tag:theconversation.com,2011:/nz/topics/letter-from-birmingham-jail-48533/articlesLetter from Birmingham Jail – The Conversation2022-04-05T12:31:20Ztag: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>
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<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">
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<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>
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<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>
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<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">
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<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>
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<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/1094932019-02-25T11:37:37Z2019-02-25T11:37:37ZWyatt Tee Walker: Chief strategist for Martin Luther King Jr. in the struggle for civil rights<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258847/original/file-20190213-181589-olya0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker during a news interview in 2004.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-Domestic-News-New-York-United-/6f8f7c7be4e6da11af9f0014c2589dfb/6/0">AP Photo/Frank Franklin II</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Much of the civil rights movement is remembered through the leadership of Martin Luther King Jr. There were a number of people who also made valuable contributions but aren’t known as well.</p>
<p>Among them was Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker – hailed as “<a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/walker-wyatt-tee">one of the keenest minds of the nonviolent revolution</a>” by none less than King himself. </p>
<p>Walker worked closely with King and was the chief strategist for the 1963 Birmingham campaign, which turned out to be one the most influential moments for the civil rights struggle.</p>
<h2>Before Birmingham</h2>
<p><a href="https://blackpast.org/aah/walker-wyatt-tee-1929">Born in 1929 in Brockton, Massachusetts</a>, Walker attended Virginia Union University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and physics. He later went on to do graduate studies in theology at the university, setting him on his future path as a minister. </p>
<p>He met King <a href="https://richmond.access.preservica.com/uncategorized/digitalFile_30fa411f-427f-418f-bad0-07b73ffc9030/">at an interseminary group</a> in 1952, an organization that planned meetings between students of various seminaries. At the time, King was <a href="https://mlk.wsu.edu/about-dr-king/">president of the student body</a> of Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania. They soon became personal friends.</p>
<p>This friendship lasted until King’s assassination in 1968. It would inform much of the crucial civil rights work that the two would do together.</p>
<p>While working as a minister at Gillfield Baptist Church in Petersburg, Virginia in the 1950s, Walker began <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/wyatt-tee-walker-civil-rights-leader-and-top-assistant-to-martin-luther-king-jr-dies-at-89/2018/01/23/35ad4686-0075-11e8-9d31-d72cf78dbeee_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.f05fa8dd3488">organizing large-scale civil rights protests</a>. King assisted Walker in some of this work, including <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/wyatt-tee-walker-1">sending recorded remarks of support</a> for a demonstration in Richmond in 1959 protesting Virginia’s decision to shut down schools rather than integrate them.</p>
<p>Walker was also involved in several civil rights groups, including the <a href="https://nationalsclc.org/about/history/">Southern Christian Leadership Conference</a>, which was founded by King and other civil rights leaders. In 1960, Walker took charge as <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/walker-wyatt-tee">the first full-time executive director</a> of the conference – a position from which he would oversee some of the most important moments of the civil rights movement, including one of the most significant campaigns – <a href="http://www.pbs.org/black-culture/explore/civil-rights-movement-birmingham-campaign/">Project C</a>, or Project Confrontation.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258848/original/file-20190213-181604-e48ggt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258848/original/file-20190213-181604-e48ggt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258848/original/file-20190213-181604-e48ggt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258848/original/file-20190213-181604-e48ggt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258848/original/file-20190213-181604-e48ggt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258848/original/file-20190213-181604-e48ggt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258848/original/file-20190213-181604-e48ggt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">King with civil rights leaders, including Rev. Walker (on his left).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-A-GA-USA-APHS348638-MLK/85dfbb307699441da21948cb76ee55a5/11/0">AP Photo</a></span>
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<p>Popularly known as the Birmingham campaign, Project Confrontation was a series of coordinated boycotts and demonstrations supporting the ongoing efforts against segregation in the city. Demonstrations included marches, sit-ins, and <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephen-r-haynes/kneel-in-and-the-last-segregated-hour_b_2199312.html">kneel-ins</a> in white churches by black protesters.</p>
<p><audio preload="metadata" controls="controls" data-duration="57" data-image="" data-title="Wyatt Tee Walker recruits volunteers for Project Confrontation" data-size="1380423" data-source="Audio courtesy of the Dr. and Mrs. Wyatt Tee Walker Collection, Boatwright Library Rare Books and Special Collections, University of Richmond." data-source-url="" data-license="Author provided" data-license-url="">
<source src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/audio/1485/wyatt-tee-walker-made-by-headliner.m4a" type="audio/mp4">
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<div class="audio-player-caption">
Wyatt Tee Walker recruits volunteers for Project Confrontation.
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Audio courtesy of the Dr. and Mrs. Wyatt Tee Walker Collection, Boatwright Library Rare Books and Special Collections, University of Richmond.</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span><span class="download"><span>1.32 MB</span> <a target="_blank" href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/audio/1485/wyatt-tee-walker-made-by-headliner.m4a">(download)</a></span></span>
</div></p>
<p><em>Wyatt Tee Walker recruits volunteers for Project Confrontation at a Birmingham mass meeting on April 12, 1963. This audio was made available courtesy of the Dr. and Mrs. Wyatt Tee Walker Collection, Boatwright Library Rare Books and Special Collections, University of Richmond.</em></p>
<h2>Walker and the Letter from Birmingham Jail</h2>
<p>What Project Confrontation is perhaps best remembered for is the <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/letter-birmingham-jail">Letter from Birmingham Jail</a>, an open letter authored by King while jailed in Birmingham due to his participation in the protests.</p>
<p>The letter was written in response to a <a href="https://swap.stanford.edu/20141218230016/http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/kingweb/popular_requests/frequentdocs/clergy.pdf">public statement</a> by a group of eight ministers criticizing the Birmingham campaign. These ministers believed that the direct action of boycotts and demonstrations were too disruptive to daily life and should be stopped in favor of peaceful negotiations.</p>
<p><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=9RGqzXX2I2wC&pg=PA238&lpg=PA238&dq=%22Begun+on+the+margins+of+the+newspaper+#v=onepage&q=%22Begun%20on%20the%20margins%20of%20the%20newspaper&f=false">Handwritten on the few scraps of paper</a> that King was allowed in his cell, the letter was smuggled out piecemeal by his lawyers. </p>
<p>In order for the letter to be published, it had to be typed, but first, it had to be read.</p>
<p>Walker claims in <a href="https://richmond.access.preservica.com/uncategorized/deliverableUnit_e5162d2f-c43f-4d1e-ac3a-7a280569f609/">a 2016 oral history</a>, conducted by the University of Richmond where <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/taylor-mcneilly-662020">I am the reference and processing archivist</a>, that this role fell to him because he was “the only one in Birmingham who could understand and translate King’s chicken-scratch writing.” </p>
<p>Walker goes on to say that <a href="https://richmond.access.preservica.com/uncategorized/digitalFile_268ea40f-94ae-493f-b7fc-a240a3cd4f76/">his secretary typed the letter</a> while he read it aloud to her. When his secretary fell asleep working on the letter late at night, <a href="https://richmond.access.preservica.com/uncategorized/digitalFile_2acf8bad-1727-4ba8-96eb-1d6f390c7913/">Walker finished the typing</a>. </p>
<p>Walker also claimed credit for the title, turning down the Friends Committee’s suggestion of “Tears of Love.”</p>
<h2>Walker and Project ‘C’</h2>
<p>Walker’s role in Birmingham was not limited to guiding one of the most famous pieces of 20th-century writing to publication. </p>
<p>In fact, Project Confrontation was <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/news/remembering-wyatt-walker-august-16-1929-january-23-2018">designed and organized</a> by Walker. </p>
<p>“Dr. King gave me the assignment to go to Birmingham and plan it out. And that ended up becoming Project C,” Walker states in <a href="https://richmond.access.preservica.com/uncategorized/digitalFile_2acf8bad-1727-4ba8-96eb-1d6f390c7913/">the same 2016 oral history</a>. </p>
<p>Explaining his strategy, <a href="https://richmond.access.preservica.com/uncategorized/digitalFile_268ea40f-94ae-493f-b7fc-a240a3cd4f76/">he says</a>, “I knew that two things would move Birmingham: Mess with the money and make it inconvenient for the white community. That was the way to make change come.”</p>
<p>The demonstrations were specifically timed to make it onto the evening news, creating national attention for what had been considered a regional concern. <a href="https://richmond.access.preservica.com/uncategorized/digitalFile_2acf8bad-1727-4ba8-96eb-1d6f390c7913/">Walker’s work</a> included everything from high level strategy, such as the timing of demonstrations, to the detailed work of counting seats in restaurants and churches to coordinate the sit-ins and kneel-ins.</p>
<h2>Birmingham 56 years later</h2>
<p>Project “C” went on to be a major success for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The methods and strategies became a template for future campaigns.</p>
<p>As Walker <a href="https://richmond.access.preservica.com/uncategorized/digitalFile_30fa411f-427f-418f-bad0-07b73ffc9030/">states</a>, “the Birmingham campaign led to the 1964 Public Accommodations Act, which desegregated America.”</p>
<p>Birmingham showed that nonviolent, direction action focused on disrupting the economy and doing things that were <a href="https://richmond.access.preservica.com/uncategorized/digitalFile_268ea40f-94ae-493f-b7fc-a240a3cd4f76/">“inconvenient” for the white community</a> could generate positive results. </p>
<p>Wyatt Tee Walker had a key role to play in this change.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/109493/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Taylor McNeilly does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Rev. Walker worked closely with King and would be the one to bring King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail to public attention. He was the only one who could understand King’s handwriting.Taylor McNeilly, Reference and Processing Archivist, University of RichmondLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/927952018-03-30T16:30:18Z2018-03-30T16:30:18ZMartin Luther King Jr. had a much more radical message than a dream of racial brotherhood<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212711/original/file-20180329-189827-l3ylbh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. addresses marchers during his 'I Have a Dream' speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Martin Luther King Jr. has come to be revered as a hero who led a nonviolent struggle to reform and redeem the United States. His birthday is celebrated as a national holiday. Tributes are paid to him on his death anniversary each April, and his legacy is honored in multiple ways. </p>
<p>But from my perspective as a <a href="http://paulharvey.org/about">historian of religion and civil rights</a>, the true radicalism of his thought remains underappreciated. The “civil saint” portrayed nowadays was, by the end of his life, a social and economic radical, who argued forcefully for the necessity of economic justice in the pursuit of racial equality. </p>
<p>Three particular works from 1957 to 1967 illustrate how King’s political thought evolved from a hopeful reformer to a radical critic. </p>
<h2>King’s support for white moderates</h2>
<p>For much of the 1950s, King believed that white southern ministers could provide moral leadership. He thought the white racists of the South could be countered by the ministers who took a stand for equality. At the time, his concern with economic justice was a secondary theme in his addresses and political advocacy. </p>
<p><a href="http://okra.stanford.edu/transcription/document_images/Vol04Scans/184_1957_The%20Role%20of%20the%20Church.pdf">Speaking at Vanderbilt University in 1957</a>, he professed his belief that “there is in the white South more open-minded moderates than appears on the surface.” He urged them to lead the region through its necessary transition to equal treatment for black citizens. He reassured all that the aim of the movement was not to “defeat or humiliate the white man, but to win his friendship and understanding.”</p>
<p>King had hope for this vision. He had worked with white liberals such as <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/myles-horton-1">Myles Horton</a>, the leader of a center in Tennessee for training labor and civil rights organizers. King had developed friendships and crucial alliances with white supporters in other parts of the country as well. His vision was for the fulfillment of basic American ideals of liberty and equality. </p>
<h2>Letter from Birmingham Jail</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212712/original/file-20180329-189830-1cycrcv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212712/original/file-20180329-189830-1cycrcv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212712/original/file-20180329-189830-1cycrcv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212712/original/file-20180329-189830-1cycrcv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212712/original/file-20180329-189830-1cycrcv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212712/original/file-20180329-189830-1cycrcv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212712/original/file-20180329-189830-1cycrcv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A handwritten copy of ‘Letter From a Birmingham Jail.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Richard Drew, file</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By the early 1960s, at the peak of the civil rights movement, King’s views had evolved significantly. In early 1963, King came to Birmingham to lead a campaign for civil rights in a city known for its history of racial violence. </p>
<p>During the Birmingham campaign, in April 1963, he issued a masterful public letter explaining the motivations behind his crusade. It stands in striking contrast with his hopeful 1957 sermon. </p>
<p>His “<a href="https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html">Letter From a Birmingham Jail</a>” responded to a newspaper advertisement from eight local clergymen urging King to allow the city government to enact gradual changes. </p>
<p>In a stark change from his earlier views, King devastatingly <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/01/15/martin-luther-king-jr-s-scathing-critique-of-white-moderates-from-the-birmingham-jail/?utm_term=.21b80fcd96ad">targeted white moderates</a> willing to settle for “order” over justice. In an oppressive environment, the avoidance of conflict might appear to be “order,” but in fact supported the denial of basic citizenship rights, he noted.</p>
<p>“We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive,” King wrote. He argued how oppressors never voluntarily gave up freedom to the oppressed – it always had to be demanded by “extremists for justice.” </p>
<p>He wrote how he was “gravely disappointed with the white moderate … who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom.” They were, he said, a greater enemy to racial justice than were members of the white supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and other white racist radicals. </p>
<h2>Call for economic justice</h2>
<p>By 1967, King’s philosophy emphasized economic justice as essential to equality. And he made clear connections between American violence abroad in Vietnam and American social inequality at home. </p>
<p>Exactly one year before his assassination in Memphis, King stood at one of the best-known pulpits in the nation, at <a href="https://www.trcnyc.org/history/">Riverside Church in New York</a>. There, he explained how he had come to connect the struggle for civil rights with the fight for economic justice and the early protests against the Vietnam War. </p>
<p><a href="http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/documentsentry/doc_beyond_vietnam/">He proclaimed:</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Now it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America’s soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read ‘Vietnam.’ It can never be saved so long as it destroys the hopes of men the world over.”</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212710/original/file-20180329-189821-fwse6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212710/original/file-20180329-189821-fwse6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212710/original/file-20180329-189821-fwse6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212710/original/file-20180329-189821-fwse6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212710/original/file-20180329-189821-fwse6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212710/original/file-20180329-189821-fwse6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212710/original/file-20180329-189821-fwse6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson, right, talks with civil rights leaders at the White House in Washington, Jan. 18, 1964.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>He angered crucial allies. King and President Lyndon Johnson, for example, had been allies in achieving significant legislative victories in 1964 and 1965. Johnson’s “Great Society” launched a series of initiatives to address issues of poverty at home. But beginning in 1965, after the <a href="http://www.pbs.org/johngardner/chapters/4c.html">Johnson administration</a> increased the number of U.S. troops deployed in Vietnam, King’s vision grew radical. </p>
<p>King continued with a searching analysis of what linked poverty and violence both at home and abroad. While he had spoken out before about the effects of colonialism, he now made the connection unmistakably clear. He said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor in America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home, and death and corruption in Vietnam.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>King concluded with the famous words on <a href="https://www.carnegiefoundation.org/blog/the-fierce-urgency-of-now/">“the fierce urgency of now,”</a> by which he emphasized the immediacy of the connection between economic injustice and racial inequality. </p>
<h2>The radical King</h2>
<p>King’s <a href="https://www.archives.gov/files/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf">“I Have a Dream,”</a> speech at the March on Washington in August 1963 serves as the touchstone for the annual King holiday. But King’s dream ultimately evolved into a call for a fundamental redistribution of economic power and resources. It’s why he was in Memphis, <a href="http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_memphis_sanitation_workers_strike_1968/">supporting a strike by garbage workers</a>, when he was assassinated in April 1968. </p>
<p>He remained, to the end, the <a href="http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_nonviolent_resistance/">prophet of nonviolent resistance</a>. But these three key moments in King’s life show his evolution over a decade. </p>
<p>This remembering matters more than ever today. Many states are either passing or considering measures that would make it <a href="https://blog.oup.com/2016/12/religion-second-redemption">harder for many Americans</a> to exercise their fundamental right to vote. It would roll back the huge gains in rates of political participation by racial minorities made possible by the Voting Rights Act of 1965. At the same time, there is a <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/reports/2018/02/21/447051/systematic-inequality/">persistent wealth gap</a> between blacks and whites.</p>
<p>Only sustained government attention can address these issues – the point King was stressing later in his life.</p>
<p>King’s philosophy stood not just for “opportunity,” but for positive measures toward economic equality and political power. Ignoring this understanding betrays the “dream” that is ritually invoked each year.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92795/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Harvey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>King Jr., remembered today mainly for his non violent resistance, was a radical reformer who called for a fundamental redistribution of economic power and resources .Paul Harvey, Professor of American History, University of Colorado Colorado SpringsLicensed 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/899382018-01-11T21:17:08Z2018-01-11T21:17:08ZMeet the theologian who helped MLK see the value of nonviolence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201691/original/file-20180111-101511-1g08viv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. , chats with African-Americans during a door-to-door campaign in 1964.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/JAB</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For African-Americans who grew up with the legacy of segregation, disfranchisement, lynching, and violence, retreat from social struggle was unthinkable. Martin Luther King Jr., however, learned from some important mentors how to integrate spiritual growth and social transformation. </p>
<p>As a <a href="http://paulharvey.org/about">historian</a>, who has studied how figures in American history struggled with similar questions, I believe one <a href="https://religionnews.com/2019/01/17/howard-thurman-mentor-to-king-who-preached-nonviolence-featured-in-documentary/">major influence on King’s thought</a> was the African-American minister, theologian, and mystic <a href="http://www.pbs.org/thisfarbyfaith/people/howard_thurman.html">Howard Thurman</a>.</p>
<h2>The influence of Howard Thurman</h2>
<p>Born in 1899, Thurman was 30 years older than King, the same age, in fact, as King’s father. Through his sermons and teaching at Howard University and Boston University, he influenced intellectually and spiritually an entire generation that became the leadership of the civil rights movement. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201700/original/file-20180111-101492-3fslzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201700/original/file-20180111-101492-3fslzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201700/original/file-20180111-101492-3fslzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201700/original/file-20180111-101492-3fslzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201700/original/file-20180111-101492-3fslzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201700/original/file-20180111-101492-3fslzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201700/original/file-20180111-101492-3fslzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Howard Thurman.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/speakingoffaith/8447631569">On Being</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
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<p>Among his most significant contributions was bringing the ideas of nonviolence to the movement. It was Thurman’s trip to India in 1935, where he met Mahatma Gandhi, that <a href="http://www.beaconbroadside.com/broadside/2014/10/when-howard-thurman-met-mahatma-gandhi-nonviolence-and-the-civil-rights-movement.html">was greatly influential</a> in incorporating the principles of nonviolence in the African-American freedom struggle.</p>
<p>At the close of the meeting, which was long highlighted by Thurman as a central event of his life, Gandhi reportedly <a href="http://www.beacon.org/Visions-of-a-Better-World-P745.aspx">told Thurman</a> that “it may be through the Negroes that the unadulterated message of nonviolence will be delivered to the world.” King and others <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=iY-MAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA89&lpg=PA89&dq=it+may+be+through+negroes+unadulterated+message+king+scla&source=bl&ots=-CdQSQlAeq&sig=B-oRs-yTewBMbNuavMzVWhaxUOE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjKlObjqNDYAhUN6mMKHftDBzYQ6AEILzAB#v">remembered</a> and repeated that phrase during the early years of the civil rights movement in the 1950s. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201692/original/file-20180111-101508-8ea62b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201692/original/file-20180111-101508-8ea62b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201692/original/file-20180111-101508-8ea62b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201692/original/file-20180111-101508-8ea62b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201692/original/file-20180111-101508-8ea62b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201692/original/file-20180111-101508-8ea62b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201692/original/file-20180111-101508-8ea62b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Mahatma Gandhi.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AGandhi_spinning.jpg">gandhiserve.org via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
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<p>Thurman and King were both steeped in the black Baptist tradition. Both thought long about how to apply their church experiences and theological training into challenging the white supremacist ideology of segregation. However, initially their encounters were brief.</p>
<p>Thurman had served as <a href="https://www.bu.edu/thurman/about/dr-thurman/a-timeline/">dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University</a> from 1953 to 1965. King was a student there when Thurman first assumed his position in Boston and heard the renowned minister deliver some addresses. A few years later, <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/howard-thurman-2">King invited</a> Thurman to speak at his first pulpit at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.</p>
<p>Their most serious personal encounter – the one that gave Thurman his opportunity to influence King personally, and help prepare him for struggles to come – came as a result of a tragedy. </p>
<h2>A crucial meeting in hospital</h2>
<p>On Sept. 20, 1958, a mentally disturbed African-American woman named Izola Ware Curry came to a book signing in upper Manhattan. There, King was signing copies of his new book, “<a href="http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_stride_toward_freedom_the_montgomery_story_1958/">Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story</a>.” Curry moved to the front of the signing line, took out a sharp-edged letter opener and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/22/us/izola-ware-curry-who-stabbed-king-in-1958-dies-at-98.html">stabbed</a> the 29-year-old minister, who had just vaulted to national prominence through his leadership of the <a href="http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_montgomery_bus_boycott_1955_1956/">Montgomery bus boycott</a>.</p>
<p>King barely survived. Doctors later told King that, if <a href="http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_curry_izola_ware_1916/">he had sneezed</a>, he easily could have died. Of course, King later received a fatal gunshot wound in April 1968. Curry lived her days in a mental institution, to the age of 97.</p>
<p>It was while recuperating in the hospital afterward, that King received a visit from Thurman. While there, Thurman <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=DYzaAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA162&lpg=PA162&dq=king+hospital+recovery+thurman+1958&source=bl&ots=tx31YuL0ij&sig=UMyHOSFrTa2JQIC0tgHKmaFo3IE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiu4erNps7YAhVC32MKHc0BCXIQ6AEIPzAH#v=onepage&q=king%20hospital%20recovery%20thurman%201958&f=false">gave the same advice</a> he gave to countless others over decades: that King should take the unexpected, if tragic, opportunity, to meditate on his life and its purposes, and only then move forward. </p>
<p>Thurman urged King to extend his rest period by two weeks. It would, as he said, give King “time away from the immediate pressure of the movement” and to “rest his body and mind with healing detachment.” Thurman <a href="http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_thurman_howard_1899_1981/">worried</a> that “the movement had become more than an organization; it had become an organism with a life of its own,” which potentially could swallow up King. </p>
<p>King <a href="https://www.bu.edu/today/2011/who-was-howard-thurman/">wrote to Thurman</a> to say, “I am following your advice on the question.”</p>
<h2>King’s spiritual connection with Thurman</h2>
<p>King and Thurman were never personally close. But Thurman left a profound intellectual and spiritual influence on King. King, for example, reportedly carried his own well-thumbed copy of Thurman’s best-known book, “<a href="https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.260684">Jesus and the Disinherited</a>,” in <a href="http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2004-01-19/news/0401190135_1_howard-thurman-luther-king-martin-luther">his pocket</a> during the long and epic struggle of the Montgomery bus boycott. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201697/original/file-20180111-101492-edbhzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201697/original/file-20180111-101492-edbhzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201697/original/file-20180111-101492-edbhzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201697/original/file-20180111-101492-edbhzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201697/original/file-20180111-101492-edbhzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201697/original/file-20180111-101492-edbhzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201697/original/file-20180111-101492-edbhzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">In his sermons during the 1950s and 1960s, King quoted and paraphrased Thurman extensively.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AMartin_Luther_King_Jr_St_Paul_Campus_U_MN.jpg">Minnesota Historical Society, via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>In his sermons during the 1950s and 1960s, King quoted and paraphrased Thurman <a href="http://www.beacon.org/A-Strange-Freedom-P175.aspx">extensively</a>. <a href="http://www.weldonturner.com/howard-thurman-jesus-and-the-disinherited/">Drawing from Thurman’s views</a>, King understood Jesus as friend and ally of the dispossessed – to a group of Jewish followers in ancient Palestine, and to African-Americans under slavery and segregation. That was precisely why <a href="https://www.uncpress.org/book/9781469618845/the-color-of-christ/">Jesus was so central</a> to African-American religious history.</p>
<h2>The mystic</h2>
<p>Thurman was not an activist, as King was, nor one to take up specific social and political causes to transform a country. He was a private man and an intellectual. He saw spiritual cultivation as a necessary accompaniment to social activism. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.bu.edu/sth/profile/walter-e-fluker/">Walter Fluker</a>, editor of the <a href="http://www.bu.edu/htpp/">Howard Thurman Papers Project</a>, has explained, the private mystic and the public activist <a href="http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdfplus/10.1086/488403">found common ground</a> in understanding that spirituality is necessarily linked to social transformation. Private spiritual cultivation could prepare the way for deeper public commitments for social change. King himself, <a href="http://www.augsburgfortress.org/media/downloads/9780800663490Chapter1.pdf?domainRedirect=true">according to</a> one biographer, came to feel that the stabbing and enforced convalescence was “part of God’s plan to prepare him for some larger work” in the struggle against southern segregation and American white supremacy. </p>
<p>In a larger sense, the discipline of nonviolence required a spiritual commitment and discipline that came, for many, through <a href="https://onbeing.org/programs/john-lewis-love-in-action-jan2017/">self-examination, meditation and prayer</a>. This was the message Thurman transmitted to the larger civil rights movement. Thurman combined, in the <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2002/01/18/january-18-2002-the-legacy-of-howard-thurman-mystic-and-theologian/7895/">words</a> of historian <a href="https://divinity.uchicago.edu/martin-e-marty">Martin Marty</a>, the “inner life, the life of passion, the life of fire, with the external life, the life of politics.” </p>
<h2>Spiritual retreat and activism</h2>
<p>King’s stabbing was a bizarre and tragic event, but in some sense it gave him the period of reflection and inner cultivation needed for the chaotic coming days of the civil rights struggle. The prison cell in Birmingham, Alabama, where in mid-1963 King penned his classic “<a href="https://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/documents/Letter_Birmingham_Jail.pdf">Letter from Birmingham Jail</a>,” also accidentally but critically provided much the same spiritual retreat for reflections that helped transform America.</p>
<p>The relationship of Thurman’s mysticism and King’s activism provides a fascinating model for how spiritual and social transformation can work together in a person’s life. And in society more generally.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an article <a href="https://theconversation.com/meet-the-theologian-who-helped-mlk-see-the-value-of-nonviolence-89938">originally published</a> on Jan. 11, 2018.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89938/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Harvey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>African-American minister, theologian and mystic, Howard Thurman, left a profound influence on Martin Luther King Jr.Paul Harvey, Professor of American History, University of Colorado Colorado SpringsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.