.com/king-era-trilogy/pillar-of-fire/">called the law’s passage</a> “a great moment … something like the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation by Abraham Lincoln.” Johnson recognized King’s contributions to the law by gifting him a pen used to sign the historic legislation.</p>
<p>A year later, as Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law, King again <a href="https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Voting_Rights_Act_of_1965.htm">joined the president for the occasion</a>.</p>
<p>But by the start of 1967, <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/johnson-lyndon-baines">the two most famous men in America were no longer on speaking terms</a>. In fact, they would not meet again before King fell to an assassin’s bullet on April 4, 1968. </p>
<p>King was foremost a minister who pastored to a local church throughout his career, even while he was doing national civil rights work. And he became concerned that his political ally Johnson was making a grave moral mistake in Vietnam. <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/johnson-announces-more-troops-to-vietnam">Johnson quickly escalated</a> American troop presence in Vietnam from 75,000 to 125,000 in 1965. And by 1968, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2015/03/the-vietnam-war-part-i-early-years-and-escalation/389054/">more than a half a million troops</a> were stationed in the Southeast Asian nation.</p>
<p>As I write in my 2021 book “<a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469663005/nonviolence-before-king/">Nonviolence Before King</a>,” the Baptist preacher had been on a “<a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/pilgrimage-nonviolence">pilgrimage to nonviolence</a>” for years. And by 1967, he was a radical apostle of Christian nonviolence. </p>
<p>King called on the United States to “<a href="https://www.plough.com/en/topics/justice/social-justice/where-do-we-go-from-here">be born again</a>” and undergo a “<a href="https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm">radical revolution of values</a>.” King believed that Jim Crow segregation and the war in Vietnam were rooted in the same unjust ethic of race-based domination, and he called on the nation to change its ways. </p>
<h2>Speaking against the Vietnam War</h2>
<p>King preached nonviolent direct action for years, and his team organized massive protest movements in the cities of Albany, Georgia, and Selma and Birmingham in Alabama. But by 1967, King’s religious vision for nonviolence went beyond nonviolent street protest to include abolishing what he called the “<a href="https://thekingcenter.org/about-tkc/the-king-philosophy/">triple evils</a>” crippling American society. King defined the triple evils as racism, poverty and militarism, and he believed these forces were contrary to God’s will for all people.</p>
<p>He came to believe, as he said in 1967, that racism, economic exploitation and war were crippling America’s ability to create a “beloved community” defined by love and nonviolence. And on April 4, 1967, he publicly rebuked the president’s war policy in Vietnam at Riverside Presbyterian Church in New York City in a speech titled “Beyond Vietnam.”</p>
<p>“I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam,” he told those gathered in the majestic cathedral. “I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home, and death and corruption in Vietnam.”</p>
<p>King was initially optimistic that <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/1600/presidents/lyndonbjohnson">Johnson’s Great Society program</a>, which aimed to make historic investments in job growth, job training and economic development, would tackle domestic poverty. But by 1967 the Great Society appeared to be a casualty of the mounting costs of the war in Vietnam. “I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such,” <a href="https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm">King said in his speech</a>. </p>
<p>King saw the grinding poverty facing Black people at home as inseparable from the war overseas. As he <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/a-testament-of-hope-martin-luther-king?variant=32117034778658">noted</a>, “If our nation can spend 35 billion dollars a year to fight an unjust, evil war in Vietnam, and 20 billion dollars to put a man on the moon, it can spend billions of dollars to put God’s children on their own two feet right here on earth.” </p>
<p>King could no longer ignore that military force ran contrary to the nonviolence he espoused. As <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/11/nyregion/newark-riots-50-years.html">urban revolts</a> in Watts and Newark in the late 1960s rocked the nation, he pleaded with people to remain nonviolent.</p>
<p>“But they ask – and rightly so – what about Vietnam?” <a href="https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm">King said in the same 1967 speech</a>. “They ask if our own nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today – my own government.”</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438537/original/file-20211220-18663-glbf04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Led by Martin Luther King Jr., several men dressed in black suits march in a rally. Ahead of them are police officers holding rifles." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438537/original/file-20211220-18663-glbf04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438537/original/file-20211220-18663-glbf04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438537/original/file-20211220-18663-glbf04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438537/original/file-20211220-18663-glbf04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438537/original/file-20211220-18663-glbf04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438537/original/file-20211220-18663-glbf04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438537/original/file-20211220-18663-glbf04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Martin Luther King Jr. leads the march against the Vietnam conflict in a parade on State Street in Chicago on March 25, 1967.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ANTIVIETNAMMARCHSPOCKKING/7c39064f64e5da11af9f0014c2589dfb/photo?Query=MLK%20vietnam&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=12&currentItemNo=3">AP Photo</a></span>
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<h2>King’s vision</h2>
<p>By 1967, King’s vision of justice was one of flourishing for all people, not only civil rights for African Americans. King was criticized for expanding his vision beyond civil rights for Black Americans. Some worried that aligning with the peace movement would weaken the civil rights movement. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/vietnam-war">even issued a statement</a> clearly opposing what it saw as a merging of the civil rights and peace movements. </p>
<p>But in his 1967 “Beyond Vietnam” speech, King called “for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class, and nation … an all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind.” Such unconditional love is “the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality,” and he noted that this unifying principle was present in Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism and Buddhism. </p>
<p>King was always first a religious leader. He never sought nor gained elected office, because he wanted to maintain a moral voice and be free to challenge policies he believed to be unjust. </p>
<p>But the cost for King’s speaking out was high: By the time of his assassination, <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/04/04/martin-luther-king-jr-50-years-assassination-donald-trump-disapproval-column/482242002/">King’s national approval rating was at an all-time low</a>. </p>
<p>He was not a morally perfect man. Declassified files show how the FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover tried to target King over his extramarital affairs. Hoover <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/01/18/956741992/documentary-exposes-how-the-fbi-tried-to-destroy-mlk-with-wiretaps-blackmail">used a wiretap to tape King having sex with other women</a> and sent those to his wife, Coretta Scott King, with a letter indicating King should kill himself because of his moral transgressions.</p>
<h2>Honoring King</h2>
<p>For those seeking to honor King’s legacy today, his religious nonviolence is demanding. It asks that people go beyond acts of service and charity – as important as those are – to both speak and act against violence and racism as well as to organize to end those pernicious forces.</p>
<p>[<em>3 media outlets, 1 religion newsletter.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?nl=religion&source=religion-3-in-1">Get stories from The Conversation, AP and RNS.</a>]</p>
<p>It is a radical concept of love that demands we embrace those we know and those we don’t, to acknowledge, <a href="https://www2.oberlin.edu/external/EOG/BlackHistoryMonth/MLK/CommAddress.html">as King said</a>, “that all life is interrelated, that somehow we’re caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny.” </p>
<p>On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the challenge may be to decipher the meaning of this idea in action for our own lives. The future of what King called <a href="https://thekingcenter.org/about-tkc/the-king-philosophy/">the beloved community</a> depends on it – a world at peace because justice is present.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s Note: This article has been updated with the correct location of Albany.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/169916/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthony Siracusa does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>MLK’s vision for nonviolence included abolishing what he called triple evils – racism, poverty and militarism.Anthony Siracusa, Senior Director of Inclusive Culture and Initiatives, University of Colorado BoulderLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1528042021-01-15T14:52:18Z2021-01-15T14:52:18ZHow the Ebenezer Baptist Church has been a seat of Black power for generations in Atlanta<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378667/original/file-20210113-21-to5m5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C0%2C2924%2C2477&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. preaching from his pulpit in 1960 at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/dr-martin-luther-king-jr-preaching-from-his-pulpit-circa-news-photo/84374096?adppopup=true">Dozier Mobley/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The high-stakes <a href="https://apnews.com/article/4b82ba7ee3cc74d33e68daadaee2cbf3">U.S. Senate race in Georgia</a> catapulted the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church back into the spotlight. For 135 years, the church played a vital role in the fight against racism and the civil rights movement. It was the spiritual home of the civil rights leader, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. </p>
<p>It is now the home of the state’s first Black senator – the Rev. Raphael Warnock, the senior pastor at the church. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://virginia.academia.edu/JasonOEvans">scholar</a> of African American religion and Christian theology, I believe it is important to understand how the Ebenezer Baptist Church has been a seat of Black power and organizing for generations in Atlanta. </p>
<h2>‘Stone of help’</h2>
<p>Ebenezer Baptist Church, a predominantly African American congregation, was founded in 1886, nearly 20 years after the end of the Civil War. The pastor, Rev. John Andrew Parker, served as Ebenezer’s first pastor from 1886 to 1894. Little is known about Parker and Ebenezer’s early years. But according to historian Benjamin C. Ridgeway, Parker <a href="https://www.arcadiapublishing.com/Products/9780738567983">organized the church in a small building</a> located on Airline Avenue in Atlanta. </p>
<p>The name Ebenezer, meaning “stone of help,” comes from the Hebrew Bible. In the <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Samuel+7&version=NRSV">First Book of Samuel</a>, the Israelites are said to have gathered in the town of Mizpah to offer burnt offerings to God. When their enemies, the Philistines, received notice that the Israelites were in Mizpah, they sent forces to attack them. </p>
<p>With God’s help, the Philistines were eventually defeated. Prophet Samuel then named a large stone “Ebenezer” to remind the Israelites of God’s intervention in their battle against the Philistine army.</p>
<p>As historians Roswell F. Jackson and Rosalyn M. Patterson observed in their 1989 article, “The selection of the name Ebenezer, ‘<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Samuel+7%3A12&version=NIV">Stone of help</a>,’ <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3031497">was profoundly prophetic</a>.” In their view, Ebenezer’s name proved fitting to describe the role the church would come to have in the subsequent civil rights movement.</p>
<h2>Growth of the church</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/williams-adam-daniel-d">Rev. Adam Daniel Williams</a>, the maternal grandfather of King, served as second pastor from 1894 to 1931. Williams led the Ebenezer Church into the 20th century as a religious community mobilized to fight the segregationist policies plaguing the African American community in the state of Georgia.</p>
<p>By 1913, the church had grown from 13 to nearly 750 members. Williams developed a distinct form of <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/social-gospel">the social gospel</a>, which emphasized the importance of African Americans owning businesses and taking social action against racial and economic injustice in their local communities. </p>
<p>Known for his powerful preaching, impressive organizing and leadership skills, Williams led several initiatives, including boycotts against a <a href="https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=rfh&AN=ATLA0000806693&site=eds-live">local Atlanta newspaper</a>, “The Georgian,” which was known for using racist language against African Americans.</p>
<p>In 1906, Williams led a fight to end the white primary system which prohibited African Americans from voting in the Georgia primaries. In 1917, Williams helped establish the Atlanta chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the NAACP. </p>
<p>A year later, he was elected as branch president of the Atlanta chapter of the NAACP, and, within five months of his tenure, the chapter’s membership grew to 1,400. </p>
<p>As religious historian Lewis Baldwin remarks in his book “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-voice-of-conscience-9780195380309?lang=en&cc=us">The Voice of Conscience</a>,” “Clearly, Williams used the [Ebenezer] church as a power base and rallying point for such activities, an approach that would also be used by [Martin Luther] King, Sr. and King, Jr.” </p>
<h2>Working for social change</h2>
<p>Following Williams’ death in 1931, <a href="http://www.beacon.org/Daddy-King-P1233.aspx">the Rev. Martin Luther King Sr.</a>, Ebenezer’s assistant pastor and Williams’ son-in-law, became the church’s third pastor. During his 40-year tenure as pastor, “Daddy” King, as he was affectionately known, led Ebenezer with a mixture of evangelical faith and progressive social action.</p>
<p>Finding warrant for social action in the Christian scriptures, King Sr. challenged other Black churches to embrace the <a href="https://www.wjkbooks.com/Products/0664257305/a-theology-for-the-social-gospel.aspx">social gospel</a> – a late 19th-century Protestant movement that emphasized the application of the Christian message to the social and moral concerns of society. </p>
<p>Moreover, <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/king-martin-luther-sr">King Sr.</a> led marches and rallies to protest discriminatory and segregationist policies in the city of Atlanta, including the desegregation of the Atlanta Police Department and the Atlanta Board of Education. In the first 15 years of King Sr.’s pastorate at Ebenezer, <a href="https://www.arcadiapublishing.com/Products/9780738567983">church membership grew to 3,700</a>. </p>
<h2>MLK’s spiritual home</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Martin Luther King, Jr., Ebenezer Baptist Church" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378666/original/file-20210113-23-dguvdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=83%2C16%2C5442%2C3642&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378666/original/file-20210113-23-dguvdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378666/original/file-20210113-23-dguvdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378666/original/file-20210113-23-dguvdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378666/original/file-20210113-23-dguvdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378666/original/file-20210113-23-dguvdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378666/original/file-20210113-23-dguvdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Martin Luther King Jr. Annual Commemorative Service at Ebenezer Baptist Church on Jan. 21, 2019 in Atlanta, Ga.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/general-view-of-2019-martin-luther-king-jr-annual-news-photo/1097478548?adppopup=true">Paras Griffin/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ebenezer came into the global spotlight when Martin Luther King Jr. accepted the call to join his father as co-pastor in 1960. Before then, King had pastored <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/dexter-avenue-baptist-church-montgomery-alabama">Dexter Avenue Baptist Church</a> in Montgomery, Alabama from 1954 to 1959. </p>
<p>During his tenure at Dexter Avenue, King served as president of the Montgomery Improvement Association, the organization which successfully led the Montgomery Bus Boycott from Dec. 5, 1955 to Dec. 20, 1956. In 1959, King resigned from his position as pastor at Dexter Avenue to serve alongside his father as well as serve as president of the <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/southern-christian-leadership-conference-sclc">Southern Christian Leadership Conference</a>, which is also based in Atlanta.</p>
<p>From the pulpit of Ebenezer, King preached some of his more memorable sermons. In one of his sermons published in a collection titled “<a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/a-testament-of-hope-martin-luther-king?variant=32117034778658">The Strength to Love</a>,” King describes racial prejudice as indicative of “softmindedness,” a person’s tendency to uncritically adhere to unsupportable beliefs. </p>
<p>In the same sermon, titled “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/610562/strength-to-love-by-martin-luther-king-jr/">A Tough Mind and a Tender Heart</a>,” King argued, “Race prejudice is based on groundless fears, suspicions, and misunderstandings.” To overcome this, King argued that human beings must cultivate both a tough mind and a tender heart, a joining of a critical mind with a concern for fellow human beings.</p>
<p>This message reverberates in contemporary movements for racial equity and justice, including the <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520292710/making-all-black-lives-matter">Black Lives Matter</a> movement. While many <a href="https://theconversation.com/far-from-being-anti-religious-faith-and-spirituality-run-deep-in-black-lives-matter-145610">BLM members are not affiliated</a> with any organized religion, <a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479836482/stay-woke/">the movement</a> emphasizes the importance of spiritual wellness for African Americans as they fight for Black liberation.</p>
<p>Since its inception, Ebenezer Baptist Church has been an institution in which evangelical fervor and progressive social activism joined to foster societal change. </p>
<p>This year, the COVID-19 pandemic has prevented the spiritual home of King from hosting the annual commemorative service in honor of the slain civil rights leader, which usually draws 1,700 attendees. But attention to the church has been renewed following <a href="https://theconversation.com/with-his-victory-raphael-warnock-becomes-a-member-of-a-select-club-pastor-politician-151258">the election of Pastor Warnock to the U.S. Senate</a>. </p>
<p>One cannot appreciate the importance of MLK Day without understanding the tradition that formed one of America’s most influential civil rights leaders.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/152804/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jason Oliver Evans does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The church has played a vital role in America’s civil rights struggle. It was the spiritual home to MLK, to the generations that shaped the vision of the late civil rights leader, and now to Sen. Raphael Warnock.Jason Oliver Evans, Ph.D. Student in Religious Studies, University of VirginiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1307422020-01-31T13:00:21Z2020-01-31T13:00:21ZAs Democratic primaries near, educators can teach hope to a polarized citizenry<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312895/original/file-20200130-41503-5dy1my.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Volunteers in Iowa ahead of the Iowa caucus listening to a speaker on Jan. 25, 2020.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/keith-anthony-sikora-dressed-in-a-bernie-sanders-jumpsuit-news-photo/1196182716?adppopup=true"> Stephen Maturen/ AFP via Getty images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With the <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/1/28/21083472/2020-democratic-primary-polls-iowa-caucuses-winning">Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary approaching</a> many Americans are <a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2020/01/27/iowa-caucuses-second-choices-really-matter-andrew-yang-joe-biden-donald-trump/4590288002/">making their choice</a>, although there are those who are still struggling with who to vote for. </p>
<p>Elections often inspire hope, but that hope can quickly turn to political despair when candidates fall short of voters’ expectations. </p>
<p>As a <a href="http://sarahstitzlein.wixsite.com/portfolio">philosopher</a> who specializes in citizenship education and political theory, I believe that political hope can be taught in schools and colleges. As I argue in my <a href="https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780190062651.001.0001/oso-9780190062651">new open-access book</a>, hope can lay a pathway to help citizens make good choices at the ballot box and sustain political engagement well after the polls close.</p>
<h2>Despair in democracy</h2>
<p>A <a href="https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/article/danger-deconsolidation-democratic-disconnect">recent study</a> published in the Journal of Democracy found that across the globe citizens have “become more cynical” about the value of a democratic system and “less hopeful” of their ability to influence public policy. </p>
<p>In the United States, people are <a href="https://www.infoagepub.com/products/Democracys-Discontent-and-Civic-Learning">disenchanted with democracy</a> for many reasons. Some felt former President Barack Obama <a href="https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2017/jan/05/tracking-obamas-top-25-campaign-promises/">fell short</a> of meeting his bold promises, from offering more retirement account options for the poor to providing universal health care. Similarly, while Trump was <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40686613">regarded as a “savior” figure</a> in some communities, some of his supporters now find their <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/midway-through-first-term-trump-is-not-meeting-the-publics-modest-expectations-for-his-job-performance-poll-finds/2019/01/27/09d95210-20dc-11e9-9145-3f74070bbdb9_story.html?utm_term=.d9747d10a66a">expectations were not met</a>. </p>
<p>A much larger reason for being frustrated is that, as scholar <a href="http://polisci.berkeley.edu/people/person/wendy-brown">Wendy Brown</a> points out, economic ideologies have made many Americans <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/undoing-demos">less inclined to pursue</a> what is in the common good. A shift toward self-interest also moves people away from democratic behavior. It <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/distrust-american-style-diversity-and-the-crisis-of-public-confidence/oclc/495254779?referer=di&ht=edition">contributes to distrust of fellow citizens</a>, and it could bring cynicism about the effectiveness of democratic government. </p>
<h2>Teaching political hope</h2>
<p>Rather than despair, my research shows that our presidential election season is an <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/852/852-h/852-h.htm">opportunity for educators, parents and community leaders</a> to open up inquiry. Here are a few things they can do to develop more hopeful citizens. </p>
<ul>
<li><p>Help students explore real <a href="https://tischcollege.tufts.edu/research/republic-still-risk-and-civics-part-solution">social and political problems</a> to better understand citizens’ struggles and needs both in the past and today. Martin Luther King Day and Black History Month, for example, could be used as opportunities to showcase the hopeful endeavors of leaders and everyday citizens who fight for civil rights and against the political despair of the times. </p></li>
<li><p>Challenge growing citizens to see that genuine political hope is a call to ongoing collective work. Programs such as the <a href="https://freechild.org/">Freechild Institute</a> and the <a href="https://www.mikvachallenge.org/">Mikva Challenge</a> provide a model for how to mobilize students to act to improve their communities. In these programs, young people are encouraged to identify problems and are supported in expressing their views about them. Students can learn how to <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Hope-and-Healing-in-Urban-Education-How-Urban-Activists-and-Teachers-are/Ginwright/p/book/9781138797574">imagine better futures</a> and take steps toward it.</p></li>
<li><p>Reaffirm the value of shared political governance. An example of such mentoring comes from a <a href="http://inside.augsburg.edu/publicachievement/work-in-progress/">school in Minneapolis</a> where students became concerned that one school had a large playground while another one, next to it, had very little playground facilities. Instead of harboring hostile feelings, students took positive actions. They surveyed students of both schools and gathered evidence on the impact of the inequality. They also worked with the school administrations and the local press to voice their concerns. In the end, students put forward a proposal that was fairer toward everyone. In the process, students learned how to <a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/pragmatism-and-social-hope/9780231144582">listen, collaborate</a> and build trust – something all citizens should learn.</p></li>
</ul>
<h2>Expressing dissent</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255904/original/file-20190128-39344-1bdk2dt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255904/original/file-20190128-39344-1bdk2dt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255904/original/file-20190128-39344-1bdk2dt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255904/original/file-20190128-39344-1bdk2dt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255904/original/file-20190128-39344-1bdk2dt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255904/original/file-20190128-39344-1bdk2dt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255904/original/file-20190128-39344-1bdk2dt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Teachers can teach students how to not only express dissatisfaction, but help others understand it as well.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/tallahassee-florida-united-states-february-21-1030477669?src=_TN_l-dLSzzYjh9DY0PmxA-1-0">KMH Photovideo/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Teachers can also help their students understand <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Teaching-for-Dissent-Citizenship-Education-and-Political-Activism/Stitzlein/p/book/9781612052298">the relationship between hope and dissent</a>. When citizens focus on the improved future they hope for, they may become frustrated with how things are now. </p>
<p>For example, after a gunman killed 17 students at a high school in Parkland, Florida, students from that school and across the U.S. staged widespread protests <a href="https://theconversation.com/teaching-students-how-to-dissent-is-part-of-democracy-93046">demanding safer schools</a>. </p>
<p>Some educators helped students learn how to not only express dissatisfaction, but help others understand it. Some teachers, for example, helped students describe the problems and experience of gun violence by creating <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/03/14/593433911/across-the-country-students-walk-out-to-protest-gun-violence">press packets</a>. Parents aided children in constructing messages to share with <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article204511654.html">legislators</a>.</p>
<p>Students learned how to put forward solutions to be discussed and tested. Members of the school newspaper were guest editors of a U.S. edition of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/commentisfree/2018/mar/23/parkland-students-manifesto-americas-gun-laws">The Guardian</a> a British newspaper, which outlined their vision for change. </p>
<h2>Questioning power structures</h2>
<p>Educators can cultivate critical thinking. This is not just the deep thinking that most of us expect in all classes. It is thinking that <a href="https://democracyeducationjournal.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1302&context=home">interrogates power structures</a>, identifies injustice and asserts principles of democracy. </p>
<p>Following the shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown Jr. in Ferguson, some educators, for example, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/08/how-to-teach-kids-about-whats-happening-in-ferguson/379049/">helped students understand</a> the history of racism in order to better critique policing injustice today and describe an America where <a href="https://www.rethinkingschools.org/books/title/teaching-for-black-lives">black lives matter</a>.
When students learn this history, their critiques of the present and their vision for the future are better informed. </p>
<h2>Tell a story</h2>
<p>Finally, educators can nurture imagination and support students in constructing stories about improved ways of living. Stories show examples of how to take action and why it’s worthwhile to do so. </p>
<p>Storytelling also includes listening to the needs of others. Learning how to pay attention to the lives of others can improve citizens’ visions for the future. </p>
<p>As Americans head to the polls, universities and schools can help voters and youth shape and respond to the election. They can help budding citizens identify candidates who listen to the needs of voters and craft stories of a desirable future. These are stories that don’t depend on the candidate as the hero, but rather are inclusive and inspiring calls to collective work to improve our society. </p>
<p>Such efforts can sustain the hope of voters, transition those emotions into collective action and revive democracy well beyond 2020.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of a piece <a href="https://theconversation.com/teaching-hope-during-the-2020-campaign-season-110067">first published</a> on Jan. 30, 2019.</em></p>
<p>[ <em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130742/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Stitzlein has received funding from the Spencer Foundation, Templeton Foundation, Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy, and Center for Ethics & Education.</span></em></p>Schools and colleges can teach political hope that can help citizens make better choices.Sarah Stitzlein, Professor of Education and Affiliate Faculty in Philosophy, University of Cincinnati Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1300952020-01-17T21:44:56Z2020-01-17T21:44:56ZHow a heritage of Black preaching shaped MLK’s voice in calling for justice<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310522/original/file-20200116-181625-cddubx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C95%2C1014%2C587&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Martin Luther King, Jr. delivers his famous 'I Have a Dream' speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial during the Freedom March on Washington in 1963.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/dr-martin-luther-king-jr-delivers-his-famous-i-have-a-dream-news-photo/517357504?adppopup=true">Bettmann/Contributor via Getty images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The name Martin Luther King Jr. is iconic in the United States. President Barack Obama <a href="http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/convention2008/barackobama2008dnc.htm">mentioned King</a> in both his Democratic National Convention nomination acceptance and victory speeches in 2008, when he said, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“[King] brought Americans from every corner of this land to stand together on a Mall in Washington, before Lincoln’s Memorial…to speak of his dream.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Indeed, much of King’s legacy lives on in such arresting oral performances. They made him a global figure. </p>
<p>King’s preaching used the power of language to interpret the gospel in the context of Black misery and Christian hope. He directed people to life-giving resources and spoke provocatively of a present and active divine interventionist who summons preachers to name reality in places where pain, oppression and neglect abound.
In other words, King used a prophetic voice in his preaching – the hopeful voice that begins in prayer and attends to human tragedy. </p>
<p>So what led to the rise of the Black preacher and shaped King’s prophetic voice?</p>
<p>In my book, <a href="http://fortresspress.com/search?query=The+Journey+and+Promise+of+African+American+Preaching">“The Journey and Promise of African American Preaching</a>,” I discuss the historical formation of the Black preacher. My work on <a href="https://www.baylorpress.com/9781481303996/a-pursued-justice/">African American prophetic preaching</a> <a href="https://www.abingdonpress.com/product/9781501832574/">shows</a> that King’s clarion calls for justice were offspring of earlier prophetic preaching that flowered as a consequence of the racism in the U.S.</p>
<h2>From slavery to the Great Migration</h2>
<p>First, let’s look at some of the social, cultural and political challenges that gave birth to the black religious leader, specifically those who assumed political roles with the community’s blessing and beyond the church proper. </p>
<p>In slave society, Black preachers <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Roll_Jordan_Roll.html?id=dyYaAQAAIAAJ">played an important role in the</a> community: they acted as seers interpreting the significance of events; as pastors calling for unity and solidarity; and as messianic figures provoking the first stirrings of resentment against oppressors. </p>
<p>The religious revivalism or the <a href="http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h620.html">Great Awakening</a> of the 18th century brought to America <a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/pastors/2006/march-online-only/your-own-personal-jesus-is-language-of-personal.html">a Bible-centered brand of Christianity</a> – evangelicalism – that dominated the religious landscape by the early 19th century. Evangelicals emphasized a “personal relationship” with God through Jesus Christ.</p>
<p>This new movement made Christianity more accessible, livelier, without overtaxing educational demands. <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Black_Religion_and_Black_Radicalism.html?id=4KHYAAAAMAAJ">Africans converted to Christianity</a> in large numbers during the revivals and most became Baptists and Methodists. With fewer educational restrictions placed on them, Black preachers emerged in the period as preachers and teachers, despite their slave status. </p>
<p>Africans viewed the revivals as a way to reclaim some of the remnants of African culture in a strange new world. They incorporated and adopted religious symbols into a new cultural system with relative ease.</p>
<h2>Rise of the Black cleric-politician</h2>
<p>Despite the development of Black preachers and the significant social and religious advancements of Blacks during this period of revival, <a href="http://www.howard.edu/library/reference/guides/reconstructionera">Reconstruction</a> – the process of rebuilding the South soon after the Civil War – posed numerous challenges for white slaveholders who resented the political advancement of newly freed Africans. </p>
<p>As independent Black churches proliferated in Reconstruction America, Black ministers preached to their own. <a href="http://fortresspress.com/product/journey-and-promise-african-american-preaching">Some became bivocational</a>. It was not out of the norm to find pastors who led congregations on Sunday and held jobs as schoolteachers and administrators during the work week. </p>
<p>Others held important political positions. Altogether, 16 African Americans served in the U.S. Congress during Reconstruction. For example, South Carolina’s House of Representatives’ <a href="http://www.blackpast.org/aah/cain-richard-h-1825-1887">Richard Harvey Cain</a>, who attended Wilberforce University, the first private Black American university, served in the 43rd and 45th Congresses and as pastor of a series of African Methodist churches. </p>
<p>Others, such as former slave and Methodist minister and educator <a href="http://www.blackpast.org/aah/revels-hiram-rhoades-1827-1901">Hiram Rhoades Revels</a> and <a href="http://www.blackpast.org/aah/turner-henry-mcneal-1834-1915">Henry McNeal Turner</a>, shared similar profiles. Revels was a preacher who became America’s first African American senator. Turner was appointed chaplain in the Union Army by President Abraham Lincoln. </p>
<p>To address the myriad problems and concerns of blacks in this era, Black preachers discovered that congregations expected them not only to guide worship but also to be the <a href="http://fortresspress.com/product/journey-and-promise-african-american-preaching">community’s lead informant</a> in the public square. </p>
<h2>The cradle of King’s spiritual heritage</h2>
<p>Many other events converged as well, impacting Black life that would later influence King’s prophetic vision: <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/woodrow-wilson">President Woodrow Wilson declared U.S.</a> entry into World War I in 1917; as “boll weevils” ravaged crops in 1916 there was widespread <a href="https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sources/533/">agricultural depression</a>; and then there was the <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/freedomriders/issues/jim-crow-laws">rise of Jim Crow laws</a> that were to legally enforce racial segregation until 1965.</p>
<p>Such tide-swelling events, in multiplier effect, ushered in the largest internal movement of people on American soil, <a href="http://www.blackpast.org/aah/great-migration-1915-1960">the Great “Black” Migration</a>. Between 1916 and 1918, an average of 500 Southern migrants a day departed the South. More than 1.5 million relocated to Northern communities between 1916 and 1940.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152731/original/image-20170114-11806-14r2yee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152731/original/image-20170114-11806-14r2yee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152731/original/image-20170114-11806-14r2yee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152731/original/image-20170114-11806-14r2yee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152731/original/image-20170114-11806-14r2yee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152731/original/image-20170114-11806-14r2yee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152731/original/image-20170114-11806-14r2yee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Records of immigration and passenger arrivals during the Great Migration stored at the National Archives in Washington.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A watershed, the Great Migration brought about contrasting expectations concerning the mission and identity of the African American church. The infrastructure of Northern black churches <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/bound-for-the-promised-land">were unprepared to deal</a> with the migration’s distressing effects. Its suddenness and size overwhelmed preexisting operations. </p>
<p>The immense suffering brought on by the Great Migration and the racial hatred they had escaped drove many clergy to reflect more deeply on the meaning of freedom and oppression. <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/R/bo3644391.html">Black preachers refused to believe</a> that the Christian gospel and discrimination were compatible. </p>
<p>However, Black preachers seldom modified their preaching strategies. Rather than establishing centers for Black self-improvement focused on job training, home economics classes and libraries, nearly all Southern preachers who came North continued to <a href="http://baylorpr.es/sGilbert">offer priestly sermons.</a> These sermons exalted the virtues of humility, good will and patience, as they had in the South. </p>
<h2>Setting the prophetic tradition</h2>
<p>Three clergy outliers – one a woman – initiated change. These three pastors were particularly inventive in the way they approached their preaching task. </p>
<p>Baptist pastor <a href="http://www.blackpast.org/aah/powell-sr-adam-clayton-1865-1953">Adam C. Powell Sr.</a>, the <a href="http://www.amez.org">African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (AMEZ)</a> pastor <a href="http://www.summithistoricalsociety.com/historian/2016/3/26/the-rev-florence-randolph-pastor-of-wallace-chapel-helped-spearhead-womens-suffrage">Florence S. Randolph</a> and the African Methodist Episcopal bishop <a href="http://www.blackpast.org/aah/ransom-reverdy-cassius-1861-1959">Reverdy C. Ransom</a> spoke to human tragedy, both in and out of the black church. They brought a distinctive form of prophetic preaching that united spiritual transformation with social reform and confronted black dehumanization. </p>
<p>Bishop Ransom’s discontentment arose while preaching to Chicago’s “silk-stocking church” Bethel A.M.E. – the elite church – which had no desire to welcome the poor and jobless masses that came to the North. He left and began the Institutional Church and Social Settlement, which <a href="https://dp.la/item/fc6383004b44d988c80c98bc1c3e3c0f">combined worship and social services</a>. </p>
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<p>Randolph and Powell synthesized their roles as preachers and social reformers. Randolph brought into her prophetic vision her tasks as preacher, missionary, organizer, suffragist and pastor. Powell became pastor at the historic Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. In that role, he led the congregation to establish a community house and nursing home to meet the political, religious and social needs of Blacks.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152728/original/image-20170113-11800-ewt6gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152728/original/image-20170113-11800-ewt6gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152728/original/image-20170113-11800-ewt6gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152728/original/image-20170113-11800-ewt6gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152728/original/image-20170113-11800-ewt6gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152728/original/image-20170113-11800-ewt6gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152728/original/image-20170113-11800-ewt6gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A March 9, 1965 file photo of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Alabama. King learned from these progressive black preachers who came before him.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo, File</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Shaping of King’s vision</h2>
<p>The preaching tradition that these early clergy fashioned would have profound impact on King’s moral and ethical vision. They linked <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+4:16-21">the vision of Jesus Christ as stated in the Bible</a> of bringing good news to the poor, recovery of sight to the blind and proclaiming liberty to the captives, with the Hebrew prophet’s mandate of speaking truth to power. </p>
<p>Similar to how they responded to the complex challenges brought on by the Great Migration of the early 20th century, King brought prophetic interpretation to brutal racism, Jim Crow segregation and poverty in the 1950s and ‘60s.</p>
<p>Indeed, King’s prophetic vision ultimately invited his martyrdom. But through the prophetic preaching tradition already well established by his time, King brought people of every tribe, class and creed closer toward forming <a href="http://www.thekingcenter.org/king-philosophy#sub4">“God’s beloved community”</a> – an anchor of love and hope for humankind.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of a piece <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-shaped-kings-prophetic-vision-71252">first published</a> on Jan. 15, 2017.</em></p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This piece has been updated to fix the year the U.S. entered into World War I, and to reflect changes in our style for Black.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130095/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kenyatta R. Gilbert does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A long heritage of black preachers who played an important role for enslaved people shaped Martin Luther King Jr.’s moral and ethical vision.Kenyatta R. Gilbert, Professor of Homiletics, Howard UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1100672019-01-30T11:51:53Z2019-01-30T11:51:53ZTeaching hope during the 2020 campaign season<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255900/original/file-20190128-108367-10m28bf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Educators can use story-telling to make students more politically aware.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/multiethnic-group-kids-sitting-on-floor-1086016097?src=NdusMaMSwSMdmag_4tI_8g-1-11">Rido/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/12/us-key-issues-expect-presidential-election-campaigns-181230123445070.html">The 2020 presidential election</a> campaign has already started.</p>
<p>Election campaigns inspire hope, but they can also quickly lead to political despair. During the last two elections, America’s polarized citizens experienced significant swings between hope and despair. </p>
<p>As a <a href="http://sarahstitzlein.wixsite.com/portfolio">philosopher</a> who specializes in citizenship education and political theory, I believe that political hope can be taught in schools and colleges. It can lay a pathway to help citizens make good choices at the ballot box and sustain political engagement.</p>
<h2>Despair in democracy</h2>
<p>A <a href="https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/article/danger-deconsolidation-democratic-disconnect">recent study</a> published in the Journal of Democracy found that across the globe citizens have “become more cynical” about the value of a democratic system and “less hopeful” of their ability to influence public policy. </p>
<p>In the United States, people are <a href="https://www.infoagepub.com/products/Democracys-Discontent-and-Civic-Learning">disenchanted with democracy</a> for many reasons. In recent years, candidates have failed to fulfill their promises. President Obama <a href="https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2017/jan/05/tracking-obamas-top-25-campaign-promises/">fell short</a> of meeting his promises, ranging from retirement accounts for the poor to universal health care. Similarly, President Trump may have been <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40686613">regarded as a “savior” figure</a> in some communities, but many of his supporters now find their <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/midway-through-first-term-trump-is-not-meeting-the-publics-modest-expectations-for-his-job-performance-poll-finds/2019/01/27/09d95210-20dc-11e9-9145-3f74070bbdb9_story.html?utm_term=.d9747d10a66a">expectations were not met</a>. </p>
<p>A much larger reason is that, as scholar <a href="http://polisci.berkeley.edu/people/person/wendy-brown">Wendy Brown</a> points out, economic ideologies have made many Americans <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/undoing-demos">less inclined to pursue</a> what is in the common good. A shift toward self-interest also moves people away from democratic behavior. It <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/distrust-american-style-diversity-and-the-crisis-of-public-confidence/oclc/495254779?referer=di&ht=edition">contributes to distrust of fellow citizens</a>, and it could bring cynicism about the effectiveness of democratic government. </p>
<h2>Teaching political hope</h2>
<p>Rather than despair, my research shows it is an <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/852/852-h/852-h.htm">opportunity for educators, parents and community leaders</a> to open up inquiry. Here are a few things they can do to develop more hopeful citizens. </p>
<ul>
<li><p>Help students explore real <a href="https://tischcollege.tufts.edu/research/republic-still-risk-and-civics-part-solution">social and political problems</a> to better understand citizens’ struggles and needs. Martin Luther King Day and Black History Month, for example, could be used as opportunities to showcase the hopeful endeavors of leaders and everyday citizens who fought for civil rights and against the political despair of the times. </p></li>
<li><p>Challenge growing citizens to see that genuine political hope is a call to ongoing collective work. Programs such as the <a href="https://freechild.org/">Freechild Institute</a> and the <a href="https://www.mikvachallenge.org/">Mikva Challenge</a> provide a model for how to mobilize students to act to improve their communities. In these programs, young people are encouraged to identify problems and are supported in expressing their views about them. Students can learn how to <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Hope-and-Healing-in-Urban-Education-How-Urban-Activists-and-Teachers-are/Ginwright/p/book/9781138797574">imagine better futures</a> and take steps toward it.</p></li>
<li><p>Reaffirm the value of shared political governance. An example of such mentoring comes from a <a href="http://inside.augsburg.edu/publicachievement/work-in-progress/">school in Minneapolis</a> where students became concerned that one school had a large playground while another one, next to it, had very little playground facilities. Instead of harboring hostile feelings, students took positive actions. They surveyed students of both schools and gathered evidence on the impact of the inequality. They also worked with the school administrations and the local press to voice their concerns. In the end, students put forward a proposal that was fairer toward everyone. In the process, students learned how to <a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/pragmatism-and-social-hope/9780231144582">listen, collaborate</a> and build trust – something all citizens should learn.</p></li>
</ul>
<h2>Expressing dissent</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255904/original/file-20190128-39344-1bdk2dt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255904/original/file-20190128-39344-1bdk2dt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255904/original/file-20190128-39344-1bdk2dt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255904/original/file-20190128-39344-1bdk2dt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255904/original/file-20190128-39344-1bdk2dt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255904/original/file-20190128-39344-1bdk2dt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255904/original/file-20190128-39344-1bdk2dt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Teachers can teach students how to not only express dissatisfaction, but help others understand it as well.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/tallahassee-florida-united-states-february-21-1030477669?src=_TN_l-dLSzzYjh9DY0PmxA-1-0">KMH Photovideo/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Teachers can also help their students understand <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Teaching-for-Dissent-Citizenship-Education-and-Political-Activism/Stitzlein/p/book/9781612052298">the relationship between hope and dissent</a>. When citizens focus on the improved future they hope for, they may become frustrated with how things are now. </p>
<p>For example, after a gunman killed 17 students at a high school in Parkland, Florida, students from that school and across the U.S. staged widespread protests <a href="https://theconversation.com/teaching-students-how-to-dissent-is-part-of-democracy-93046">demanding safer schools</a>. </p>
<p>Some educators helped students learn how to not only express dissatisfaction, but help others understand it. Some teachers, for example, helped students describe the problems and experience of gun violence by creating <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/03/14/593433911/across-the-country-students-walk-out-to-protest-gun-violence">press packets</a>. Parents aided children in constructing messages to share with <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article204511654.html">legislators</a>.</p>
<p>Students learned how to put forward solutions to be discussed and tested. Members of the school newspaper were guest editors of a U.S. edition of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/commentisfree/2018/mar/23/parkland-students-manifesto-americas-gun-laws">The Guardian</a> a well-regarded British newspaper, which outlined their vision for change. </p>
<h2>Questioning power structures</h2>
<p>Educators can cultivate critical thinking. This is not just the deep thinking that most of us expect in all classes. It is thinking that <a href="https://democracyeducationjournal.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1302&context=home">interrogates power structures</a>, identifies injustice and asserts principles of democracy. </p>
<p>Following the shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown Jr. in Ferguson, some educators, for example, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/08/how-to-teach-kids-about-whats-happening-in-ferguson/379049/">helped students understand</a> the history of racism in order to better critique policing injustice today and describe an America where <a href="https://www.rethinkingschools.org/books/title/teaching-for-black-lives">black lives matter</a>.
When students learn this history, their critiques of the present and their vision for the future are better informed. </p>
<h2>Tell a story</h2>
<p>Finally, educators can nurture imagination and support students in constructing stories about improved ways of living. Stories show examples of how to take action and why it’s worthwhile to do so. </p>
<p>For example, in one school, as students discussed current events, <a href="https://www.rethinkingschools.org/articles/five-years-after-the-levees-broke-bearing-witness-through-poetry">a poetry teacher</a> engaged her students in writing and presenting poetry about Haiti’s earthquake and how citizens might recover. As she wrote, instead of just saying, “It’s so sad,” she asked them to bring their learning from the history of Hurricane Katrina to look at the tragedy with empathy and ask, “How do race and class affect the aftermath from a natural disaster?” </p>
<p>Storytelling also includes listening to the needs of others. Learning how to pay attention to the lives of others can improve citizens’ visions for the future. </p>
<p>American schools and universities can help budding citizens shape and respond to the next presidential election. And, I believe, well beyond 2019, they can play a role in reviving hope and democracy in America.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110067/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Stitzlein receives funding from the Association of Research Libraries, Spencer Foundation, and the Center for Ethics & Education.</span></em></p>Election campaigns inspire hope, but they can also quickly lead to political despair. A scholar says young citizens can learn how to take positive action and stay hopeful.Sarah Stitzlein, Professor of Education and Affiliate Faculty in Philosophy, University of Cincinnati Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1101322019-01-18T21:28:16Z2019-01-18T21:28:16ZHoward Thurman – the Baptist minister who had a deep influence on MLK<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254542/original/file-20190118-100288-2k42ta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Thurman taught King Jr. that spiritual cultivation was necessary to take on the intense work of social activism.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/MLK50-Life-of-King-Photo-Gallery/a640c380eda44c21808ee73757aba03f/234/0">AP File Photo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For most African-Americans who grew up with the legacy of segregation and violence, making space for introspection was difficult. Martin Luther King Jr., however, learned to integrate spiritual growth with social transformation – a practice that sustained him during periods of intense work for the civil rights movement. </p>
<p>As a <a href="http://paulharvey.org/about">historian</a> who has studied how figures in American history struggled with similar questions, I believe one <a href="https://religionnews.com/2019/01/17/howard-thurman-mentor-to-king-who-preached-nonviolence-featured-in-documentary/">significant influence on King’s thought in this area</a> was the African-American minister, theologian and mystic <a href="http://www.pbs.org/thisfarbyfaith/people/howard_thurman.html">Howard Thurman</a>.</p>
<h2>The influence of Howard Thurman</h2>
<p>Born in 1899, Thurman was 30 years older than King: the same age, in fact, as King’s father. Through his sermons and teaching at Howard University and Boston University, he influenced intellectually and spiritually an entire generation that became the leadership of the civil rights movement. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201700/original/file-20180111-101492-3fslzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201700/original/file-20180111-101492-3fslzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201700/original/file-20180111-101492-3fslzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201700/original/file-20180111-101492-3fslzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201700/original/file-20180111-101492-3fslzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201700/original/file-20180111-101492-3fslzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201700/original/file-20180111-101492-3fslzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Howard Thurman.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/speakingoffaith/8447631569">On Being</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Among his most significant contributions was bringing the ideas of nonviolence to the movement. It was Thurman’s trip to India in 1935, where he met Mahatma Gandhi, that <a href="http://www.beaconbroadside.com/broadside/2014/10/when-howard-thurman-met-mahatma-gandhi-nonviolence-and-the-civil-rights-movement.html">was greatly influential</a> in incorporating the principles of nonviolence in the African-American freedom struggle.</p>
<p>At the close of the meeting, which was long highlighted by Thurman as a central event of his life, Gandhi reportedly <a href="http://www.beacon.org/Visions-of-a-Better-World-P745.aspx">told Thurman</a> that “it may be through the Negroes that the unadulterated message of nonviolence will be delivered to the world.” King and others <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=iY-MAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA89&lpg=PA89&dq=it+may+be+through+negroes+unadulterated+message+king+scla&source=bl&ots=-CdQSQlAeq&sig=B-oRs-yTewBMbNuavMzVWhaxUOE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjKlObjqNDYAhUN6mMKHftDBzYQ6AEILzAB#v">remembered</a> and repeated that phrase during the early years of the civil rights movement in the 1950s. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201692/original/file-20180111-101508-8ea62b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201692/original/file-20180111-101508-8ea62b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201692/original/file-20180111-101508-8ea62b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201692/original/file-20180111-101508-8ea62b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201692/original/file-20180111-101508-8ea62b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201692/original/file-20180111-101508-8ea62b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201692/original/file-20180111-101508-8ea62b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mahatma Gandhi.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AGandhi_spinning.jpg">gandhiserve.org via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Thurman and King were both steeped in the black Baptist tradition. Both thought long about how to apply their church experiences and theological training into challenging the white supremacist ideology of segregation. However, initially their encounters were brief.</p>
<p>Thurman had served as <a href="https://www.bu.edu/thurman/about/dr-thurman/a-timeline/">dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University</a> from 1953 to 1965. King was a student there when Thurman first assumed his position in Boston and heard the renowned minister deliver some addresses. A few years later, <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/howard-thurman-2">King invited</a> Thurman to speak at his first pulpit at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.</p>
<p>Their most serious personal encounter – the one that gave Thurman his opportunity to influence King personally, and help prepare him for struggles to come – came as a result of a tragedy. </p>
<h2>A crucial meeting in hospital</h2>
<p>On Sept. 20, 1958, a mentally disturbed African-American woman named Izola Ware Curry came to a book signing in upper Manhattan. There, King was signing copies of his new book, “<a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/stride-toward-freedom-montgomery-story">Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story</a>.” </p>
<p>Curry moved to the front of the signing line, took out a sharp-edged letter opener and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/22/us/izola-ware-curry-who-stabbed-king-in-1958-dies-at-98.html">stabbed</a> the 29-year-old minister, who had just vaulted to national prominence through his leadership of the <a href="http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_montgomery_bus_boycott_1955_1956/">Montgomery bus boycott</a>.</p>
<p>King barely survived. Doctors later told King that if <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/curry-izola-ware">he had sneezed,</a> he easily could have died. Of course, King later received a fatal gunshot wound in April 1968. Curry lived her days in a mental institution, to the age of 97.</p>
<p>It was while recuperating in the hospital afterward that King received a visit from Thurman. While there, Thurman <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=DYzaAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA162&lpg=PA162&dq=king+hospital+recovery+thurman+1958&source=bl&ots=tx31YuL0ij&sig=UMyHOSFrTa2JQIC0tgHKmaFo3IE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiu4erNps7YAhVC32MKHc0BCXIQ6AEIPzAH#v=onepage&q=king%20hospital%20recovery%20thurman%201958&f=false">gave the same advice</a> he gave to countless others over decades: that King should take the unexpected, if tragic, opportunity to meditate on his life and its purposes, and only then move forward. </p>
<p>Thurman urged King to extend his rest period by two weeks. It would, as he said, give King “time away from the immediate pressure of the movement” and to “rest his body and mind with healing detachment.” Thurman <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/thurman-howard">worried</a> that “the movement had become more than an organization; it had become an organism with a life of its own,” which potentially could swallow up King. </p>
<p>King <a href="https://www.bu.edu/today/2011/who-was-howard-thurman/">wrote to Thurman</a> to say, “I am following your advice on the question.”</p>
<h2>King’s spiritual connection with Thurman</h2>
<p>King and Thurman were never personally close. But Thurman left a profound intellectual and spiritual influence on King. King, for example, reportedly carried his own well-thumbed copy of Thurman’s best-known book, <a href="https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.260684">“Jesus and the Disinherited,”</a> in <a href="http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2004-01-19/news/0401190135_1_howard-thurman-luther-king-martin-luther">his pocket</a> during the long and epic struggle of the Montgomery bus boycott. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201697/original/file-20180111-101492-edbhzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201697/original/file-20180111-101492-edbhzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201697/original/file-20180111-101492-edbhzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201697/original/file-20180111-101492-edbhzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201697/original/file-20180111-101492-edbhzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201697/original/file-20180111-101492-edbhzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201697/original/file-20180111-101492-edbhzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In his sermons during the 1950s and 1960s, King quoted and paraphrased Thurman extensively.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AMartin_Luther_King_Jr_St_Paul_Campus_U_MN.jpg">Minnesota Historical Society, via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In his sermons during the 1950s and 1960s, King quoted and paraphrased Thurman <a href="http://www.beacon.org/A-Strange-Freedom-P175.aspx">extensively</a>. <a href="https://www.weldonturner.com/howard-thurman-jesus-and-the-disinherited">Drawing from Thurman’s views</a>, King understood Jesus as friend and ally of the dispossessed – to a group of Jewish followers in ancient Palestine, and to African-Americans under slavery and segregation. That was precisely why <a href="https://www.uncpress.org/book/9781469618845/the-color-of-christ/">Jesus was so central</a> to African-American religious history.</p>
<h2>The mystic</h2>
<p>Thurman was not an activist, as King was, nor one to take up specific social and political causes to transform a country. He was a private man and an intellectual. He saw spiritual cultivation as a necessary accompaniment to social activism. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.bu.edu/sth/profile/walter-e-fluker/">Walter Fluker</a>, editor of the <a href="http://www.bu.edu/htpp/">Howard Thurman Papers Project</a>, has explained, the private mystic and the public activist <a href="http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdfplus/10.1086/488403">found common ground</a> in understanding that spirituality is necessarily linked to social transformation. Private spiritual cultivation could prepare the way for deeper public commitments for social change. </p>
<p>King himself, <a href="http://www.augsburgfortress.org/media/downloads/9780800663490Chapter1.pdf?domainRedirect=true">according to</a> one biographer, came to feel that the stabbing and enforced convalescence was “part of God’s plan to prepare him for some larger work” in the struggle against southern segregation and American white supremacy. </p>
<p>In a larger sense, the discipline of nonviolence required a spiritual commitment and discipline that came, for many, through <a href="https://onbeing.org/programs/john-lewis-love-in-action-jan2017/">self-examination, meditation and prayer</a>. This was the message Thurman transmitted to the larger civil rights movement. </p>
<p>Thurman combined, in the <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2002/01/18/january-18-2002-the-legacy-of-howard-thurman-mystic-and-theologian/7895/">words</a> of historian <a href="https://divinity.uchicago.edu/martin-e-marty">Martin Marty</a>, the “inner life, the life of passion, the life of fire, with the external life, the life of politics.” </p>
<h2>Spiritual retreat and activism</h2>
<p>King’s stabbing was a bizarre and tragic event, but in some sense it gave him the period of reflection and inner cultivation needed for the chaotic coming days of the civil rights struggle. </p>
<p>The prison cell in Birmingham, Alabama, where in mid-1963 King penned his classic “<a href="https://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/documents/Letter_Birmingham_Jail.pdf">Letter from Birmingham Jail</a>,” also accidentally but critically provided much the same spiritual retreat for reflections that helped transform America.</p>
<p>The relationship of Thurman’s mysticism and King’s activism provides a fascinating model for how spiritual and social transformation can work together in a person’s life – and in society more generally.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an article <a href="https://theconversation.com/meet-the-theologian-who-helped-mlk-see-the-value-of-nonviolence-89938">originally published</a> on Jan. 11, 2018.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110132/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Harvey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Thurman was 30 years older than King: the same age, in fact, as King’s father. Among his most significant contributions was bringing the ideas of nonviolence to the civil rights movement.Paul Harvey, Professor of American History, University of Colorado Colorado SpringsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1100042019-01-18T13:27:30Z2019-01-18T13:27:30ZMartin Luther King Jr., union man<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254390/original/file-20190117-32834-zaluvd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on the picket line at the Scripto plant in Atlanta, Ga., December, 1964.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-A-GA-USA-APHS465028-Martin-Luther-King/a6837bc0cfcc4d00941a4d2c78cb5b86/6/0">AP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>If Martin Luther King Jr. still lived, he’d probably tell people to join unions.</p>
<p>King understood racial equality was inextricably linked to economics. He asked, “What good does it do to be able to eat at a lunch counter if you can’t buy a hamburger?” </p>
<p>Those disadvantages have persisted. Today, for instance, the wealth of the average white family is more than <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianthompson1/2018/02/18/the-racial-wealth-gap-addressing-americas-most-pressing-epidemic/#50e91ba77a48">20 times that of a black one</a>.</p>
<p>King’s solution was unionism. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254431/original/file-20190117-32819-1heolvc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254431/original/file-20190117-32819-1heolvc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254431/original/file-20190117-32819-1heolvc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254431/original/file-20190117-32819-1heolvc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254431/original/file-20190117-32819-1heolvc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254431/original/file-20190117-32819-1heolvc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=637&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254431/original/file-20190117-32819-1heolvc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=637&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254431/original/file-20190117-32819-1heolvc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=637&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The union newspaper reported that King appealed in his Sept. 21, 1967 address to Local 10 ‘for unity between the labor movement and the Negro freedom movement.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://archive.ilwu.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/19670929.pdf">The Dispatcher archives, ILWU</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Convergence of needs</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.afscme.org/union/history/mlk/dr-martin-luther-king-jr-on-labor">In 1961, King spoke before the AFL-CIO</a>, the nation’s largest and most powerful labor organization, to explain why he felt unions were essential to civil rights progress.</p>
<p>“Negroes are almost entirely a working people,” he said. “Our needs are identical with labor’s needs – decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old age security, health and welfare measures, conditions in which families can grow, have education for their children and respect in the community.”</p>
<p>My new book, “<a href="https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/48ydk2be9780252042072.html">Dockworker Power: Race and Activism in Durban and the San Francisco Bay Area</a>,” chronicles King’s relationship with a labor union that was, perhaps, the most racially progressive in the country. That was Local 10 of the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union, or ILWU. </p>
<p>ILWU Local 10 represented workers who loaded and unloaded cargo from ships throughout San Francisco Bay’s waterfront. Its members’ commitment to racial equality may be as surprising as it is unknown.</p>
<p>In 1967, the year before his murder, King visited ILWU Local 10 to see what interracial unionism looked like. King met with these unionists at their hall in a then-thriving, portside neighborhood – now a <a href="https://www.sfgate.com/expensive-san-francisco/article/Who-s-moving-to-San-Francisco-The-rich-the-12805760.php">gentrified</a> tourist area best known for Fisherman’s Wharf, Pier 39.</p>
<p>While King knew about this union, ILWU history isn’t widely known off the waterfront. </p>
<h2>Civil rights on the waterfront</h2>
<p><a href="http://depts.washington.edu/dock/longshore_intro.shtml">Dockworkers had suffered for decades</a> from a hiring system compared to a “slave auction.” Once hired, they routinely worked 24 to 36 hour shifts, experienced among the highest rates of injury and death of any job, and endured abusive bosses. And they did so for incredibly low wages.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254396/original/file-20190117-32804-p0ssqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254396/original/file-20190117-32804-p0ssqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254396/original/file-20190117-32804-p0ssqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254396/original/file-20190117-32804-p0ssqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254396/original/file-20190117-32804-p0ssqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254396/original/file-20190117-32804-p0ssqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254396/original/file-20190117-32804-p0ssqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254396/original/file-20190117-32804-p0ssqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Marching in the San Francisco Waterfront Strike of 1934.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=The_Waterfront_Strike">San Francisco Public Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1934, San Francisco longshoremen – who were non-union since employers had crushed their union in 1919 – reorganized and led a coast-wide “<a href="http://depts.washington.edu/dock/34strike_intro.shtml">Big Strike</a>.” </p>
<p>In the throes of the Great Depression, these increasingly militant and radicalized dockworkers walked off the job. After 83 days on strike, they won a huge victory: wage increases, a coast-wide contract and union-controlled hiring halls.</p>
<p>Soon, these “wharf rats,” among the region’s poorest and most exploited workers, became “lords of the docks,” commanding the highest wages and best conditions of any blue-collar worker in the region.</p>
<p>At its inception, Local 10’s membership was 99 percent white. But <a href="http://depts.washington.edu/dock/Harry_Bridges_intro.shtml">Harry Bridges</a>, the union’s charismatic leader, joined with fellow union radicals to commit to racial equality in its ranks. </p>
<p>Originally from Australia, Bridges started working on the San Francisco waterfront in the early 1920s. It was during the Big Strike that he emerged as a leader. </p>
<p>Bridges coordinated during the strike with <a href="https://blackpast.org/aaw/dellums-c-l-1900-1989">C.L. Dellums</a>, the leading black unionist in the Bay Area, and made sure the handful of black dockworkers would not cross picket lines as replacement workers. Bridges promised they would get a fair deal in the new union. One of the union’s first moves after the strike was integrating work gangs that previously had been segregated.</p>
<h2>Local 10 overcame pervasive discrimination</h2>
<p>Cleophas Williams, a black man originally from Arkansas, was among those who got into Local 10 in 1944. He belonged to a wave of African-Americans who, due to the massive labor shortage caused by World War II, fled the racism and discriminatory laws of the Jim Crow South for better lives – and better jobs – outside of it. Hundreds of thousands of blacks moved to the Bay Area, and tens of thousands found jobs in the booming shipbuilding industry. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520207011/the-second-gold-rush">Black workers in shipbuilding experienced pervasive discrimination</a>. Employers shunted them off into less attractive jobs and paid them less. Similarly, the main shipbuilders’ union proved hostile to black workers who, when allowed in, were placed in segregated locals.</p>
<p>A few thousand black men, including Williams, were hired as longshoremen during the war. <a href="http://www.washington.edu/uwpress/search/books/SCHSOL.html">He later recalled to historian Harvey Schwartz</a>: “When I first came on the waterfront, many black workers felt that Local 10 was a utopia.” </p>
<p>During the war, when white foremen and military officers hurled racist epithets at black longshoremen, this union defended them. Black members received equal pay and were dispatched the same as all others.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254398/original/file-20190117-32819-1i9ybpa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254398/original/file-20190117-32819-1i9ybpa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254398/original/file-20190117-32819-1i9ybpa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254398/original/file-20190117-32819-1i9ybpa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254398/original/file-20190117-32819-1i9ybpa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254398/original/file-20190117-32819-1i9ybpa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254398/original/file-20190117-32819-1i9ybpa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A gang of welders at the Marinship yard, Sausalito, California, in around 1943.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nps.gov/safr/learn/historyculture/africanamericanhistory.htm">National Park Service</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For Williams, this union was a revelation. Literally the first white people he ever met who opposed white supremacy belonged to Local 10. These longshoremen were not simply anti-racists, they were communists and socialists.</p>
<p>Leftist unions like the ILWU embraced black workers because, reflecting their ideology, they contended workers were stronger when united. They also knew that, countless times, employers had broken strikes and destroyed unions by playing workers of different ethnicities, genders, nationalities and races against each other. For instance, when 350,000 workers went out during the mammoth <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/foster/1926/strikestrategy/ch02.htm">Steel Strike of 1919</a>, employers brought in tens of thousands of African-Americans to work as replacements.</p>
<p>Some black dockworkers also were socialists. <a href="https://www.aaihs.org/paul-robeson-black-dockworkers-and-labor-left-pan-africanism/">Paul Robeson</a>, the globally famous singer, actor and left-wing activist had several friends, fellow socialists, in Local 10. Robeson was made an honorary ILWU member during WWII. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254400/original/file-20190117-32825-1l5pw55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254400/original/file-20190117-32825-1l5pw55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254400/original/file-20190117-32825-1l5pw55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=881&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254400/original/file-20190117-32825-1l5pw55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=881&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254400/original/file-20190117-32825-1l5pw55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=881&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254400/original/file-20190117-32825-1l5pw55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1107&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254400/original/file-20190117-32825-1l5pw55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1107&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254400/original/file-20190117-32825-1l5pw55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1107&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">King speaks at Local 10 in San Francisco, September 1967.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ILWU Archives</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Martin Luther King, union member</h2>
<p>In 1967, King walked in Robeson’s footsteps when he was inducted into Local 10 as an honorary member, the same year Williams became the first black person elected president of Local 10. By that year, roughly half of its members were African-American.</p>
<p>King addressed these dockworkers, declaring, “I don’t feel like a stranger here in the midst of the ILWU. We have been strengthened and energized by the support you have given to our struggles. … We’ve learned from labor the meaning of power.”</p>
<p>Many years later, Williams discussed King’s speech with me: “He talked about the economics of discrimination. … What he said is what Bridges had been saying all along,” about workers benefiting by attacking racism and forming interracial unions.</p>
<p>Eight months later, <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89372561">in Memphis to organize a union, King was assassinated</a>.</p>
<p>The day after his death, longshoremen shut down the ports of San Francisco and Oakland, as they still do when one of their own dies on the job. Nine ILWU members attended King’s funeral in Atlanta, including Bridges and Williams, honoring the man who called unions “<a href="http://amsterdamnews.com/news/2012/mar/16/african-american-history-and-the-2012-elections/">the first anti-poverty program</a>.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110004/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Cole does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Most people think of Martin Luther King Jr. as a civil rights leader who led the nation in addressing the evils of systemic racism. What many don’t know is that he also championed labor unionism.Peter Cole, Professor of History, Western Illinois UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/899382018-01-11T21:17:08Z2018-01-11T21:17:08ZMeet the theologian who helped MLK see the value of nonviolence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201691/original/file-20180111-101511-1g08viv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. , chats with African-Americans during a door-to-door campaign in 1964.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/JAB</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For African-Americans who grew up with the legacy of segregation, disfranchisement, lynching, and violence, retreat from social struggle was unthinkable. Martin Luther King Jr., however, learned from some important mentors how to integrate spiritual growth and social transformation. </p>
<p>As a <a href="http://paulharvey.org/about">historian</a>, who has studied how figures in American history struggled with similar questions, I believe one <a href="https://religionnews.com/2019/01/17/howard-thurman-mentor-to-king-who-preached-nonviolence-featured-in-documentary/">major influence on King’s thought</a> was the African-American minister, theologian, and mystic <a href="http://www.pbs.org/thisfarbyfaith/people/howard_thurman.html">Howard Thurman</a>.</p>
<h2>The influence of Howard Thurman</h2>
<p>Born in 1899, Thurman was 30 years older than King, the same age, in fact, as King’s father. Through his sermons and teaching at Howard University and Boston University, he influenced intellectually and spiritually an entire generation that became the leadership of the civil rights movement. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201700/original/file-20180111-101492-3fslzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201700/original/file-20180111-101492-3fslzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201700/original/file-20180111-101492-3fslzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201700/original/file-20180111-101492-3fslzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201700/original/file-20180111-101492-3fslzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201700/original/file-20180111-101492-3fslzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201700/original/file-20180111-101492-3fslzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Howard Thurman.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/speakingoffaith/8447631569">On Being</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Among his most significant contributions was bringing the ideas of nonviolence to the movement. It was Thurman’s trip to India in 1935, where he met Mahatma Gandhi, that <a href="http://www.beaconbroadside.com/broadside/2014/10/when-howard-thurman-met-mahatma-gandhi-nonviolence-and-the-civil-rights-movement.html">was greatly influential</a> in incorporating the principles of nonviolence in the African-American freedom struggle.</p>
<p>At the close of the meeting, which was long highlighted by Thurman as a central event of his life, Gandhi reportedly <a href="http://www.beacon.org/Visions-of-a-Better-World-P745.aspx">told Thurman</a> that “it may be through the Negroes that the unadulterated message of nonviolence will be delivered to the world.” King and others <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=iY-MAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA89&lpg=PA89&dq=it+may+be+through+negroes+unadulterated+message+king+scla&source=bl&ots=-CdQSQlAeq&sig=B-oRs-yTewBMbNuavMzVWhaxUOE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjKlObjqNDYAhUN6mMKHftDBzYQ6AEILzAB#v">remembered</a> and repeated that phrase during the early years of the civil rights movement in the 1950s. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201692/original/file-20180111-101508-8ea62b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201692/original/file-20180111-101508-8ea62b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201692/original/file-20180111-101508-8ea62b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201692/original/file-20180111-101508-8ea62b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201692/original/file-20180111-101508-8ea62b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201692/original/file-20180111-101508-8ea62b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201692/original/file-20180111-101508-8ea62b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mahatma Gandhi.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AGandhi_spinning.jpg">gandhiserve.org via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Thurman and King were both steeped in the black Baptist tradition. Both thought long about how to apply their church experiences and theological training into challenging the white supremacist ideology of segregation. However, initially their encounters were brief.</p>
<p>Thurman had served as <a href="https://www.bu.edu/thurman/about/dr-thurman/a-timeline/">dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University</a> from 1953 to 1965. King was a student there when Thurman first assumed his position in Boston and heard the renowned minister deliver some addresses. A few years later, <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/howard-thurman-2">King invited</a> Thurman to speak at his first pulpit at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.</p>
<p>Their most serious personal encounter – the one that gave Thurman his opportunity to influence King personally, and help prepare him for struggles to come – came as a result of a tragedy. </p>
<h2>A crucial meeting in hospital</h2>
<p>On Sept. 20, 1958, a mentally disturbed African-American woman named Izola Ware Curry came to a book signing in upper Manhattan. There, King was signing copies of his new book, “<a href="http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_stride_toward_freedom_the_montgomery_story_1958/">Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story</a>.” Curry moved to the front of the signing line, took out a sharp-edged letter opener and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/22/us/izola-ware-curry-who-stabbed-king-in-1958-dies-at-98.html">stabbed</a> the 29-year-old minister, who had just vaulted to national prominence through his leadership of the <a href="http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_montgomery_bus_boycott_1955_1956/">Montgomery bus boycott</a>.</p>
<p>King barely survived. Doctors later told King that, if <a href="http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_curry_izola_ware_1916/">he had sneezed</a>, he easily could have died. Of course, King later received a fatal gunshot wound in April 1968. Curry lived her days in a mental institution, to the age of 97.</p>
<p>It was while recuperating in the hospital afterward, that King received a visit from Thurman. While there, Thurman <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=DYzaAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA162&lpg=PA162&dq=king+hospital+recovery+thurman+1958&source=bl&ots=tx31YuL0ij&sig=UMyHOSFrTa2JQIC0tgHKmaFo3IE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiu4erNps7YAhVC32MKHc0BCXIQ6AEIPzAH#v=onepage&q=king%20hospital%20recovery%20thurman%201958&f=false">gave the same advice</a> he gave to countless others over decades: that King should take the unexpected, if tragic, opportunity, to meditate on his life and its purposes, and only then move forward. </p>
<p>Thurman urged King to extend his rest period by two weeks. It would, as he said, give King “time away from the immediate pressure of the movement” and to “rest his body and mind with healing detachment.” Thurman <a href="http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_thurman_howard_1899_1981/">worried</a> that “the movement had become more than an organization; it had become an organism with a life of its own,” which potentially could swallow up King. </p>
<p>King <a href="https://www.bu.edu/today/2011/who-was-howard-thurman/">wrote to Thurman</a> to say, “I am following your advice on the question.”</p>
<h2>King’s spiritual connection with Thurman</h2>
<p>King and Thurman were never personally close. But Thurman left a profound intellectual and spiritual influence on King. King, for example, reportedly carried his own well-thumbed copy of Thurman’s best-known book, “<a href="https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.260684">Jesus and the Disinherited</a>,” in <a href="http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2004-01-19/news/0401190135_1_howard-thurman-luther-king-martin-luther">his pocket</a> during the long and epic struggle of the Montgomery bus boycott. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201697/original/file-20180111-101492-edbhzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201697/original/file-20180111-101492-edbhzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201697/original/file-20180111-101492-edbhzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201697/original/file-20180111-101492-edbhzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201697/original/file-20180111-101492-edbhzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201697/original/file-20180111-101492-edbhzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201697/original/file-20180111-101492-edbhzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In his sermons during the 1950s and 1960s, King quoted and paraphrased Thurman extensively.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AMartin_Luther_King_Jr_St_Paul_Campus_U_MN.jpg">Minnesota Historical Society, via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In his sermons during the 1950s and 1960s, King quoted and paraphrased Thurman <a href="http://www.beacon.org/A-Strange-Freedom-P175.aspx">extensively</a>. <a href="http://www.weldonturner.com/howard-thurman-jesus-and-the-disinherited/">Drawing from Thurman’s views</a>, King understood Jesus as friend and ally of the dispossessed – to a group of Jewish followers in ancient Palestine, and to African-Americans under slavery and segregation. That was precisely why <a href="https://www.uncpress.org/book/9781469618845/the-color-of-christ/">Jesus was so central</a> to African-American religious history.</p>
<h2>The mystic</h2>
<p>Thurman was not an activist, as King was, nor one to take up specific social and political causes to transform a country. He was a private man and an intellectual. He saw spiritual cultivation as a necessary accompaniment to social activism. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.bu.edu/sth/profile/walter-e-fluker/">Walter Fluker</a>, editor of the <a href="http://www.bu.edu/htpp/">Howard Thurman Papers Project</a>, has explained, the private mystic and the public activist <a href="http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdfplus/10.1086/488403">found common ground</a> in understanding that spirituality is necessarily linked to social transformation. Private spiritual cultivation could prepare the way for deeper public commitments for social change. King himself, <a href="http://www.augsburgfortress.org/media/downloads/9780800663490Chapter1.pdf?domainRedirect=true">according to</a> one biographer, came to feel that the stabbing and enforced convalescence was “part of God’s plan to prepare him for some larger work” in the struggle against southern segregation and American white supremacy. </p>
<p>In a larger sense, the discipline of nonviolence required a spiritual commitment and discipline that came, for many, through <a href="https://onbeing.org/programs/john-lewis-love-in-action-jan2017/">self-examination, meditation and prayer</a>. This was the message Thurman transmitted to the larger civil rights movement. Thurman combined, in the <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2002/01/18/january-18-2002-the-legacy-of-howard-thurman-mystic-and-theologian/7895/">words</a> of historian <a href="https://divinity.uchicago.edu/martin-e-marty">Martin Marty</a>, the “inner life, the life of passion, the life of fire, with the external life, the life of politics.” </p>
<h2>Spiritual retreat and activism</h2>
<p>King’s stabbing was a bizarre and tragic event, but in some sense it gave him the period of reflection and inner cultivation needed for the chaotic coming days of the civil rights struggle. The prison cell in Birmingham, Alabama, where in mid-1963 King penned his classic “<a href="https://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/documents/Letter_Birmingham_Jail.pdf">Letter from Birmingham Jail</a>,” also accidentally but critically provided much the same spiritual retreat for reflections that helped transform America.</p>
<p>The relationship of Thurman’s mysticism and King’s activism provides a fascinating model for how spiritual and social transformation can work together in a person’s life. And in society more generally.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an article <a href="https://theconversation.com/meet-the-theologian-who-helped-mlk-see-the-value-of-nonviolence-89938">originally published</a> on Jan. 11, 2018.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89938/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Harvey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>African-American minister, theologian and mystic, Howard Thurman, left a profound influence on Martin Luther King Jr.Paul Harvey, Professor of American History, University of Colorado Colorado SpringsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/899462018-01-10T20:40:58Z2018-01-10T20:40:58ZMLK’s vision of love as a moral imperative still matters<p>More than 50 years after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., the United States remains divided <a href="http://tupress.temple.edu/book/20000000009771">by issues of race and racism</a>, <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/07/12/key-findings-on-the-rise-in-income-inequality-within-americas-racial-and-ethnic-groups/">economic inequality</a> as well as <a href="https://news.stanford.edu/2017/06/16/report-finds-significant-racial-ethnic-disparities/">unequal access to justice</a>. These issues are stopping the country from developing into the kind of society that Martin Luther King, Jr. fought for during his years as a civil rights activist. </p>
<p>As a result King’s words and work are still relevant. I <a href="http://www.aag.org/galleries/about-aag-files/Critical_Pedagogy_Inwood.pdf">study the civil rights movement</a> and the <a href="https://142.207.145.31/index.php/acme/article/view/906">field of peace geographies</a>. Peace geographies thinks about how different groups of people approach and work toward building the kind of peaceful society King worked to create. Americans faced similar crises related to the broader civil rights struggles in the 1960s. </p>
<p>So, what can the past tell us about healing the nation? Specifically, how can we address divisions along race, class and political lines? </p>
<p>Martin Luther King Jr.’s understanding of the role of love in engaging individuals and communities in conflict is crucial today. For King, love was not sentimental. It demanded that individuals tell their oppressors what they were doing was wrong. </p>
<h2>King’s vision</h2>
<p>King spent his public career working toward ending segregation and fighting racial discrimination. For many people the pinnacle of this work occurred in Washington, D.C., when he delivered his famous “<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/17/i-have-a-dream-speech-text_n_809993.html">I Have a Dream” speech</a>. </p>
<p>Less well-known and often ignored is his later work on behalf of <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91626373">poor people</a>. In fact, when King was assassinated in Memphis he was in the midst of building toward a national march on Washington, D.C., that would have brought together tens of thousands of economically disenfranchised people to advocate for policies that would reduce poverty. This effort – known as the <a href="http://epn.sagepub.com/content/45/9/2120.short">“Poor People’s Campaign</a>” – aimed to dramatically shift national priorities to address the health and welfare of working people. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146099/original/image-20161115-31120-1xxk12i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146099/original/image-20161115-31120-1xxk12i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146099/original/image-20161115-31120-1xxk12i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146099/original/image-20161115-31120-1xxk12i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146099/original/image-20161115-31120-1xxk12i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146099/original/image-20161115-31120-1xxk12i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146099/original/image-20161115-31120-1xxk12i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Martin Luther King Jr. speaking at interfaith civil rights rally, San Francisco’s Cow Palace, June 30, 1964.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">George Conklin</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Scholars such as <a href="https://geography.utk.edu/about-us/faculty/dr-derek-alderman/">Derek Alderman</a>, <a href="https://www.sfu.ca/geography/people/profiles/paul-kingsbury.html">Paul Kingsbury</a> and <a href="https://liberalarts.iupui.edu/about/directory/dwyer-owen-j.html">Owen Dwyer</a> how King’s work can be applied in today’s context. They argue that calling attention to the civil rights movement, can “change the way students understand themselves in relation to the larger project of civil rights.” And in understanding the civil rights movement, students and the broader public can see its contemporary significance. </p>
<h2>Idea of love</h2>
<p>King focused on the role of love as key to building healthy communities and the ways in which love can and should be at the center of our social interactions. </p>
<p>King’s final book, <a href="http://www.thekinglegacy.org/books/where-do-we-go-here-chaos-or-community">“Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?</a>” published in the year before his assassination, provides his most expansive vision of an inclusive, diverse and economically equitable U.S. nation. For King, love is a key part of creating communities that work for everyone and not just the few at the expense of the many. </p>
<p>Love was not a mushy or easily dismissed emotion, but was central to the kind of community he envisioned. King made distinctions between three forms of love which are key to the human experience: “eros,” “philia” and most importantly “agape.” </p>
<p>For King, eros is a form of love that is most closely associated with desire, while philia is often the love that is experienced between very good friends or family. These visions are different from agape. </p>
<p>Agape, which was at the center of the movement he was building, was the moral imperative to engage with one’s oppressor in a way that showed the oppressor the ways their actions dehumanize and detract from society. <a href="https://dailymlk.wordpress.com/2012/08/27/in-speaking-of-love-at-this-point-we-are-not-referring-to-some-sentimental-emotion/">He said,</a> </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“In speaking of love we are not referring to some sentimental emotion. It would be nonsense to urge men to love their oppressors in an affectionate sense[…] When we speak of loving those who oppose us […] we speak of a love which is expressed in the Greek word Agape. Agape means nothing sentimental or basically affectionate; it means understanding, redeeming goodwill for all men, an overflowing love which seeks nothing in return.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>King further defined agape when he argued at the University of California at Berkeley that the concept of agape “stands at the center of the movement we are to carry on in the Southland.” It was a love that demanded that one stand up for oneself and tells those who oppress that what they were doing was wrong. </p>
<h2>Why this matters now</h2>
<p>In the face of violence directed at minority communities and of deepening political divisions in the country, King’s words and philosophy are perhaps more critical for us today than at any point in the recent past. </p>
<p>As King noted, all persons exist in an interrelated community and all are dependent on each other. By connecting love to community, King argued there were opportunities to build a more just and economically sustainable society which respected difference. <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Making_a_Way_Out_of_No_Way.html?id=YmX_pHPFcIcC">As he said</a>, </p>
<p>“Agape is a willingness to go to any length to restore community… Therefore if I respond to hate with a reciprocal hate I do nothing but intensify the cleavages of a broken community.” </p>
<p>King outlined a vision in which we are compelled to work toward making our communities inclusive. They reflect the broad values of equality and democracy. Through an engagement with one another as its foundation, agape provides opportunities to work toward common goals. </p>
<h2>Building a community today</h2>
<p>At a time when the nation feels so divided, there is a need to bring back King’s vision of agape-fueled community building and begin a difficult conversation about where we are as a nation and where we want to go. It would move us past simply seeing the other side as being wholly motivated by hate. </p>
<p>Engaging in a conversation through agape signals a willingness to restore broken communities and to approach difference with an open mind.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an article <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-a-fractured-nation-needs-to-remember-kings-message-of-love-68643">originally published</a> on Nov. 16, 2016.</em></p>
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<p><a href="http://www.aag.org">Joshua F.J. Inwood is a member of the American Association of Geographers</a></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joshua F.J. Inwood is a member of the American Association of Geographers.</span></em></p>Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision of love was not sentimental. It demanded that individuals tell their oppressors what they were doing was wrong.Joshua F.J. Inwood, Associate Professor of Geography Senior Research Associate in the Rock Ethics Institute, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/735062017-03-06T02:16:46Z2017-03-06T02:16:46ZLessons in resistance from MLK, the ‘conservative militant’<p>Just days after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, activists from Greenpeace climbed up a large construction crane near the White House and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/us/greenpeace-resist-banner-protest-trump.html?_r=0">unfurled a large banner</a> with the single word: Resist. </p>
<p>On Feb. 11, thousands of protesters used their bodies to <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Protesters-spell-out-resist-on-Ocean-Beach-10927336.php">spell the word “resist”</a> on a San Francisco beach. The next day, at the Grammys, rapper <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/artists/q-tip">Q-Tip</a> <a href="http://deadline.com/2017/02/donald-trump-attacked-grammy-awards-a-tribe-called-quest-muslim-ban-1201910151/">yelled “resist”</a> no less than four times from the stage. </p>
<p>And on Feb. 26, at a rally outside Washington, Maryland Congressman John Delaney <a href="http://wtop.com/montgomery-county/2017/02/top-md-democrats-hold-trump-bashing-rally-silver-spring/">said to the audience</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“What do we have to do? We have to resist. This is a defining moment. It’s stirring our hearts and stirring our emotions and we’re committed to resisting with you.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>All of these examples speak to a widespread and resolute discontent with the election of President Trump. They express a rejection of his agenda and of what they see as his degradation of our democracy. “Resist” reflects their desire, insofar as they can, to stop this from happening. </p>
<p>But what exactly does it mean to resist? And most importantly, how can Americans make sure that their resistance is most likely to effect change?</p>
<p>I have studied the words and actions of Martin Luther King for decades. King led one of the most successful, nonviolent resistance movements in American history. I believe his example is especially germane to these questions. </p>
<p>What can today’s resisters learn from King and the civil rights movement? </p>
<h2>MLK: A ‘conservative militant’</h2>
<p>In the words of historian <a href="https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/september-2003/in-memoriam-august-a-meier">August Meier,</a> who wrote a seminal book, <a href="https://www.press.umich.edu/22712/negro_thought_in_america_1880_1915">“Negro Thought in America, 1880-1915,”</a> published in 1963, King succeeded because he was <a href="http://www.unz.org/Pub/NewPolitics-1965q1-00052">“a conservative militant.”</a> </p>
<p>The word, “conservative” has a specific meaning here. King was a <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/01/martin-luther-king-socialist/">democratic socialist</a>, he opposed the Vietnam War and he called for massive investment in the inner cities. He was not conservative in any political sense. But what Meier showed was that King nevertheless manifested a <a href="http://www.unz.org/Pub/NewPolitics-1965q1-00052">conservative core</a> – one that resonated with millions of Americans and thereby helped achieve the movement’s remarkable success. </p>
<p>In <a href="http://www.unz.org/Pub/NewPolitics-1965q1-00052">Meier’s words</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“American history shows that for any reform movement to succeed, it must attain respectability. It must attract moderates, even conservatives to its rank.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>King understood this. And to that end, he was indeed conservative – both in the arguments he made and the manner in which he presented them.</p>
<p>King argued that racism in America meant the United States was not living up to its own ideals. At the very core of the <a href="http://www.ushistory.org/DECLARATION/document/">Declaration of Independence</a> and thus at the center of American life was the belief that “all men are created equal.” But in America in the 1960s, and especially in the South, African-Americans lived out their lives as <a href="http://www.authentichistory.com/1946-1960/8-civilrights/1946-1953">second-class citizens</a>. In King’s words, American culture was <a href="http://www.syracuse.com/kirst/index.ssf/2015/01/some_will_have_to_face_physical_death_dr_martin_luther_king_jr_in_syracuse_1961.html">“the very antithesis”</a> of what it claimed to believe. </p>
<p>King did not want to challenge, let alone replace, ideals of freedom and equality. He wanted America to better embody them. He argued that the civil rights movement was just the <a href="https://www.scribd.com/doc/184971711/Martin-Luther-King-Jr-A-Testament-of-Hope-1969">latest in a long American tradition</a> that was both grounded in those ideals and sought to make them more authentic. </p>
<p>King compared the civil rights movement with the abolitionist movement, the populist movement of farmers and laborers in the late 19th century, and even to the American Revolution itself. The American ideal “all men are created equal” constituted what King called a <a href="http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm">“promissory note.”</a> In each case, ordinary citizens demanded that that promise be honored. And through their actions, the nation was made more free and more just.</p>
<p>By framing the cause of civil rights in words and ideas that most Americans strongly identified with, King was able to appeal to their innate patriotism. What’s more, those who stood against his cause were, by implication, the ones who could be seen as un-American. </p>
<h2>King’s strategy</h2>
<p>King’s resistance was also strictly nonviolent. Following the model of civil resistance developed by M.K. Gandhi, leader of Indian independence, King argued for nonviolence <a href="https://swap.stanford.edu/20141218225500/http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/primarydocuments/Vol4/6-Feb-1957_NonviolenceAndRacialJustice.pdf">within the terms of his own Christian faith</a>.</p>
<p>King said that by responding to injustice with civility and to violence with nonviolence, the resister was fulfilling <a href="http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_nonviolent_resistance/">“the Christian doctrine of love.”</a> For King, that love was <a href="https://swap.stanford.edu/20141218225500/http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/primarydocuments/Vol4/6-Feb-1957_NonviolenceAndRacialJustice.pdf">best reflected</a> in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-a-fractured-nation-needs-to-remember-kings-message-of-love-68643">Greek word “agape,”</a> an “understanding, redeeming good will for all men, an overflowing love which seeks nothing in return.” This was the love that Christ epitomized, and which his followers were called to emulate. </p>
<p>But King also insisted that nonviolent resistance spoke to a respect for the law that can only be called conservative. In his Letter from Birmingham Jail, where he was imprisoned in 1963, King insisted that while unjust laws must be broken, they must be <a href="https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html">broken “lovingly,”</a> such that the act demonstrates a respect, even a reverence, for the law. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159331/original/image-20170303-29012-59mc7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159331/original/image-20170303-29012-59mc7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159331/original/image-20170303-29012-59mc7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159331/original/image-20170303-29012-59mc7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159331/original/image-20170303-29012-59mc7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159331/original/image-20170303-29012-59mc7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159331/original/image-20170303-29012-59mc7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo</span></span>
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<p><a href="http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_nonviolent_resistance/">King argued</a> that this nonviolent strategy was not simply the most Christian response. It was also “the most potent instrument the Negro community can use to gain total emancipation in America.” <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/01/19/alex-haley-s-1965-playboy-interview-with-rev-martin-luther-king-jr.html">He said that</a> violent protests gave the white man “an excuse to look away,” to ignore those who want to claim the mantel of equality.“ </p>
<p>Conducting the struggle <a href="http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm">"on the high plane of dignity and discipline,”</a> dressing well, using respectful language and accepting violence without responding in kind: All this gave protesters a moral standing that attracted moderates to the cause. It also sought to change the hearts and minds of the bigots, but even if that effort failed, the bigots were nevertheless defeated. </p>
<p>The Jim Crow system of racial segregation rested on the idea that African-Americans were inferior to whites. By rigidly adhering to the high road, the actions of protesters proved that that entire system was based on a falsehood.</p>
<p>Indeed, if anything, actions on both sides demonstrated the opposite. </p>
<h2>Acting politically</h2>
<p>Many protesters in the 1960s sought to bring down an established order that they saw as irredeemably racist and corrupt. But to <a href="http://www.detroits-great-rebellion.com/Watts">those who said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Burn, baby, burn,” </p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.phillymag.com/news/2016/01/18/mlk-speaks-philadelphia-middle-school/">King said</a>,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Organize, baby, organize.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The fundamental purpose of resistance was to effect political change and that meant operating within existing political institutions.</p>
<p>It also often required compromise. For example, at the 1964 Democratic National Convention, a crisis developed when the newly created and integrated <a href="https://theconversation.com/voter-id-laws-why-black-democrats-fight-for-the-ballot-in-mississippi-still-matters-63583">“Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party”</a> demanded they be recognized and seated instead of the all-white “official” Mississippi delegation. They argued they were the truly democratic representatives of the state as they were the product of procedures fair and open to all. </p>
<p>Party leaders <a href="http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_mississippi_freedom_democratic_party/">worked out a compromise</a> that allowed the Mississippi delegation to remain. King accepted this compromise, but many advocates condemned it as an illegitimate accommodation to racism. </p>
<p>King did not disagree, but he argued that this face-saving gesture would help to ensure that the South would not abandon then-candidate Lyndon Johnson. One year later, President Johnson <a href="http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_voting_rights_act_1965/">signed the Voting Rights Act</a>, which ensured voting rights for all African-Americans, and brought federal control over elections in the South. </p>
<h2>Today’s resistance is conservative</h2>
<p>The notion of conservative militancy likely does not, however, resonate with today’s resisters. For many of them, this moment is an opportunity to grow and <a href="https://www.wired.com/2017/01/social-media-powered-berniecrats-try-move-party-left/">strengthen the left</a> either within or outside the Democratic Party; for some, it is an opportunity to move beyond the two-party system altogether. </p>
<p>But within the civil rights movement, similar designs were often met with the operating principle: Keep your <a href="https://library.wustl.edu/spec/filmandmedia/collections/hampton/eop/">“eyes on the prize.”</a> What it meant was that individuals should not allow themselves to be distracted. Rather, they should continually orient themselves and their actions such that they advance the movement toward the ultimate goal. </p>
<p>Right now, many Americans contend that longstanding democratic procedures, norms and ideals are under attack. Because they seek to defend those core American ideals, those who resist have become, by default, conservatives and patriots.</p>
<p>Contemporary resisters would therefore do well to remember King’s example. </p>
<p>By accepting their own role as “militant conservatives” and accommodating their actions accordingly, they are <a href="https://library.wustl.edu/spec/filmandmedia/collections/hampton/eop/">more likely</a> to resist effectively, and thereby achieve the ends they seek.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73506/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Beem does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>King led one of the most successful resistance movements in American history. It was related to his Christian faith. He urged his followers to emulate the love that Christ epitomized.Christopher Beem, Managing Director of the McCourtney Institute of Democracy, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/712522017-01-16T04:38:40Z2017-01-16T04:38:40ZWhat shaped King’s prophetic vision?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152725/original/image-20170113-11812-1p396sq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An April 30, 1966 file photo of King Jr. addressing a rally in Birmingham, Alabama, </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/JT, File</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The name Martin Luther King Jr. is iconic in the United States. President Barack Obama <a href="http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/convention2008/barackobama2008dnc.htm">spoke of King</a> in both his Democratic National Convention nomination acceptance and victory speeches in 2008: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“[King] brought Americans from every corner of this land to stand together on a Mall in Washington, before Lincoln’s Memorial…to speak of his dream.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Indeed, much of King’s legacy lives on in such arresting oral performances. They made him a global figure. </p>
<p>King’s preaching used the power of language to interpret the gospel in the context of black misery and Christian hope. He directed people to life-giving resources and spoke provocatively of a present and active divine interventionist who summons preachers to name reality in places where pain, oppression and neglect abound. </p>
<p>In other words, King used a prophetic voice in his preaching – the hopeful voice that begins in prayer and attends to human tragedy. Indeed, the best of African-American preaching is three-dimensional – it is priestly, it is sage, it is prophetic. </p>
<p>So what led to the rise of the black preacher and shaped King’s prophetic voice?</p>
<p>In my book, <a href="http://fortresspress.com/search?query=The+Journey+and+Promise+of+African+American+Preaching">“The Journey and Promise of African American Preaching</a>,” I discuss the historical formation of the black preacher. My work on <a href="http://baylorpr.es/sGilbert">African-American prophetic preaching</a> shows that King’s clarion calls for justice were offspring of earlier prophetic preaching that flowered as a consequence of the racism in the U.S.</p>
<h2>From slavery to the Great Migration</h2>
<p>First, let’s look at some of the social, cultural and political challenges that gave birth to the black religious leader, specifically those who assumed political roles with the community’s blessing and beyond the church proper. </p>
<p>In slave society, black preachers <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Roll_Jordan_Roll.html?id=dyYaAQAAIAAJ">played an important role in the</a> community: they acted as seers interpreting the significance of events; as pastors calling for unity and solidarity; and as messianic figures provoking the first stirrings of resentment against oppressors. </p>
<p>The religious revivalism or the <a href="http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h620.html">Great Awakening</a> of the 18th century brought to America <a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/pastors/2006/march-online-only/your-own-personal-jesus-is-language-of-personal.html">a Bible-centered brand of Christianity</a> – evangelicalism – that dominated the religious landscape by the early 19th century. Evangelicals emphasized a “personal relationship” with God through Jesus Christ.</p>
<p>This new movement made Christianity more accessible, livelier, without overtaxing educational demands. <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Black_Religion_and_Black_Radicalism.html?id=4KHYAAAAMAAJ">Africans converted to Christianity</a> in large numbers during the revivals and most became Baptists and Methodists. With fewer educational restrictions placed on them, black preachers emerged in the period as preachers and teachers, despite their slave status. </p>
<p>Africans viewed the revivals as a way to reclaim some of the remnants of African culture in a strange new world. They incorporated and adopted religious symbols into a new cultural system with relative ease.</p>
<h2>Rise of the black cleric-politician</h2>
<p>Despite the development of black preachers and the significant social and religious advancements of blacks during this period of revival, <a href="http://www.howard.edu/library/reference/guides/reconstructionera">Reconstruction</a> – the process of rebuilding the South soon after the Civil War – posed numerous challenges for white slaveholders who resented the political advancement of newly freed Africans. </p>
<p>As independent black churches proliferated in Reconstruction America, black ministers preached to their own. <a href="http://fortresspress.com/product/journey-and-promise-african-american-preaching">Some became bivocational</a>. It was not out of the norm to find pastors who led congregations on Sunday and held jobs as school teachers and administrators during the work week. </p>
<p>Others held important political positions. Altogether, 16 African-Americans served in the U.S. Congress during Reconstruction. For example, South Carolina’s House of Representatives’ <a href="http://www.blackpast.org/aah/cain-richard-h-1825-1887">Richard Harvey Cain</a>, who attended Wilberforce University, the first private black American university, served in the 43rd and 45th Congresses and as pastor of a series of African Methodist churches. </p>
<p>Others, such as former slave and Methodist minister and educator <a href="http://www.blackpast.org/aah/revels-hiram-rhoades-1827-1901">Hiram Rhoades Revels</a> and <a href="http://www.blackpast.org/aah/turner-henry-mcneal-1834-1915">Henry McNeal Turner</a>, shared similar profiles. Revels was a preacher who became America’s first African-American senator. Turner was appointed chaplain in the Union Army by President Abraham Lincoln. </p>
<p>To address the myriad problems and concerns of blacks in this era, black preachers discovered that congregations expected them not only to guide worship but also to be the <a href="http://fortresspress.com/product/journey-and-promise-african-american-preaching">community’s lead informant</a> in the public square. </p>
<h2>The cradle of King’s political and spiritual heritage</h2>
<p>Many other events converged as well impacting black life that would later influence King’s prophetic vision: <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/woodrow-wilson">President Woodrow Wilson declared</a> entrance into World War I in 1914; as “boll weevils” ravaged crops in 1916 there was widespread <a href="https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sources/533/">agricultural depression</a> ; and then there was the <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/freedomriders/issues/jim-crow-laws">rise of Jim Crow laws</a> that were to legally enforce racial segregation until 1965.</p>
<p>Such tide-swelling events, in multiplier effect, ushered in the largest internal movement of people on American soil, <a href="http://www.blackpast.org/aah/great-migration-1915-1960">the Great “Black” Migration</a>. Between 1916 and 1918, an average of 500 southern migrants a day departed the South. More than 1.5 million relocated to northern communities between 1916 and 1940.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152731/original/image-20170114-11806-14r2yee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152731/original/image-20170114-11806-14r2yee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152731/original/image-20170114-11806-14r2yee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152731/original/image-20170114-11806-14r2yee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152731/original/image-20170114-11806-14r2yee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152731/original/image-20170114-11806-14r2yee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152731/original/image-20170114-11806-14r2yee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Records of immigration and passenger arrivals during the great migration stored at the National Archives in Washington.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A watershed, the Great Migration brought about contrasting expectations concerning the mission and identity of the African-American church. The infrastructure of Northern black churches <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/bound-for-the-promised-land">were unprepared to deal</a> with the migration’s distressing effects. Its suddenness and size overwhelmed preexisting operations. </p>
<p>The immense suffering brought on by the Great Migration and the racial hatred they had escaped drove many clergy to reflect more deeply on the meaning of freedom and oppression. <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/R/bo3644391.html">Black preachers refused to believe</a> that the Christian gospel and discrimination were compatible. </p>
<p>However, black preachers seldom modified their preaching strategies. Rather than establishing centers for black self-improvement (e.g., job training, home economics classes and libraries), nearly all southern preachers who came North continued to <a href="http://baylorpr.es/sGilbert">offer priestly sermons</a> that exalted the virtues of humility, good will and patience, as they had in the South. </p>
<h2>Setting the prophetic tradition</h2>
<p>Three clergy outliers – one a woman – initiated change. These three pastors were particularly inventive in the way they approached their preaching task. </p>
<p>Baptist pastor <a href="http://www.blackpast.org/aah/powell-sr-adam-clayton-1865-1953">Adam C. Powell Sr.</a>, the <a href="http://www.amez.org">African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (AMEZ)</a> pastor <a href="http://www.summithistoricalsociety.com/historian/2016/3/26/the-rev-florence-randolph-pastor-of-wallace-chapel-helped-spearhead-womens-suffrage">Florence S. Randolph</a> and the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) bishop <a href="http://www.blackpast.org/aah/ransom-reverdy-cassius-1861-1959">Reverdy C. Ransom</a> spoke to human tragedy, both in and out of the black church. They brought a distinctive form of prophetic preaching that united spiritual transformation with social reform and confronted black dehumanization. </p>
<p>Bishop Ransom’s discontentment arose while preaching to Chicago’s “silk-stocking church” Bethel A.M.E. – the elite church – which had no desire to welcome the poor and jobless masses that came to the North. He left and began the Institutional Church and Social Settlement, which <a href="https://dp.la/item/fc6383004b44d988c80c98bc1c3e3c0f">combined worship and social services</a>. </p>
<p>Randolph and Powell synthesized their roles as preachers and social reformers. Randolph brought into her prophetic vision her tasks as preacher, missionary, organizer, suffragist and pastor. Powell became pastor at the historic Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. In that role, he led the congregation to establish a community house and nursing home to meet the political, religious and social needs of blacks.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152728/original/image-20170113-11800-ewt6gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152728/original/image-20170113-11800-ewt6gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152728/original/image-20170113-11800-ewt6gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152728/original/image-20170113-11800-ewt6gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152728/original/image-20170113-11800-ewt6gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152728/original/image-20170113-11800-ewt6gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152728/original/image-20170113-11800-ewt6gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A March 9, 1965 file photo of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Alabama. King learned from these progressive black preachers who came before him.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo, File</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Shaping of King’s vision</h2>
<p>The preaching tradition that these early clergy fashioned would have profound impact on King’s moral and ethical vision. They linked <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+4:16-21">the vision of Jesus Christ as stated in the Bible</a> of bringing good news to the poor, recovery of sight to the blind and proclaiming liberty to the captives, with the Hebrew prophet’s mandate of speaking truth to power. </p>
<p>Similar to how they responded to the complex challenges brought on by the Great Migration of the early 20th century, King brought prophetic interpretation to brutal racism, Jim Crow segregation and poverty in the 1950s and ‘60s.</p>
<p>Indeed, King’s prophetic vision ultimately invited his martyrdom. But through the prophetic preaching tradition already well established by his time, King brought people of every tribe, class and creed closer toward forming <a href="http://www.thekingcenter.org/king-philosophy#sub4">“God’s beloved community”</a> – an anchor of love and hope for humankind.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71252/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>I have received funding for my work from The Fund For Theological Education, Louisville Institute First Book Grant and the Andrew Mellon Foundation - Summer Research Grant at Moorland-Spingarn Research Center.
</span></em></p>Martin Luther King Jr. used a prophetic voice in his preaching – a hopeful voice that addressed human tragedy. But it was the black clerics who came before him, who helped King develop that voice.Kenyatta R. Gilbert, Associate Professor of Homiletics, Howard UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/706202017-01-12T21:26:07Z2017-01-12T21:26:07ZTo honor Dr. King, pediatricians offer four tips to teach kindness to kids<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152462/original/image-20170111-29571-d95xf0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/editor/image/516900088?ref=download">From www.shutterstock.com,</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Children are listening. </p>
<p>During the election, messages of hate, fear and intolerance were propagated across different media and into communities. And the messages continue. While parents view and listen to these ever-present messages, alongside them are their children, hearing these same messages through a lens ill-equipped to discern the implications of negative stereotypes and incorrect portrayals. </p>
<p>Throughout the election, children heard such things as Mexican immigrants are “rapists” and are “bringing drugs…<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/07/08/donald-trumps-false-comments-connecting-mexican-immigrants-and-crime/?utm_term=.4f4fda783175">bringing crime</a>” and that African-Americans are “thugs” and “living in <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/glanton/ct-trump-blacks-crime-glanton-20161024-column.html">hell</a>.” </p>
<p>These messages, no matter their voice, were designed and intended to target adults. As pediatricians, we’re now seeing, however, that children were listening and they are responding in ways we might not have anticipated. </p>
<p>As parents, caretakers and citizens, we have the power to turn this tide. And as we approach the celebration of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, now is the time to explore ways to teach children to communicate with love and respect.</p>
<h2>Stop the hate and offer love</h2>
<p>One response to the messages children hear is to incite more hate. In April 2016, a now well-cited survey of 2,000 teachers conducted by the <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/splc_the_trump_effect.pdf">Southern Poverty Law Center’s Teaching Tolerance Program</a> found that more than half of respondents reported seeing an increase in uncivil discourse in their schools. This, along with other findings from the survey, was used to coin “The Trump Effect,” a term denoting the hateful acts performed by children and adults alike.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152466/original/image-20170111-29611-dsu12b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152466/original/image-20170111-29611-dsu12b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152466/original/image-20170111-29611-dsu12b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152466/original/image-20170111-29611-dsu12b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152466/original/image-20170111-29611-dsu12b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1026&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152466/original/image-20170111-29611-dsu12b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1026&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152466/original/image-20170111-29611-dsu12b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1026&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Aug. 28, 1963.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Aug. 28, 1963/ AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The change we’ve seen in children’s behavior may be happening for the same reason they react to the violence they see in media. <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140197103000927">Prior research</a> has shown that children exposed to media violence have higher levels of violent behaviors, hostility and that they are more desensitized to violence, including a lower likelihood of intervening in an ongoing fight and less sympathy for the victims of violence. <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1054139X00001294">Media violence</a> itself can instill fear in the young viewers that may be persistent for years. </p>
<p>Hate and intolerance touted in the media is no different. As is their nature <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Dc77AQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=concrete+operational+stage+Piaget%27s+theory+of+cognitive+development&ots=_r30MTfhPT&sig=-_WAzq28nVYiQmegyya35LryY2o#v=onepage&q=concrete%20operational%20stage%20Piaget's%20theory%20of%20cognitive%20development&f=false">developmentally</a>, children adopt what they hear as truth, adapting it to their lives, and in many cases across the nation, acting upon it.</p>
<p>Another response can be love. Recently, a <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/18/politics/kids-letters-donald-trump-kindness-trnd/">Facebook group</a> was started by a Seattle-based mom, encouraging children to write letters to the president-elect explaining the importance of being kind. To date, 10,000 children have joined, from across the country, writing how kindness should guide the future administration. To quote one sixth grade child, “Please show kindness to people, no matter their race, religion, beliefs, or most importantly, who they are as a person.”</p>
<p>This dichotomy of responses begs the questions: Why are children uniquely positioned to respond to messages of hate strongly, and how do parents guide their children to respond with love over hate?</p>
<h2>Developmental stages: A lens for media messages</h2>
<p>Children’s actions may depend heavily on their developmental <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Dc77AQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=concrete+operational+stage+Piaget%27s+theory+of+cognitive+development&ots=_r30MTfhPT&sig=-_WAzq28nVYiQmegyya35LryY2o#v=onepage&q=concrete%20operational%20stage%20Piaget's%20theory%20of%20cognitive%20development&f=false">stage</a>. Older teenagers are generally better able to discern the meaning and implications of the strong emotions conveyed in the media, but younger children often are unable to decode them.</p>
<p>Emotions like hate, fear and intolerance are complex. Younger children are not equipped to understand the context and ramifications associated with these complex emotions, especially when seen in an abstract form, such as media. In addition, we know that young children are not developmentally able to discern <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2004.00701.x/abstract;jsessionid=D1AF4FACE6EA79758D6580B64BBAC64F.f01t04">paralanguage</a>, the complex, emotional undertones of speech. Without these underpinnings, it’s nearly impossible to understand when messages are rooted in sarcasm or are based on fallacious assumptions. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152464/original/image-20170111-29599-ei00id.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152464/original/image-20170111-29599-ei00id.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152464/original/image-20170111-29599-ei00id.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152464/original/image-20170111-29599-ei00id.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152464/original/image-20170111-29599-ei00id.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152464/original/image-20170111-29599-ei00id.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152464/original/image-20170111-29599-ei00id.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Children look to their parents and other adults for guidance.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/pic-551884930/stock-photo-close-up-of-a-little-boy-who-is-smiling-at-his-father-while-he-buttons-up-his-shirt-for-him.html?src=Ky9JbdIMuzRnslech9z9Qw-1-36">From www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Older children may be able to think more critically about what they hear, but may have a hard time deciding what they should believe. Children who identify as a part of a minority group based on their race or ethnicity, nativity status, sexual orientation or ability status may also <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=toHSl37qbfMC&pg=PA249&lpg=PA249&dq=Children+and+Racism:+Beyond+the+value+of+Dolls%E2%80%A6&source=bl&ots=o4cCAWUzJL&sig=isHqFjBEQxgLdHgJ6OE0PZJFE2U&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwis6p_T_ILRAhUH0YMKHRH_DN0Q6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=Children%20and%20Racism%3A%20Beyond%20the%20value%20of%20Dolls%E2%80%A6&f=false">internalize</a> the messages, which can lead to increased distress. This distress may be associated with concerning behaviors such as <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2794434/">withdrawal, anger, anxiety and conduct problems</a>.</p>
<h2>Parents fear loss of control</h2>
<p>In 2015, over 65 percent of Americans had a <a href="http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/04/01/us-smartphone-use-in-2015/">smartphone</a> and over 95 percent of homes had a <a href="http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2015/nielsen-estimates-116-4-million-tv-homes-in-the-us-for-the-2015-16-tv-season.html">television</a>. In 2016 The American Academy of Pediatrics, an organization of over 66,000 pediatricians, revised its <a href="http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/138/5/e20162591">policy statement</a> to encourage the use of these types of media for children as young as 18 months in a structured way to facilitate learning. </p>
<p>However, many families feel conflicted on how to select for beneficial content, while filtering out the harmful content, such as stories that highlight hate and intolerance. A <a href="http://www.annfammed.org/content/14/6/503">study</a> published in the November issue of Annals of Family Medicine found caregivers felt they had less and less control over the content their children viewed in today’s age of rapidly evolving technologies. </p>
<p>This effect was seen increasingly in families with lower socioeconomic status and lower income. These caregivers wanted their children to be exposed to the advantageous aspects of technology, but worried about how to set limits and make the right choices for their children. </p>
<p>As parents, we know it is hard to totally shield our children from the media, so how do we silence the noise of hate and usher our children toward actions of love and respect?</p>
<h2>Our path forward</h2>
<p>The strongest change you can make is in your own home.</p>
<p>Here are four ways you can scaffold the messages our children hear, providing them with context and skills beyond their developmental stages to filter and respond to the hate and intolerance seen in the media.</p>
<ol>
<li><p><strong>Use your resources</strong>: There are many web-based tools that parents can turn to, including KidsHealth.org’s “<a href="http://kidshealth.org/en/parents/tolerance.html">Teaching Your Child Tolerance</a>” and Southern Poverty Law Center’s <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/teaching-tolerance">“Teaching Tolerance” toolkit</a>. Both of these sites include developmentally appropriate stories and games to discuss racial and cultural differences with your child.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Talk to your child about responding with kindness:</strong> Even offhand statements can be felt as hateful to others. Creating a culture of kindness in your home can have ripple effects. Remember, tolerance does not mean tolerating hateful behavior. It means everyone deserves to be respected and should respect others. For example, if your child hears someone saying something intolerant, encourage them to speak up against it. However, instead of saying, “I think people who use racist and sexist language are stupid,” encourage them to demonstrate kindness: “I think it’s cool when we treat everyone with respect.”</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Set a strong example and explain it to your child:</strong> While children pick up on everything we do, it’s even better to tell them what you’re doing. Become active in your community, volunteer locally, nationally or globally. Take your child along and get them involved. Even easier, show them how you respond to intolerant acts and explain to them why.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Teach your children to feel good about themselves and love their own culture:</strong> We know that children who struggle with self-esteem can respond by bullying others. Conversely, kids with higher self-esteem may bolster others around them. Emphasize your child’s own strengths and encourage them to explore their interests. Teach them about their own cultural background and instill a sense of cultural pride in your family. Being aware of the language we use and being intentional about our attitudes are skills child carry with them outside their home.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>And remember, children are listening. While we may not be able to change the messages in the media, we can change how our children respond to them, and that change starts with you.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70620/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Children learn hatred and violence, two pediatricians write, and they also learn love and respect. As we celebrate Martin Luther King Day, the two doctors offer things you can do to teach tolerance.Nia Heard-Garris, Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar, Clinical Lecturer, Department of Pediatrics and Communicable Diseases, University of Michigan Medical School, University of MichiganDanielle Erkoboni, National Clinician Scholar and General Pediatrician, University of PennsylvaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/517742016-01-18T10:53:37Z2016-01-18T10:53:37ZFulfilling Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream: the role for higher education<p>Fifty years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote “<a href="http://thekinglegacy.org/books/why-we-cant-wait">Why We Can’t Wait</a>” to dispel the notion that African Americans should be content to proceed on an incremental course toward full equality under the law and in the wider society. King observed,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Three hundred years of humiliation, abuse, and deprivation cannot be expected to find voice in a whisper.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yet waiting and whispering, rather than raising their voices for genuine inclusion, is what many seem to expect of the children and grandchildren of King’s generation <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/radical-parents-despotic-children-1448325901">even today</a>. </p>
<p>At stake is the perceived legitimacy of American institutions, not just educational but those that we educate for: the police, the courts, government, the media, cultural institutions, banks and so on. These institutions are under scrutiny over their failure to evoke trust and to show that they are <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/02-241.ZS.html">visibly open to</a> the public – especially those groups, who too often and for too long have been left out. </p>
<p>Arguably, we are not the “land of opportunity” for most first-generation, poor, black, brown, Native American, or immigrant children. <a href="http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_caa.asp">Gaps in educational achievement</a> persist, and at every level: from <a href="http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/subject/studies/pdf/school_composition_and_the_bw_achievement_gap_2015.pdf">kindergarten</a> through to the years after high school. </p>
<p>The label applied to so many immigrant youth, <a href="http://unitedwedream.org/">Dreamers</a>, might well be adopted more broadly, capturing as it does both the aspiration and perhaps the unreality of educational opportunity for so many.</p>
<p>And the students are right to worry. </p>
<p>The question is: what role can our universities play so the dividing lines can be crossed? </p>
<h2>‘Baked-in’ privilege</h2>
<p>Consider some statistics from Essex County, New Jersey, where our city, Newark, a <a href="http://blog.nj.com/njv_guest_blog/2012/02/newark_could_be_a_real_college.html">college town with over 50,000 students</a>, is located:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.nj.gov/education/schools/achievement/13/njask3/">47.54 percent</a> of black third graders attend schools that perform at the bottom 10 percent of schools in the state compared to 0.04 percent of white third graders. </li>
<li>About 4,000 high school students in the Newark Public Schools are <a href="http://nclc2025.org/sites/default/files/files/grad_nation_presentation.pdf">“missing”</a> during the school day, not in their seats; often labeled as “disconnected youth,” it would be better to consider them as youth connected to a <a href="https://theconversation.com/with-harsher-disciplinary-measures-school-systems-fail-black-kids-39906">pathway to prison</a>. </li>
<li><a href="http://www.nps.k12.nj.us/info/">Another 3,000</a> are off-course from graduating. </li>
<li>Only 36 percent of Newark residents have finished high school and only 17 percent hold any kind of post-secondary degree.</li>
</ul>
<p>This story is not unique to Newark. </p>
<p>Economists such as <a href="http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/images/mobility_trends.pdf">Raj Chetty and his colleagues</a> note that nationally “the consequences of the ‘birth lottery’ – the parents to whom a child is born – are larger today than in the past.”</p>
<p>We – the universities – are the ones sitting in the midst of these realities, facing the choice between being walled citadels that separate the privileged from the uninvited other or being welcoming hubs connecting young individuals with opportunity.</p>
<h2>Universities’ responsibility</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/mirror-mirror-reflections-on-race-and-the-visage-of-higher-education-in-america-43742">uncomfortable truth</a> is, that we, in some very real sense, have contributed to this winnowing of opportunity.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108343/original/image-20160116-7351-lzc1qs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108343/original/image-20160116-7351-lzc1qs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108343/original/image-20160116-7351-lzc1qs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108343/original/image-20160116-7351-lzc1qs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108343/original/image-20160116-7351-lzc1qs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108343/original/image-20160116-7351-lzc1qs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108343/original/image-20160116-7351-lzc1qs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chancellor Nancy Cantor speaking at the</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rutgers University Newark</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For too long, the traditional measures of student potential have relied on standardized – and therefore narrowly framed – merit selection processes, such as SAT and ACT scores. </p>
<p>These tests have been grossly inadequate, measuring only a narrow band of potential, while <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/06/21/sat">missing wide swaths of our talent pool</a> whose excellence is not readily detected through the use of such “blunt” instruments. </p>
<p>They neglect whole communities whose students don’t have access to the test preparation industry, prompting <a href="http://hls.harvard.edu/faculty/directory/10344/Guinier">legal theorist Lani Guinier</a> to implore us to <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/02/20/386120632/q-a-with-lani-guinier-redefining-the-merit-in-meritocracy">redefine the merit in meritocracy</a>.</p>
<p>Intergenerational privilege is rooted in place – in the home values and tax base, the schools and transportation networks available to people because of where they are fortunate to live. Decades of white flight, suburbanization, the abandonment of urban centers and regressive housing policies have contributed to a <a href="http://apps.tcf.org/architecture-of-segregation">pervasive disconnection</a> across racial, ethnic and class lines. </p>
<p>This segregation has reinforced the corrosive effects of historical prejudice and biases that already divide society and make Americans, in effect, strangers to each other. </p>
<p>It should come as no surprise, then, that the social landscapes of university communities <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/quiet-revolution/201505/tipping-point-where-bigotry-awakens-roar">are just as divided</a>.</p>
<h2>Crossing boundaries</h2>
<p>Diversity is growing explosively and <a href="http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports2/2014/11/diversity-explosion">redefining American society before our eyes</a>. </p>
<p>Yet lines of class, gender, ethnicity and race continue to redraw themselves in dorm life, lunch tables and indeed the classroom. </p>
<p>Indeed, it is hard to erase them. </p>
<p>How do you cultivate connection to another person’s future and commitment to their success when you don’t live together in the same neighborhood, reside near each other in the same city or at least share some similar daily experiences such as rush hour on a crowded subway? </p>
<p>As <a href="http://muse.jhu.edu/books/9781610448055">higher educational institutions</a>, we should be the place where dividing lines can be crossed. And that includes crossing the boundaries of our communities.</p>
<p>Our work in the city of Newark is just one illustration of crossing these boundaries.</p>
<h2>Newark’s story</h2>
<p>In this postindustrial <a href="http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/community_facts.xhtml#none">city of 280,000 people</a>, 29 percent of residents have incomes below the poverty line.</p>
<p>Newark’s social and economic challenges are common among cities that have lost their tax base and whose residents have fled to the suburbs since the 1960s. The resulting economic and racial segregation has <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=lwave_qPlYUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=crabgrass+frontier&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiF_IqVjN7JAhVBNz4KHYjAARIQ6AEIMDAA#v=onepage&q=crabgrass%20frontier&f=false">produced structural inequalities</a> in health, education and other public services. </p>
<p>Today, Newark, a proud, resilient city, is coming back from years of disinvestment. As an engaged <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-bartley/the-rise-of-the-anchor-in_b_4589224.html">“anchor institution”</a>, we are <a href="http://newark.rutgers.edu/node/14362">partnering</a> with the community on many fronts. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108344/original/image-20160116-7371-16envuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108344/original/image-20160116-7371-16envuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108344/original/image-20160116-7371-16envuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108344/original/image-20160116-7371-16envuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108344/original/image-20160116-7371-16envuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108344/original/image-20160116-7371-16envuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108344/original/image-20160116-7371-16envuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The future home of Express Newark - the historic Hahne Building.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rutgers University Newark</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We are <a href="http://www.newark.rutgers.edu/anchor-institution-2">investing in spaces for local artists and the community to collaborate</a>, as we develop nearly 50,000 square feet in the iconic former Hahne & Company department story as an arts “collaboratory” – dubbed “<a href="http://www.newark.rutgers.edu/files/express-newark-plan.pdf">Express Newark.</a>” </p>
<p>We are working with <a href="http://www.business.rutgers.edu/cueed/about">small and midsized entrepreneurs and firms</a> and taking an active role in <a href="http://www.rutgerscps.org/">helping Newark’s police</a> address crime hotspots through data collection and analysis. </p>
<p>Organizations – public and private – have banded together in the <a href="http://www.nclc2025.org/">Newark City of Learning Collaborative</a> (NCLC) to raise the post-secondary attainment rate of residents of Newark to 25 percent by 2025.</p>
<p>For the higher education partners in NCLC like us, this means working with Newark Public Schools to help their students continue their education past high school, beginning in community colleges, the <a href="http://www.tcf.org/bookstore/detail/bridging-the-higher-education-divide">institutions where the vast majority of first generation students will have their first taste of higher education</a>. </p>
<p>At Rutgers University – Newark, for example, we are providing <a href="https://www.newark.rutgers.edu/news/ru-n-announces-major-financial-aid-initiative-tap-newarks-and-new-jerseys-talent">tuition support</a> to low-income residents of Newark and to any New Jersey community college transfer with an associate degree as of fall 2016.</p>
<p>We are recruiting these students based on assessments of leadership, grit and entrepreneurial skills – not just grades – into a residential <a href="http://hllc.newark.rutgers.edu/">Honors Living Learning Community</a> (HLLC). In addition to gleaning information about applicants from the standard application form, the HLLC team engages with applicants in person and in groups to see how they collaborate with one another to solve problems. Their on-the-ground knowledge of urban life has much to contribute, as we see it, to the HLLC’s curriculum focus of “local citizenship in a global world.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108345/original/image-20160116-7341-1op4xw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108345/original/image-20160116-7341-1op4xw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108345/original/image-20160116-7341-1op4xw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108345/original/image-20160116-7341-1op4xw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108345/original/image-20160116-7341-1op4xw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108345/original/image-20160116-7341-1op4xw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108345/original/image-20160116-7341-1op4xw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The first cohort of HLLC students.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rutgers University Newark</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ashlee is one of the inaugural class. Born and raised in Newark, she speaks openly of “being a product of my environment…exposed to so much just by walking outside of
my house…[including] murder at the age of 12.” Her options, she says, were two: “conform to what’s going on in society or try to make a difference.” She is now a criminal justice major keenly interested in issues of social equality and inequality.</p>
<h2>Academic ‘farm teams’</h2>
<p>Rutgers-Newark is not alone in looking to build on the assets of this fresh talent pool for America. </p>
<p>There is an increasing number of so-called <a href="https://www.luminafoundation.org/news-and-events/thirty-five-communities-added-to-lumina-foundation-s-community-based-postsecondary-education-attainment-strategy">collective impact initiatives </a>across the higher education landscape, including <a href="http://www.cps-k12.org/community/partners/strive">STRIVE</a>, a nonprofit started in Cincinnati, and three large city-wide initiatives in Syracuse, Buffalo and Guilford County, North Carolina mounted by <a href="http://sayyestoeducation.org/">Say Yes to Education.</a> </p>
<p>Collective impact projects like these can be taxing and messy, but by bringing so many different partners together – from education institutions to businesses and faith-based centers – to focus on enabling the talented next generation to thrive from school to college and beyond, we put a stake in the ground together for social justice. It’s admittedly still one step at a time, but one step in many places. </p>
<p>When higher education bands together to support and recruit talent from these regional hubs, it gives a <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nancy-cantor/diversity-higher-education_b_3695503.html">new meaning to the notion of “farm teams.”</a>. After all, if major league baseball can do it, why can’t higher education?</p>
<p>The impatient students <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nancy-cantor/why-do-we-keep-dropping_b_8906112.html">protesting a sense of exclusion today </a>have undeniable facts to support their argument. Our institutions, we believe, can help them overcome the barriers they, and others, face in their search for economic opportunity and a sense that they are valued.</p>
<p>How could anyone continue to “wait and whisper” while witnessing the enormous and cumulative effect of disparity unfold for another generation, with so many children never even getting to first base and some starting out on third?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/51774/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elise Boddie is a board member of the American Constitution Society and the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nancy Cantor is a member of the board of The Conversation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>David D. Troutt, Peter Englot, and Roland V. Anglin do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>On Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, five educators reflect on recent campus protests and describe concrete actions universities can take to bring opportunity to all.Roland V. Anglin, Director, The Joseph C. Cornwall Center for Metropolitan Studies, Rutgers University - NewarkDavid D. Troutt, Professor of Law and Justice John J Francis Scholar, Rutgers University - NewarkElise Boddie, Associate Professor of Law, Rutgers University - NewarkNancy Cantor, Chancellor, Rutgers University - NewarkPeter Englot, Senior Vice Chancellor for Public Affairs, Rutgers University - NewarkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/363402015-01-19T21:45:00Z2015-01-19T21:45:00ZWhere social media fall short<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/69441/original/image-20150119-14484-wt29t8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">From hashtag to the streets</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/otto-yamamoto/16177822031/">The All-Nite Images</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The public response to the murders of Michael Brown and Eric Garner has been <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/after-ferguson-some-see-movement-taking-shape">compared</a> to the 1960s civil rights movement. There are many differences between what happened 50 odd years ago and today but one of the biggest is the existence of the Internet. </p>
<p>The Internet is often portrayed as a mobilization tool and, as demonstrated during President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, one capable of effective grassroots organizing. </p>
<p>However, I would question the true impact of the Internet upon social mobilization. In my research I investigate the relationships between various traditional and new media (including newspapers, television, film and the Internet) and society. In particular, I consider how media shape and reconfigure human interaction, collective reasoning and social policy. </p>
<p>I would argue that at the same time as the Internet has facilitated the creation of a network society, it has also diminished the role of centralized, organized protest as an effective weapon for social change – a role the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s demonstrated to be effective. </p>
<p>Instead, the Internet provides channels for niche interests and marginalization – echo chambers where users are bombarded with similar and self-validating perspectives.</p>
<h2>The Internet diffuses the political impact of activism</h2>
<p><a href="http://abs.sagepub.com/content/56/4/459.abstract">Research</a> shows that the Internet allows us to create our own tailored media world where dissenting views and perspectives can be avoided or discounted. Because of the way social media functions, the opportunity to exercise a “uses and gratifications” approach to media consumption – an approach wherein one’s preexisting beliefs and understandings are validated – is <a href="http://www4.ncsu.edu/%7Eamgutsch/Ruggiero.pdf">amplified.</a> </p>
<p>The Internet has become the modern day solution to the human need to be socially involved. There is, however, a possibility that the Internet has replaced the ability of social protest to evolve into social movement. </p>
<p>Clicking a button, sharing a picture or writing a post diffuses the political impact of social activism. What could potentially become a social movement can be decentralized. And, while protests are taking place in the street and being captured by media to mobilize the masses, as was the case in Egypt’s Tahrir Square and in other parts of the Middle East, one could argue that in the case of the #BlackLivesMatter demonstrations are reframed to become media spectacles rather than kickstarting social change. </p>
<p>Without question social media has provided a tool for getting the message out, but if the message creates no more than a temporary frenzy then what has been accomplished? </p>
<h2>Those with power to make change need not respond</h2>
<p>As has been <a href="http://abs.sagepub.com/content/48/3/327.abstract">argued,</a> because new media has changed the nature of reporting and information access there is new pressure to create constant up-to-the minute stories and a continuous flow of new information. We are bombarded with information and unable to process or spend any serious amount of time on any one story. </p>
<p>Public protests and attempts at mobilization can thus be lost in the constant news stream. The point is not that politicians are ignoring social issues but rather that there is a difference between acknowledging these issues and reconfiguring public policy as a result. </p>
<p>To give one example, the president and political elites have acknowledged, to a certain extent, the #Blacklivesmatter protests but not in a way that has resulted – so far – in effective policy change. </p>
<p>My views on the current protest are shaped in part by a conversation with George Washington University political scientist and media scholar Professor <a href="http://elliott.gwu.edu/entman">Robert Entman</a>. </p>
<p>Over lunch we discussed the public response to the murders of unarmed black males, Michael Brown and Eric Garner, by white police officers Darren Wilson and Daniel Pantaleo. I began our conversation enthusiastic about the exposure created by media and particularly new media around these tragedies. My view was that this was reminiscent of a time when people were willing to collectively protest, boycott, and, in some instances, even die for social change.</p>
<p>Dr Entman shook his head. This was not the spirit of the civil rights movement as he remembered it. He illustrated his point with a story. </p>
<h2>The effectiveness of on-the-ground collaboration</h2>
<p>As an undergraduate during the 1960s Dr Entman became involved in a movement to protest unequal pay policies at Duke University. Members of the largely white student body and the largely black workforce that maintained Duke’s campus – housekeepers, janitors, and grounds keepers – <a href="http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/nchist-postwar/6097">worked together </a>to demand that the workforce receive minimum wage, a policy that Duke University had strategically avoided as a non-profit institution. </p>
<p>Understanding and responding to the position taken by Duke University administrators required the collaboration of many: members of the workforce directly impacted by these policies; members of the student body who benefited from this policy and were in this process of undermining their own privilege; and, finally, those who had been exposed to the successful strategies within the civil rights movement. </p>
<p>Only because of this united partnership, did the Duke administrators listen. </p>
<p>In the age of social media, who will lead others through this kind of process? </p>
<p>Addressing today’s issues requires a social movement led by scholars, politicians, clergy, and activists who are able to develop a well-articulated and tightly defined agenda for public policies and legislative change. </p>
<p>When we think of the current response to the use of excessive police force against black men and black communities we must ask: Who is the movement impacting? Is this the right group to target? And if the message is not resulting in change is this an indication that more centralized leadership is required? </p>
<p>These are questions that social media hashtags and tweets – however well intentioned and “democratic” – cannot answer. </p>
<p>I can think of no major, persistent social protest in the US created by new media activism. There is no cost for the powerful that would necessitate action on their part because no one is directly held accountable and no one in power is forced to make change. The online messages instead become part of the endless babble that has come to characterize the Internet. But the key to any effective policy change is rooted in the decisions of political and social elites.</p>
<p>What if in 1968 only white students at Duke University had decided that the support staff should not be underpaid? Would the university’s policy have remained in place? Or did true change require collective action negotiated face to face and carefully targeted towards those in power? </p>
<p>Today, as we post our views online and share our perspectives via social media, we must ask the same questions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/36340/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Imaani El-Burki does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The public response to the murders of Michael Brown and Eric Garner has been compared to the 1960s civil rights movement. There are many differences between what happened 50 odd years ago and today but…Imaani El-Burki, Professor of Practice, Department of Journalism and Cmmunication, Lehigh University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.