tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/i-have-a-dream-33293/articlesI have a dream – The Conversation2023-08-25T17:51:53Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2120672023-08-25T17:51:53Z2023-08-25T17:51:53ZGospel singer Mahalia Jackson made a suggestion during the 1963 March on Washington − and it changed a good speech to a majestic sermon on an American dream<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/544069/original/file-20230822-5286-r2ntq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=946%2C315%2C4065%2C2983&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Martin Luther King Jr. (bottom right) listens to gospel singer Mahalia Jackson during the March on Washington on Aug. 28, 1963.
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/american-singer-mahalia-jackson-sings-at-the-march-on-news-photo/53404587?adppopup=true">Bob Parent/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Every now and then, a voice can matter. <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/jackson-mahalia">Mahalia Jackson</a> had one of them.</p>
<p>Known around the world as the “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mahalia-Jackson">Queen of Gospel</a>,” Jackson used <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123498527">her powerful voice</a> to work in the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/united-states-history-primary-source-timeline/post-war-united-states-1945-1968/civil-rights-movement/">Civil Rights Movement</a>. Starting in the 1950s, she traveled with Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. throughout the South and heard him preach in Black churches about a vision that only he could see.</p>
<p>But on Aug. 28, 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, something didn’t quite sound right to Jackson as she listened to King deliver his prepared speech. King was reading from his prepared remarks when she made <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/1/18/10785882/martin-luther-king-dream-mahalia-jackson">a simple suggestion</a>.</p>
<p>“Tell them about the dream, Martin,” <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/may/19/mahalia-jackson-martin-luther-king-al-sharpton">she urged King</a>, “tell them about the dream.” </p>
<p>Inspired, King cast aside his prepared remarks and ad-libbed from his heart. For the estimated 250,000 who joined the <a href="https://www.si.edu/spotlight/1963-march-on-washington">March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom</a> that day, they heard King <a href="https://www.npr.org/2010/01/18/122701268/i-have-a-dream-speech-in-its-entirety">deliver one of his seminal sermons</a>.</p>
<p>“I have a dream,” King preached, “that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”</p>
<p>Though most memorable, King’s voice wasn’t the only one that day 60 years ago. The other voice, the one King listened to and heeded, belonged to Mahalia Jackson. </p>
<p>“A voice like hers comes along once in a millennium,” <a href="https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/mahalia-jackson-gospel-takes-flight">King once said</a>.</p>
<h2>An international phenomenon</h2>
<p>Born on <a href="https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/jackson-mahalia-1911-1972/">Oct. 26, 1911, in New Orleans</a>, Jackson had a contralto voice that first won fame as a gospel singer in the choir at Greater Salem Baptist Church on Chicago’s South Side during the 1940s. </p>
<p>Among her earliest hit recordings were “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1P5bXtVb614">I Can Put My Trust in Jesus</a>,” “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiCtmjPQE0w">In the Upper Room</a>,” “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEH7jyt1eoo">He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands</a>,” “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06gAdro-62E">Move On Up A Little Higher</a>” and “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3H80p0dkxU">Even Me Lord</a>.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A Black woman dressed in a white gown gestures with her hands as she sings behind several microphones." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/544332/original/file-20230823-19-92zuwa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/544332/original/file-20230823-19-92zuwa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544332/original/file-20230823-19-92zuwa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544332/original/file-20230823-19-92zuwa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544332/original/file-20230823-19-92zuwa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544332/original/file-20230823-19-92zuwa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544332/original/file-20230823-19-92zuwa.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">Mahalia Jackson performing in Copenhagen, Denmark, in April 1961.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/american-gospel-singer-mahalia-jackson-copenhagen-denmark-news-photo/1049302250?adppopup=true">Lennart Steen/JP Jazz Archive/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Before long, Jackson was appearing in major concert venues in the U.S. and Europe. In 1956, she was the first gospel singer to perform at <a href="https://timeline.carnegiehall.org/performers/mahalia-jackson">Carnegie Hall</a>. In 1961, Jackson <a href="https://www.bet.com/article/dbpnlc/this-day-in-black-history-jan-20-1961">sang at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy</a>. The popular <a href="https://blackmusicscholar.com/mahalia-jackson-story/">“Ed Sullivan Show” made Jackson a household name</a> by frequently asking her to perform. </p>
<p>But international fame did not make Jackson forget her religious upbringing and commitment to fight for equal rights. </p>
<p>In “<a href="https://www.unz.com/print/SaturdayRev-1958sep27-00041/">As the Spirit Moves Mahalia</a>,” prominent Black writer Ralph Ellison wrote about the meaning of Jackson’s voice. </p>
<p>“The true function of her singing is not simply to entertain,” he explained, “but to prepare the congregation for the minister’s message, to make it receptive to the spirit, and with effects of voice and rhythm to evoke a shared community of experience.” </p>
<p>Ellison <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1992/12/04/book-world/58b37299-e450-4833-9917-7c46feb6f414/">further wrote</a> that Jackson was “not primarily a concert singer but a high priestess in the religious ceremony of her church.”</p>
<h2>Mahalia and Martin</h2>
<p>Jackson and King <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/jackson-mahalia#:%7E:text=Already%20an%20icon%2C%20Jackson%20met,anniversary%20of%20the%20Brown%20v.">first met</a> at the National Baptist Convention in Alabama in 1956. King asked her if she could support his work there by singing and inspiring civil rights activists during the 381-day <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2023/03/22/1161664788/the-women-behind-the-montgomery-bus-boycott">Montgomery Bus Boycott</a>.</p>
<p>From there, she became the first woman to serve on the board of the <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/southern-christian-leadership-conference-sclc">Southern Christian Leadership Conference</a>, a prominent civil rights group led by King, and became one of King’s most trusted advisers. In a <a href="https://www.crmvet.org/docs/sclc/6212_sclc_newsletter.pdf">1962 press release</a>, <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/jackson-mahalia">King wrote that Jackson</a> “has appeared on numerous programs that helped the struggle in the South, but now she has indicated that she wants to be involved on a regular basis.”</p>
<p>She shared his vision for breaking down the barriers of segregation and fighting for equitable treatment for African Americans. In her own right, Jackson became a visible fixture within the Civil Rights Movement. </p>
<p>Jackson <a href="https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/archives/la-me-mahalia-jackson-19720128-story.html">died in 1972</a> at the age of 60. </p>
<h2>Jackson’s voice in a movement</h2>
<p>If music was the soul of the movement, strategic thinking was at its core. As <a href="https://www.apa.org/pi/oema/resources/ethnicity-health/psychologists/asa-hilliard">psychologist Asa Hilliard</a> later explained, among those strategies were moral suasion, litigation, grassroots organizing, civil disobedience, economic boycotts, the solicitation of corporate sponsors and the use of television. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.nps.gov/articles/march-on-washington.htm">March on Washington</a> was considered the culminating event of the historic Civil Rights Movement. The march was rooted in the ideal of economic justice and intentionally held on Aug. 28 to commemorate the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/collections/civil-rights-history-project/articles-and-essays/murder-of-emmett-till/">lynching of Emmett Till</a> in Mississippi on the same date in 1955. </p>
<p>Till’s death and the subsequent acquittal of three white men charged with the brutal murder was <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/emmett-impact-emmett-tills-murder/">one of the turning points</a> of the movement.</p>
<p>Among the building blocks of the Civil Rights Movement was music. It spoke to the soul, and Mahalia’s gift comforted the masses. King often called her during trying times and <a href="https://www.directv.com/insider/mahalia-jackson-mlk-i-have-a-dream-speech">asked her to sing</a> to him over the telephone.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A Black woman wearing a black hat stands in front of an American flag." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/544773/original/file-20230825-15-onlapr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/544773/original/file-20230825-15-onlapr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=865&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544773/original/file-20230825-15-onlapr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=865&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544773/original/file-20230825-15-onlapr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=865&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544773/original/file-20230825-15-onlapr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1087&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544773/original/file-20230825-15-onlapr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1087&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544773/original/file-20230825-15-onlapr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1087&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mahalia Jackson greets others during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on Aug. 28, 1963.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/american-gospel-singer-mahalia-jackson-greets-others-during-news-photo/1472641559?adppopup=true">Roosevelt H. Carter/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/jackson-mahalia">King called</a> her “a blessing to me … and a blessing to Negroes who have learned through her not to be ashamed of their heritage.”</p>
<p>It was no surprise then that Jackson felt comfortable enough to make a suggestion to the civil rights leader during a sermon. </p>
<p>Before he appeared on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Jackson had sung her rendition of “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZck6OXR_wE">I have been buked and I have been scorned</a>” and after he finished, she sang “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g088O0UeKQE">We Shall Overcome</a>.” </p>
<p>But her <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/1/18/10785882/martin-luther-king-dream-mahalia-jackson">most important line that day</a> might have been, “Tell them about the dream, Martin.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212067/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bev-Freda Jackson 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>As the “Queen” of gospel music, Mahalia Jackson sang two songs during the historic March on Washington. But her most famous line may have been a suggestion to Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.Bev-Freda Jackson, Adjunct professor of Justice, Law and Criminology, American University School of Public AffairsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1808382022-04-07T18:20:27Z2022-04-07T18:20:27ZKetanji Brown Jackson sworn in as Supreme Court justice: 4 essential reads<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471949/original/file-20220630-24-tbz0gx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C164%2C5226%2C4017&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ketanji Brown Jackson is the first Black woman to serve on the highest court in the land.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/in-this-handout-provided-by-the-supreme-court-chief-justice-news-photo/1241630923?adppopup=true">Fred Schilling/Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States via Getty Images)</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Shortly after noon on June 30, 2022, Ketanji Brown Jackson <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/judge-ketanji-brown-jackson-sworn-supreme-court-justice/story?id=85961957">took the judicial oath</a> and officially became a Supreme Court Justice of the United States – the first Black woman to sit on the bench.</p>
<p>The elevation of Jackson to the Supreme Court will not change the ideological setup of the bench – which will continue to be split 6-3 in favor of conservative justices.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, it is an important landmark in the history of the court – of the <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/about/members_text.aspx">115 justices on the Supreme Court</a> since it was established in 1789, 108 have been white men.</p>
<p>Race featured in Jackson’s confirmation process; so too did attempts to define her “<a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2022/03/24/ketanji-brown-jackson-defies-judicial-philosophy/7135573001/">judicial philosophy</a>.” The Conversation has turned to legal scholars to explain the meaning of Jackson’s ascension to the court.</p>
<h2>1. Realizing MLK’s ‘dream’</h2>
<p>The Senate Judiciary Committee vote moving Jackson’s confirmation toward a final Senate roll call took place on April 4, 2022 – 54 years to the day since Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. The significance of the date was not lost on <a href="https://www.american.edu/spa/faculty/bjackson.cfm">American University’s Bev-Freda Jackson</a>.</p>
<p>King’s words came up in Jackson’s confirmation hearing. Republican lawmakers suggested that his vision of an America in which people are judged “not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character” was at odds with critical race theory, a concept much maligned by conservatives that holds that racism is structural in nature rather than expressed solely through personal bias. Their implication: that Jackson believed in critical race theory and therefore rejected King’s vision.</p>
<p>Bev-Freda Jackson <a href="https://theconversation.com/ketanji-brown-jackson-and-the-color-blind-society-of-martin-luther-king-jr-180490">argues that this is a distortion</a>. “By recasting anti-racism as the new racism, conservative GOP leaders … use King’s words that advocated for a colorblind society as a critical part of their national messaging to advance legislation that bans the teachings of so-called divisive concepts,” she writes.</p>
<p>“Ketanji Brown Jackson is the very dream that King envisioned,” Jackson notes. “But he died before seeing the results of his nonviolent movement for social justice.”</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ketanji-brown-jackson-and-the-color-blind-society-of-martin-luther-king-jr-180490">Ketanji Brown Jackson and the color blind society of Martin Luther King Jr.</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>2. On the shoulders of pioneers</h2>
<p>Now confirmed as a Supreme Court justice, Jackson has broken through the ultimate glass ceiling in terms of legal careers. She did so so on the shoulders of pioneering Black female judges.</p>
<p><a href="https://people.clas.ufl.edu/polssdw/">University of Florida’s Sharon D. Wright Austin</a> notes, even now, “relatively few Black women are judges at the state or federal level” – which makes the achievement of those who have made it to this level all the more remarkable.</p>
<p>Of the judges <a href="https://theconversation.com/ketanji-brown-jacksons-path-to-supreme-court-nomination-was-paved-by-trailblazing-black-women-judges-179728">highlighted by Austin</a>, there is Judge Jane Bolin, who became the country’s first Black female judge in 1939, serving as a domestic relations judge in New York for almost four decades. Later, in 1961, Constance Baker Motley became the first Black woman to argue a case before the Supreme Court. In all she argued 10 cases before the court, winning nine of them. Meanwhile, Judge Julia Cooper Mack is noted as the first Black woman to sit on a federal appellate court, having been appointed in 1975 and serving 14 years on the bench.</p>
<p>These women are to be celebrated and remembered. As Austin writes, “Representation matters: It is easier for young girls of color to aspire to reach their highest goals when they see others who have done so before them, in the same way that women like Jane Bolin, Constance Baker Motley and Julia Cooper Mack encouraged Ketanji Brown Jackson to reach hers.”</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ketanji-brown-jacksons-path-to-supreme-court-nomination-was-paved-by-trailblazing-black-women-judges-179728">Ketanji Brown Jackson’s path to Supreme Court nomination was paved by trailblazing Black women judges</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>3. Echoes of the past</h2>
<p>The fact that a Black female Supreme Court justice was so long overdue is testament to the slow progress the U.S. has made toward racial – and gender – equality. </p>
<p>Margaret Russell, a <a href="https://www.scu.edu/ic/programs/bannan-forum/faculty-collaboratives/racial--ethnic-justice/margaret-russell/">constitutional law professor from Santa Clara University</a>, saw signs of this lack of advancement during parts of Jackson’s Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings.</p>
<p>Questions directed at the then would-be Supreme Court justice were, according to Russell, <a href="https://theconversation.com/ketanji-brown-jacksons-supreme-court-hearing-is-a-flashback-to-how-race-and-crime-featured-during-thurgood-marshalls-1967-hearings-177306">tantamount to race-baiting</a>. They also sounded eerily similar to criticisms that then-Supreme Court nominee Thurgood Marshall, the first Black American nominee to the court, faced in his own confirmation hearings in 1967. </p>
<p>Both Jackson, now, and Marshall, then, stood accused by senators of being soft on crime and were asked about how they intended to bring race into their legal decisions. “Are you prejudiced against white people in the South?” Marshall was asked by a known white supremacist senator. Similarly, Jackson was asked during her confirmation hearings if she had a “hidden agenda” to incorporate critical race theory into the legal system.</p>
<p>“I find it striking,” Russell writes, “that race has surfaced in such a major way in these hearings, more than five decades after Marshall’s nomination. In some respects, there has been progress on racial equity in the U.S., but aspects of these hearings demonstrate that too much remains the same.”</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ketanji-brown-jacksons-supreme-court-hearing-is-a-flashback-to-how-race-and-crime-featured-during-thurgood-marshalls-1967-hearings-177306">Ketanji Brown Jackson's Supreme Court hearing is a flashback to how race and crime featured during Thurgood Marshall's 1967 hearings</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>4. What Jackson will bring to the Supreme Court</h2>
<p>Jackson’s historic achievement of becoming the first Black female Supreme Court justice may distract from the fact she is also <a href="https://theconversation.com/supreme-court-nominee-ketanji-brown-jackson-faces-confirmation-hearings-7-questions-answered-179715">eminently qualified to sit on the highest court</a> in her own right.</p>
<p><a href="https://law.rutgers.edu/directory/view/ak1444">Alexis Karteron of Rutgers University-Newark</a> notes that the Harvard Law-trained Jackson went on to clerk for Stephen Breyer, the justice she has now replaced. She has served on the U.S. Sentencing Commission as well as acting as both a trial court and appellate judge.</p>
<p>Jackson is also the first former criminal defense attorney to be nominated to the Supreme Court since Marshall. This puts Jackson in a unique position on the bench. Karteron writes that having served as a public defender “will help [Jackson] understand the very real human toll of our criminal justice system. … The criminal justice system takes an enormous toll on both the people in the system and their loved ones. I believe having a Supreme Court justice who is familiar with that is incredibly valuable.”</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/supreme-court-nominee-ketanji-brown-jackson-faces-confirmation-hearings-7-questions-answered-179715">Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson faces confirmation hearings: 7 questions answered</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives and updates an earlier version <a href="https://theconversation.com/ketanji-brown-jackson-set-for-historic-supreme-court-confirmation-vote-3-essential-reads-180531">originally published</a> on April 4, 2022.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180838/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Scholars discuss the meaning of Ketanji Brown Jackson’s elevation to the highest court in the land.Matt Williams, Senior International EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1804902022-04-05T12:31:20Z2022-04-05T12:31:20ZKetanji Brown Jackson and the color blind society of Martin Luther King Jr.<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455936/original/file-20220403-58985-4a0da2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=722%2C132%2C2127%2C1764&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">U.S. Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson in a US Senate office on March 29, 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/supreme-court-nominee-ketanji-brown-jackson-is-seen-during-news-photo/1388387718?adppopup=true">Alex Wong/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>U.S. Sen. Chuck E. Grassley had a question for <a href="https://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/home.nsf/content/VL+-+Judges+-+KBJ">Ketanji Brown Jackson</a> during her confirmation hearings to be the first African American woman on the U.S. Supreme Court. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZocaS7ToO9c">Grassley</a>, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wanted to know if she agreed with Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision that one day America would become a nation in which people are judged “not by the color of their skin but by the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2010/01/18/122701268/i-have-a-dream-speech-in-its-entirety#:%7E:text=sisters%20and%20brothers.-,I%20have%20a%20dream%20today.,flesh%20shall%20see%20it%20together.">content of their character</a>.” </p>
<p>What listeners might not have known about Grassley is that, while it appeared that he was holding up King as an example, he has a mixed history with King’s legacy. Grassley is, in fact, the sole surviving U.S. Senator to have cast a <a href="https://iowastartingline.com/2022/01/17/grassley-addresses-his-1983-mlk-jr-day-no-vote/">“no” vote in 1983</a> on making Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a federal holiday.</p>
<p>Without missing a beat, Jackson delivered a poignant story about her own family and sidestepped Grassley’s apparent move to use King’s words to oppose the teaching of race – and critical race theory in particular – in public schools. </p>
<p>Her parents, she explained, attended racially segregated schools in Florida. One generation later, their daughter was able to attend integrated Florida pubic schools and sits before them as a U.S. Supreme Court nominee. </p>
<p>“The fact that we had come that far was, to me,” Jackson testified, “a testament to the hope and the promise of this country.”</p>
<p>With their vote divided along partisan lines, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee assured the confirmation of the <a href="https://time.com/6146624/history-first-black-woman-supreme-court-justice-nominee/">first Black woman</a> in the 233-year history of the nation’s highest court. The fact that <a href="https://www.ocregister.com/2022/04/04/senate-panel-moves-toward-vote-on-jackson-court-nomination/">their vote</a> occurred on April 4, 2022, a day remembered for the assassination 54 years ago of King, was also significant. The full <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ketanji-brown-jackson-supreme-court-senate-confirmation-first-black-woman/">Senate confirmed her nomination</a> on April 7. </p>
<p>As a scholar of social justice movements, <a href="https://www.american.edu/spa/faculty/bjackson.cfm">I believe</a> that Jackson is the very dream that King envisioned. But he died before seeing the results of his nonviolent movement for social justice. </p>
<h2>Distorting MLK’s words</h2>
<p>Delivered on Aug. 28, 1963, in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., the “I Have a Dream” speech is <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/news/freedoms-ring-i-have-dream-speech">King’s</a> most-recited and best-known. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A black man dressed in a dark suit waves before speaking to thousands of people gathered around the Lincoln Memorial." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455942/original/file-20220403-11-52emub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455942/original/file-20220403-11-52emub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455942/original/file-20220403-11-52emub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455942/original/file-20220403-11-52emub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455942/original/file-20220403-11-52emub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455942/original/file-20220403-11-52emub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455942/original/file-20220403-11-52emub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=564&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. addresses a crowd during the March on Washington on Aug. 28, 1963.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/american-civil-rights-leader-dr-martin-luther-king-jr-news-photo/2836076?adppopup=true">CNP/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“So even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream,” <a href="https://www.npr.org/2010/01/18/122701268/i-have-a-dream-speech-in-its-entirety#:%7E:text=via%20Getty%20Images-,Civil%20rights%20leader%20Martin%20Luther%20King%20Jr.,of%20the%20March%20on%20Washington.">King said</a>. “It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. … I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”</p>
<p>Opponents of <a href="https://theconversation.com/critical-race-theory-what-it-is-and-what-it-isnt-162752">critical race theory</a>, the academic framework that explains the relationship among race, racism and the law, have distorted King’s message. </p>
<p>By recasting anti-racism as the new racism, conservative GOP leaders such as <a href="https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/grassley-on-the-unifying-nature-of-americas-founding-principles">Grassley</a> and U.S. Sen. <a href="https://rollcall.com/2022/03/22/ketanji-brown-jackson-hearing-veers-into-hot-button-topics/">Ted Cruz</a>, a Republican from Texas, use King’s words that advocated for a colorblind society as a critical part of their <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2021/07/02/why-are-states-banning-critical-race-theory/">national messaging</a> to advance legislation that bans the teachings of so-called divisive concepts. </p>
<p>“Critical race theory goes against everything Martin Luther King has ever told us, ‘Don’t judge us by the color of our skin,’ and now they’re embracing it,” House Minority Leader <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/562700-mccarthy-critical-race-theory-goes-against-everything-martin-luther-king-jr/">Kevin McCarthy</a> said. </p>
<p>Such distortions have been sharply challenged, most notably by Bernice King, one of King’s four children. </p>
<p>“Do not take excerpts from my father,” <a href="https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/1415463298464636928">she tweeted</a>. “Study him holistically … for people to be able to misappropriate him this way is actually beyond insulting.” </p>
<p>In practical terms, Jackson’s confirmation does not change the political ideologies on the nation’s highest court. Jackson is a Democratic appointee nominated to replace a Democratic appointee <a href="https://supremecourthistory.org/supreme-court-justices/associate-justice-stephen-g-breyer/">Stephen G. Breyer</a>.</p>
<p>More than likely Jackson will often be writing or signing dissents, along with the other Democratic presidential appointees: Justices <a href="https://supremecourthistory.org/supreme-court-justices/associate-justice-elena-kagan/">Elena Kagan</a> and <a href="https://supremecourthistory.org/supreme-court-justices/associate-justice-sonia-sotomayor/">Sonia Sotomayor</a>.</p>
<h2>MLK’s legacy</h2>
<p>Jackson’s appointment holds a significant symbolic value and adds an important message about <a href="https://www.morehouse.edu/life/campus/martin-luther-king-jr-collection/king-at-morehouse/">the legacy</a> of King’s sermons, speeches and writings. </p>
<p>In his “<a href="https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html">Letter from a Birmingham Jail</a>,” King wrote about the “urgency of now” and how Black people could no longer wait for moderates to join the fight for social justice. </p>
<p>“I had hoped,” King wrote, “that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.”</p>
<p>“For years now, I have heard the word ‘Wait!’” King wrote. “This ‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never.’”</p>
<p>For Black women, at least, I believe the wait is over. What is significant about Jackson’s confirmation is beyond the color of her skin: She would become the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/22/briefing/ketanji-brown-jackson-hearings-supreme-court.html">only current justice</a> who has spent time not only at prestigious law schools and corporate law firms but also representing clients as a federal public defender.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An elderly white man wearing a dark business suit is seen with a marble wall in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456179/original/file-20220404-9425-kxu4na.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456179/original/file-20220404-9425-kxu4na.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456179/original/file-20220404-9425-kxu4na.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456179/original/file-20220404-9425-kxu4na.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456179/original/file-20220404-9425-kxu4na.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456179/original/file-20220404-9425-kxu4na.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456179/original/file-20220404-9425-kxu4na.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">Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, arrives at a Senate Judiciary Committee session to vote on Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/ranking-member-sen-chuck-grassley-looks-on-as-he-arrives-at-news-photo/1239742382?adppopup=true">Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Throughout her career, she has written about the unfairness of the <a href="https://rollcall.com/2022/03/23/ketanji-brown-jackson-outlines-approach-to-sentencing-defendants/">criminal justice system</a>, and while serving on the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/once-home-to-ketanji-brown-jackson-sentencing-commission-now-sits-quiet-while-issues-go-unresolved-11647433838">federal Sentencing Commission</a> she took steps to reduce mass incarceration. </p>
<p>[<em>Understand key political developments, each week.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?nl=politics&source=inline-politics-understand">Subscribe to The Conversation’s politics newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>King knew that <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelbobelian/2013/01/21/mlk-and-the-supreme-court/?sh=6b317020db35">the Supreme Court</a> was integral in setting precedent, creating change and protecting freedoms. </p>
<p>In defending the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Montgomery-bus-boycott">Montgomery bus boycott</a> in Alabama, for instance, King invoked the federal courts, which in 1954 struck down school segregation in the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2004/spring/brown-v-board-1.html">Brown v. Board of Education</a> decision. </p>
<p>“If we are wrong, the Supreme Court is wrong,” <a href="https://www.uscourts.gov/news/2015/01/15/courts-legacy-intertwined-martin-luther-king-jrs">he said</a>. “If we are wrong, the Constitution is wrong. If we are wrong, God Almighty is wrong.”</p>
<p>Though King was shot on the balcony of the <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/assassination-martin-luther-king-jr">Lorraine Hotel</a> in Memphis, Tennessee, his dream of a colorblind society is becoming a reality with the confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court.</p>
<p><em>This article was updated on April 8, 2022, to reflect Jackson’s confirmation.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180490/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bev-Freda Jackson 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>President Joe Biden’s nominee for the US Supreme Court withstood four days of hearings and was confirmed to become the first Black woman to serve on the nation’s highest court.Bev-Freda Jackson, Adjunct Professorial Lecturer, American University School of Public AffairsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1443192020-09-04T11:32:53Z2020-09-04T11:32:53ZStudy shows UK school textbooks teach a highly simplified version of US civil rights movement<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354607/original/file-20200825-20-1ojzcg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C19%2C1286%2C1381&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Martin Luther King, Jr. giving his 'I Have a Dream' speech during the March in Washington, D.C., on 28 August 1963.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Martin_Luther_King_-_March_on_Washington_colorized_photo.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As children return to school in the UK, they will encounter a curriculum that still pays little attention to black British <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/jul/13/black-british-history-school-curriculum-england?CMP=share_btn_tw">history or culture</a>. This is despite an urgent <a href="https://www.blacklivesmatter.uk/">Black Lives Matter</a> movement and growing demands for a more honest reckoning with the racial legacies of Britain’s imperial past. </p>
<p>While some cling to the notion that US-style racial tensions are unthinkable <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/george-poet-newsnight-emily-maitlis-black-lives-matter-george-floyd-a9544776.html">in the UK</a>, critics have condemned Britain’s <a href="https://www.chathamhouse.org/publications/twt/lessons-historical-amnesia">“historical amnesia”</a> and ongoing racial inequalities – highlighting the Windrush scandal, the Grenfell Tower fire and the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on <a href="https://theconversation.com/covid-19-may-harm-minority-groups-health-even-if-they-dont-catch-the-virus-143724">BAME communities</a> as evidence. </p>
<p>A March 2020 review into the <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/874022/6.5577_HO_Windrush_Lessons_Learned_Review_WEB_v2.pdf">Windrush scandal</a>, investigated the mistreatment and deportation of British subjects of Caribbean descent and cited “the public’s and officials’ poor understanding” of Black British history and the end of empire as a relevant factor.</p>
<p>Yet learning about the Windrush generation in school remains an <a href="https://theconversation.com/black-history-is-still-largely-ignored-70-years-after-empire-windrush-reached-britain-98431">optional topic</a> for 11 to 14-year-olds studying history – and has only been on the curriculum since 2013. </p>
<p>In UK schools, students often study Martin Luther King and the African American freedom struggle, but rarely the histories of Britain’s own racial minorities. </p>
<p>As experts in US history, we believe King offers an invaluable entrance point for conversations about race and anti-racist protest. But our <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/D7E96F4E666C8FFE8609294271E21F04/S0021875820000742a.pdf/he_was_shot_because_america_will_not_give_up_on_racism_martin_luther_king_jr_and_the_african_american_civil_rights_movement_in_british_schools.pdf">new research</a> found a routine over-simplification of his beliefs and tactics that weakens connections between the UK and the US, and contributes to this “historical amnesia.” </p>
<p>In our <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/D7E96F4E666C8FFE8609294271E21F04/S0021875820000742a.pdf/he_was_shot_because_america_will_not_give_up_on_racism_martin_luther_king_jr_and_the_african_american_civil_rights_movement_in_british_schools.pdf">latest research</a> with Benjamin Houston and Nick Megoran at Newcastle University, we wanted to find out exactly how the US civil rights movement is being taught in UK schools. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Mural." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353905/original/file-20200820-20-1w4yl3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353905/original/file-20200820-20-1w4yl3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353905/original/file-20200820-20-1w4yl3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353905/original/file-20200820-20-1w4yl3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353905/original/file-20200820-20-1w4yl3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353905/original/file-20200820-20-1w4yl3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353905/original/file-20200820-20-1w4yl3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Part of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Mural in Atlanta, Georgia, US.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/atlanta-georgia-usa-october-9-2014-222688012">Forty3Zero/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We examined history textbooks and curricula, and found British children study a very simplified version of the US freedom struggle. In UK schools, Martin Luther King is often synonymous with the entire civil rights movement. It’s also a very conservative image of King – the more radical elements of his philosophy and activism are ignored. </p>
<h2>Reductive approach</h2>
<p>You would never know from UK textbooks that by the time of his murder in 1968, King was a self-professed democratic socialist working on a multiracial campaign to address <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/poor-peoples-campaign">economic injustice</a> – speaking openly about the triple evils of racism, poverty and war to international audiences, including in the UK. </p>
<p>These oversights are problematic in their own right. But they also obscure important aspects of British history by ignoring the relationship between the African American freedom struggle and campaigns for racial justice in the UK. </p>
<p>Instead, UK children learn a simplistic “feel good” tale of how, back in the bad old days, the heroic Martin Luther King defeated a brand of racism and discrimination “over there”.</p>
<h2>UK connections</h2>
<p>Textbooks fail to consider the British anti-racist groups that consulted with King during his December 1964 <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/02/martin-luther-king-in-london-1964-reflections-on-a-landmark-visit">visit to London</a>. Or how they frequently adopted the rhetoric, tactics and symbolism of their US counterparts, such as in the 1963 <a href="https://www.blackhistorymonth.org.uk/article/section/bhm-heroes/the-bristol-bus-boycott-of-1963/">Bristol Bus Boycott</a>. </p>
<p>Nor do they examine how <a href="https://hatfulofhistory.wordpress.com/2016/01/18/the-uk-home-office-and-american-nazis-the-deportation-of-george-lincoln-rockwell/">racist organisations</a> in the UK <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article/118/1/76/46516">borrowed heavily</a> from the Ku Klux Klan and White Citizens Councils of America. Or how the campaign for Catholic rights in <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article/118/1/76/46516">Northern Ireland</a> was profoundly influenced by the African American freedom struggle. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/smEqnnklfYs?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Martin Luther King certainly understood those links. On his <a href="https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-13-november-1967-martin-luther-king-interview-1967-online">final visit</a> to the UK in 1967, he noted connections with the US and apartheid South Africa. His comments influenced <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2007/nov/16/research.highereducation">press</a> and <a href="https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/1967-11-15/debates/51b1846a-f76e-48ee-b7b6-909dd185df22/(ActsContinuedTillEndOfDecember1968)?highlight=martin%20luther%20king#contribution-b0d66272-5895-41e1-b4c6-87e7e6f51e4c">parliamentary</a> debates regarding immigration policy and minority rights. </p>
<p>By neglecting these connections, textbooks offer little support for teachers hoping to explore civil rights in Britain.</p>
<h2>A more diverse history</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/martin-luther-king-in-the-uk-complete-resource-pack-for-work-unit-and-assemblies-over-ks2-3-and-4-11710703">Free</a> <a href="https://hotcus.org.uk/diversity-and-inclusion/black-history-month-assembly-materials/">resources</a> are increasingly <a href="https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/civil-rights-in-america/">available</a>. And many schools want to teach a <a href="https://www.tes.com/news/review-curriculum-reflect-uks-black-history0">diverse history</a> that is more explicitly connected to the experiences and needs of students in the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2018/may/26/secret-teacher-history-bias-school-fear-student-future">21st century</a>. But teachers need <a href="https://www.runnymedetrust.org/projects-and-publications/education/runnymede-tide-project-teaching-migration-report.html">training and support</a> to teach these topics effectively and sensitively. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.theblackcurriculum.com/">The Black Curriculum</a>, a UK initiative that provides educational materials on Black British history, hopes to change the curriculum for students aged 8 to 16. Over 350,000 people have signed petitions and circulated an <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5c4325439d5abb9b27980cd4/t/5ee7c1757c55e954e621cfd6/1592246647016/Letter+to+Gavin+Williamson+from+TBC-4.pdf">open letter</a> to secretary of state for education, Gavin Williamson. But the <a href="https://www.tes.com/news/government-opposed-diverse-curriculum">government claims</a> the curriculum is already broad and diverse. </p>
<h2>Global links</h2>
<p>The problem is not that there is too much US history in UK schools, but that these topics are rarely presented alongside equivalent and often interconnected struggles in the UK. </p>
<p>The history of the US civil rights movement should never be a surrogate for teaching the histories of Britain’s own racial minorities, but it offers an untapped resource for starting those conversations. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1271147161938464773"}"></div></p>
<p>Teaching Martin Luther King and the US civil rights movement offers a valuable entrance point for conversations about race, racism, and anti-racism in both the US and the UK. </p>
<p>It presents an opportunity to explore past and present campaigns for racial and social justice. And it can equip UK students to appreciate links between global histories and those of their own communities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144319/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Megan Hunt received funding from Freedom City 2017 to conduct the research cited in this article. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brian Ward does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As British journalist and author, Reni Eddo-Lodge, writes, the US civil rights movement too often becomes “the story of the struggle against racism”.Brian Ward, Professor in American Studies, Northumbria University, NewcastleMegan Hunt, Teaching Fellow in American History, The University of EdinburghLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/923802018-04-02T10:44:31Z2018-04-02T10:44:31ZMLK’s vision matters today for the 43 million Americans living in poverty<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212746/original/file-20180330-189830-1qxubg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. displays the poster to be used during his Poor People's Campaign in 1968.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Horace Cort</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, while fighting for a <a href="http://media.miamiherald.com/multimedia/news/iamaman/pitts.html">10-cent wage</a> increase for garbage workers. These efforts by King were part of a broader and more sustained initiative known as the <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1068/a45497">Poor People’s Campaign</a>. </p>
<p>King was working to broaden the scope of the civil rights movement to include poverty and the end of the war in Vietnam. King and his leadership team <a href="http://www.thekingcenter.org/archive/document/mlk-public-statement-poor-peoples-campaign">planned</a> to bring thousands of poor people to Washington, D.C., where they would camp out on the National Mall until Congress passed legislation to eradicate poverty. </p>
<p>King was convinced that for the civil rights movement to achieve its goals, poverty needed to become a central focus of the movement. He believed the poor could lead a movement that would revolutionize society and end poverty. As King noted, “The only real revolutionary, people say, is a man who has nothing to lose. There are millions of poor people in this country who have little, or nothing to lose.”</p>
<p>With over <a href="https://poverty.ucdavis.edu/faq/what-current-poverty-rate-united-states">43 million</a> people living in poverty in the United States today, King’s ideas still hold much power. </p>
<h2>The Poor People’s Campaign</h2>
<p>In the last three years of his life and ministry King had grown frustrated with the slow pace of reform and the lack of funding for anti-poverty programs. In 1966, for example, King moved to <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/chi-chicagodays-martinlutherking-story-story.html">Chicago</a> and lived in an urban slum to bring attention to the plight of the urban poor in northern cities. His experiences in the South had convinced him that elimination of poverty was important to winning the long-term battle for civil and social rights. </p>
<p>It was also at this time that King began to think about leading a march to Washington, D.C., to end poverty. King explained the campaign <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=oh3aCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA152&dq=We+poor+people+will+move+on+Washington,+determined+to+stay+there+until+the+legislative+and+executive+branches+of+the+government+take+serious+and+adequate+action+on+jobs+and+income.%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi-zIabkpLaAhUD0IMKHTQDC64Q6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q=We%20poor%20people%20will%20move%20on%20Washington%2C%20determined%20to%20stay%20there%20until%20the%20legislative%20and%20executive%20branches%20of%20the%20government%20take%20serious%20and%20adequate%20action%20on%20jobs%20and%20income.%22&f=false">saying,</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Then we poor people will move on Washington, determined to stay there until the legislative and executive branches of the government take serious and adequate action on jobs and income.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>King was assassinated before he could lead the campaign. And while the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=VmmrBgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT6&dq=Martin+Luther+King+and+Resurrection+City&ots=hLvDuTsjU2&sig=zEx85btyyeGKvWzwROTnqdOdBlE#v=onepage&q=Martin%20Luther%20King%20and%20Resurrection%20City&f=false">effort continued</a>, the campaign could not meet <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=6YwXAAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=From+human+rights+to+civil+rights&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiFv-CKmZLaAhUKiIMKHeXcDp0Q6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q=From%20human%20rights%20to%20civil%20rights&f=false">King’s goals</a> of poverty elimination, universal access to health care and education, and a guaranteed income that would keep people out of poverty. </p>
<h2>Why it matters today</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212748/original/file-20180330-189813-1de83h7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212748/original/file-20180330-189813-1de83h7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212748/original/file-20180330-189813-1de83h7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212748/original/file-20180330-189813-1de83h7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212748/original/file-20180330-189813-1de83h7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212748/original/file-20180330-189813-1de83h7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212748/original/file-20180330-189813-1de83h7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A homeless person in New York.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/zeldman/15588411310/in/photolist-pKuFAf-6skT1s-b8wwix-ot1Pxa-94atvD-94dxRQ-81JCL1-7zshSC-94dwV5-edCza-6tGYu7-aeF62p-awcB6h-eqRLg3-dXMU9a-nZbE3v-7YgdZY-9ZYyS2-8erG6J-5rAbZX-jHpcC9-u5uoY-2VF9DW-fKzyTJ-6MB7Pm-8KWsf7-9rF73-9hcmUj-a33NBk-dJGN5a-9WFp2w-v7GTM-9cZZz7-9f9eHy-epUvyV-MCZtSu-8J3zZH-82fLDV-21aqhrs-a3h7Ax-9uD6iH-cSDEFS-93tKaD-6peUzs-iATobz-8uHb2U-8p2gsH-iyi6h6-6tCWkx-5dmzyy">Jeffrey Zeldman</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At a time when millions in the U.S. are poor and disenfranchised, the Poor People’s campaign remains as relevant for the U.S. as it was 50 years ago. Consider the evidence:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>At least 1.5 million households in the United States with about 3 million children <a href="http://www.twodollarsaday.com">are surviving</a> on cash incomes of no more than $2 per day. </p></li>
<li><p>A <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=22533">2017 United Nations report</a> found infant mortality rates in the U.S. to be the highest in the developed world. Children alone comprised 32.6 percent of all people in poverty.</p></li>
<li><p>The <a href="http://wid.world/country/usa/">World Income Database</a> found that the U.S. has the highest rate of inequality among all Western countries. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Making this situation worse, many of the welfare and poverty elimination programs have been cut back or eliminated. A recent <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/08/22/the-enduring-legacy-of-welfare-reform-20-years-later/?utm_term=.9af6edafdf7e">Washington Post investigation</a> found that extreme poverty has nearly doubled since major welfare reform efforts in the 1990s under then-President Bill Clinton. </p>
<h2>How can King’s ideas help today?</h2>
<p>At the core of King’s anti-poverty message were two key ideas. The first was a guarantee that the federal government would provide every able-bodied American with a job. The second was for the federal government to provide a national basic income that would ensure a minimum concrete sum of money for every American regardless of their employment status. </p>
<p>In his 1967 speech at Stanford University, <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/news/50-years-ago-martin-luther-king-jr-speaks-stanford-university">King argued</a> that the time had come to “guarantee an annual minimum – and livable – income for every American family.” The idea was to ensure every U.S. citizen would be able to live above the poverty line. King was assassinated before he could present a fully developed policy proposal. </p>
<p>Currently, several Nordic nations, most notably <a href="https://qz.com/876985/finland-hopes-to-dispel-one-of-the-biggest-critiques-of-a-basic-income/">Finland</a>, are considering such a proposal. Two economists, <a href="https://phys.org/news/2017-03-economists-minimum-income.html">Debraj Ray and Kelle Moene</a> have argued that a universal income has the potential to boost GDP and productivity. The premise is that if you give people who currently lack means more money to spend, they will contribute to the economy through increased <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=9TtYDgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=argument+for+universal+income&ots=MPIToArBRN&sig=j0-89hZeg3DtQDlG4J1z-mJFnuw#v=onepage&q=boost%20consumption&f=false">consumption of goods</a> and services. </p>
<p>On the anniversary of King’s death, as Americans ponder the unfinished work of the Poor People’s Campaign, I believe a guaranteed national income is one idea that needs to be examined.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92380/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joshua F.J. Inwood 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 argued for a national guaranteed income that would keep people out of poverty. Fifty years later, the Poor People’s Campaign still resonates.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/900582018-01-12T21:01:27Z2018-01-12T21:01:27ZWhat activists today can learn from MLK, the ‘conservative militant’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201793/original/file-20180112-101518-1v277rd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A protestor holds a sign with a quote from civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. at the South Carolina Statehouse.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the turbulent days following President Donald Trump’s inauguration, activists launched resistance movements: Greenpeace activists climbed 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>Similar protests took place elsewhere. 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. And at the Grammys, the very next day, 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>A year later, demonstrations like these have not disappeared. A <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-womens-march-2018-story.html">second women’s march</a> is planned for later this month. But the resistance has moved beyond street protests. Activists are now embracing the hard work of political organizing. <a href="https://www.runforsomething.net/book/">“Don’t Just March Run for Something”</a> – the title of a best-seller by Amanda Litman, email director of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, crystallizes this transition. </p>
<p>I have <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781498511438/Democratic-Humility-Reinhold-Niebuhr-Neuroscience-and-America%E2%80%99s-Political-Crisis">studied the words and actions</a> of Martin Luther King Jr. for decades. The very change we are witnessing now – the transition from protest to politics – is exactly the kind of transition that King called for during 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, the 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>
<figure class="align-center ">
<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">
<figcaption>
<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>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<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. Even if that effort failed, the bigots were nevertheless defeated. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/14301/slavery-by-another-name-by-douglas-a-blackmon/9780385722704/">Jim Crow system of racial segregation</a> 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>Resistance through politics is conservative</h2>
<p>The notion of conservative militancy is not one that many of Trump’s opponents would likely affirm. Some see 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>; others see it as an opportunity to <a href="https://greenpartywashington.org/2016/11/09/resist-trump-failed-two-party-system/">move beyond</a> the two-party system altogether. But the transition from marching to politics show that many understand that opposing Trump requires mobilizing the power necessary to make that happen. </p>
<p>The civil rights movement expressed a similar operating principle: Keep your <a href="https://library.wustl.edu/spec/filmandmedia/collections/hampton/eop/">“eyes on the prize.”</a> Here too, the thought was that opponents should not allow themselves to be satisfied with simply articulating their dissatisfaction. Rather, they should continually orient themselves and their actions such that they advance the movement toward the ultimate goal. </p>
<p>Right now, those Americans who oppose the president 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. And now, one year after his inauguration, that defense has moved from protest to politics. </p>
<p>Whether they know it or not, in both regards, these Americans are following King’s example. </p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an article <a href="https://theconversation.com/lessons-in-resistance-from-mlk-the-conservative-militant-73506">originally published</a> on March 5, 2017.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90058/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. A scholar explains King’s strategies in resistance.Christopher Beem, Managing Director of the McCourtney Institute of Democracy, Penn StateLicensed 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>
<figure class="align-center ">
<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">
<figcaption>
<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>
<p>
<section class="inline-content">
<img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265344/original/file-20190322-36244-jav5vf.png?w=128&h=128">
<div>
<header></header>
<p><a href="http://www.aag.org">Joshua F.J. Inwood is a member of the American Association of Geographers</a></p>
<footer>The association is a funding partner of The Conversation US.</footer>
</div>
</section>
</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89946/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<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>
<figure class="align-center ">
<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">
<figcaption>
<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>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<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/686432016-11-16T01:18:19Z2016-11-16T01:18:19ZWhy a fractured nation needs to remember King’s message of love<p>The 2016 election campaign was arguably the most <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/02/2016-elections-nastiest-presidential-election-since-1972-213644">divisive</a> in a generation. And even after Donald Trump’s victory, people are struggling to understand what his presidency will mean for the country. This is especially true for many <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-attacks-idUSKBN1352NO">minority groups</a> who were singled out during the election campaign and have since experienced discrimination and threats of violence.</p>
<p>Yet, as geography teaches us, this is not the first time America has faced such a crisis – this divisiveness has a much longer history. I study the civil rights movement and the field of peace geographies. We faced similar crises related to the broader civil rights struggles in the 1960s. </p>
<p>So, what can we draw from the past that is relevant to the present? Specifically, how can we heal a nation that is divided along race, class and political lines? </p>
<p>As outlined by Martin Luther King Jr., the role of love, in engaging individuals and communities in conflict, is crucial today. By recalling King’s vision, I believe, we can have opportunities to build a more inclusive and just community that does not retreat from diversity but draws strength from it. </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 ending poverty and his fight 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 tens of thousands of economically disenfranchised people to advocate for policies that would ameliorate 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 the health and welfare of working peoples. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<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">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Martin Luther King Jr. speaking at interfaith civil rights rally, San Francisco 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="http://liberalarts.iupui.edu/directory/bio/odwyer">Owen Dwyer</a> have emphasized King’s work on behalf of civil rights in a 21st-century <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00330124.2012.658728">context</a>. They argue the civil rights movement in general, and King’s work specifically, holds lessons for social justice organizing and classroom pedagogy in that it helps students and the broader public see how the struggle for civil rights continues. </p>
<p>These arguments build on sociologist <a href="http://www.michaelericdyson.com/april41968/">Michael Eric Dyson,</a> who also argues we need to reevaluate King’s work as it reveals the possibility to build a 21st-century social movement that can address continued inequality and poverty through direct action and social protest. </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 us with 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. </p>
<p>The three forms of love are “Eros,” “Philia” and most importantly “Agape.” 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. He said, </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 affectionate; it means understanding, redeeming goodwill for all [sic] 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 in a 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. As he said, </p>
<blockquote>
<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>
</blockquote>
<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. It would move us past simply seeing the other side as being wholly motivated by hate. The reality is that economic changes since the Great Recession have wrought tremendous pain and suffering in many quarters of the United States. Many Trump supporters were motivated by a desperate need to change the system. </p>
<p>However, simply dismissing the concerns voiced by many that Trump’s election has empowered <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2016/11/14/white-nationalists-rejoice-trumps-appointment-breitbarts-stephen-bannon">racists</a> and misogynists would be wrong as well.</p>
<p>These cleavages that we see will most likely intensify as Donald Trump prepares to take the oath of office as the 45th president of the United States. </p>
<p>To bridge these divisions is to begin a difficult conversation about where we are as a nation and where we want to go. Engaging in a conversation through agape signals a willingness to restore broken communities and to approach difference with an open mind.</p>
<p>It also exposes and rejects those that are using race and racism and fears of the “other” to advance a political agenda that intensifies the divisions in our nation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68643/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joshua F.J. Inwood 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>Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision of love was not sentimental. It demanded that individuals tell their oppressors what they were doing was wrong. How can this vision help with community-building today?Joshua F.J. Inwood, Associate Professor of Geography Senior Research Associate in the Rock Ethics Institute, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.