It's Time to Embrace Dr. King's Actual Legacy
I must admit that I am ambivalent about our commemorations of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. In my opinion, he is the greatest leader this nation has produced. He never held elective office. He never commanded an army. He was never a Fortune 500 CEO. He didn’t own a television network. All he did was change the world, holding the Bible in one hand and the Constitution in the other. To achieve what he did – when he did – is stunning. And yet…
I am so weary of the “prison” in which we have placed his life and legacy. Specifically, we have done so using twin evils. One evil is pretending that Dr. King only delivered just ONE speech, of which only ONE part typically is quoted – and that part often grossly out of context by those whose words and actions are diametrically opposed to the equality for which he was assassinated.
The second evil is the Disney-esque social and spiritual castration to which he has been subjected. He has been pre-packaged and sanitized for mass consumption. His radicalism has been reduced to “Happy Meal” status, robbing him of the power of societal change that was forged in the crucible of immeasurable sacrifice. Perhaps most disturbingly, we must note that his family and other “keepers” have been quite complicit in this grotesque charade. (Witness, for example, the embarrassing Alcatel commercial from several years ago that claimed his legacy was about “communication”.) Even Judas would turn his head in shame.
In short, we are presented with a palatable and digestible King. We dare not mention that his dream became a “nightmare” a mere two years later. (King’s words, not mine.) We aren’t aware of his explicit calls for “redistribution of wealth” or strong support of affirmative action - for which he pressed Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. We ignore the fact that King said that the “white moderate” is worse than the “white racist”. That doesn’t play well in nice settings in which we hold hands and sing “We Shall Overcome”. We would be “unfriended” if we quote Dr. King by saying that “the riot is the cry of the unheard”.
Today, eight men have more money than the combined wealth of HALF the world’s population – 3.6 BILLION people. Not 80,000 men. Not even 800 men. Just eight. (They are Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Carlos Slim, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Amancio Ortega, Larry Ellison and Michael Bloomberg.) The richest 1% has owned more wealth than the rest of the planet since 2015. In the U.S., the richest 1% control 42% of all wealth. Dr. King spoke passionately against such concentration of wealth– a concentration that is even more out of whack than in his day.
I love Dr. King, warts and all. I pray that one day – soon – we will embrace his FULL legacy. I pray that we will heed his call for IMMEDIATE equality. I pray that we recognize what he called “the fierce urgency of now”. That is the only way in which we will achieve the “beloved community” for which he lived. And died.