MLK & Leadership: 2024
Gregory P. Shea, Ph.D.
Much will appear about Dr. Martin Luther King and most deservedly so. In this brief article, I offer a few thoughts about Dr. King as a leader and especially as a leader of change, words that may well not appear elsewhere. As we often do, we carry from history only a small piece of the learnings available from a life (or an event)--some lessons quite nuanced and derived from small details. Finally, I include references of acclaimed work (including 4 Pulitzer Prizes) for those who might wish to continue reading and thinking in one or more of the veins presented here.
1) Leading change occurs step by step. King evolved into the leader we celebrate. He did not start somehow fully formed or stand still as a leader or as a person. He entered a then nascent effort at societal change built upon a longstanding struggle against deeply entrenched power structures and long practiced, defended patterns of behavior. He shaped and led it even as he shaped and led himself.
2) To lead well over time never stop learning. Dr. King learned thoughtfully from experience--his own and others (alive and dead). He also took advanced formal learning seriously. He entered Moorehouse College at 14, having skipped grades 9 and12 in high school. In his Ph.D. studies at BU, he 'learned from' Plato and Ghandi (c/o Howard Thurman). His struggle with Malcolm X demonstrates his ongoing wrestling with opposing ideas, ideas about purpose, strategy and tactics. https://www.bu.edu/articles/2019/mlk-boston/
3) Think systems...and, as a change leader, act accordingly. Dr. King came to view the struggle for equality more broadly, namely as system wide, as about the personal, political, societal, and economic. That view came to drive him even as he knew it made him more of a threat to the status quo, more dangerous. That view put him even more at risk. As a survivor of a near fatal knife attack in 1958 and 29 trips to jail, he knew the risk. Still, he persisted until that view led him to the streets of Memphis, a balcony, and a bullet.
4) Learn from your opponents. Dr. King and Malcolm X struggled through various differences. They also influenced each other significantly.
5) Let the desired end state guide your fight, but fight. Dr. King understood power politics. He assembled a critical mass and battled at the local and the national level. We tend, at our cost, to forget that he didn't seek consensus, he sought change. He advocated non-violence, not submissive acceptance.
6) "The truth will set you free, (John 8:32) but not until it's finished with you. (David Foster Wallace)" Clarity of sight does not secure easy passage, often far from it, particularly for the leader.
7) Discover and live your values. One great truth about King remains the centrality of his faith based values and his commitment to living them. Great, transformative leaders point outward powered by an inner passion. https://today.marquette.edu/2024/01/dr-martin-luther-king-jr-day-reflection-moving-from-desolation-to-consolation/
Dr. King had the passion and a peace with it. On the evening before his assassination, in a speech in Memphis, at the Mason Temple Church: “Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now … I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. And I’m happy tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”
A partial reading list of highly acclaimed writing (including 4 Pulitzer Prize winners) depict in detail the depth and longstanding nature of the challenge that MLK the leader embraced:
*The Half Not Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism, Edward Baptiste
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*The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story, Nikole Hannah-Jones
*The Republic for Which It Stands: The United States During Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865-1896, Richard White
*Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II, Douglas Blackmon
*Wilmington's Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy, David Zucchino
*Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63, Taylor Branch
*The Sword and the Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., Penel Joseph
*To Reconstruct the Nation: Learning from America's Most Radical Experiment, Atlantic, December, 2023
Finally, thank you, Dr. King, thank you again...por todos.
#MLK #Leadership
(Here's a link to a remarkable King family at home at dinner photo, beneath a picture of Ghandi...scroll down to photos and pick photo 11)