As most will affirm, history concerns more than just mere events and circumstances marking the passage of time. It is driven and created by people—men and women—whose lives and actions have affected their community and culture (and beyond) in profoundly positive and negative ways. Thus, it is not difficult to find in the historical timeline poignant contributions of such people as Augustine, Anselm, Calvin, Wesley, and the like. These greats not only touched the lives of those immediately around them; they also profoundly affected the future through their words and deeds. In many ways, what is considered good, moral, and true in contemporary time was established centuries ago.
Moreover, in their brief time on earth, these prominent men and women bravely and honestly spoke of what they believed and acted upon those principles for all to see—regardless of the consequences. They demonstrated their personal character, morality, and spirituality in how they treated others and in their advocacy and promotion of truth and goodness. Regardless of any controversy in their own time, they have become models for all to follow.
With this in mind, an exploration of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968, American) is appropriate and beneficial. In consideration of his life and written works, a deeper understanding of King and what he fought for in post-WWII America can be uncovered. One can see the inter-connectedness of King’s spiritual beliefs and their application for many in the present day. Although by no means anyway perfect, it is evident that, through a careful examination, one can encounter the superb mind, gracious temperament, and unrelenting altruistic attitude of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Brief Biography of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Although King’s brief life was cut short at age thirty-nine by an assassin, his life nevertheless was a full one. He was born to Reverend and Mrs. Martin Luther King, Sr. on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. Besides a typical elementary education, King also attended both Booker T. Washington High School and Atlanta University Laboratory School. Regarding his own childhood, King stated, “The first twenty-four years of my life were years packed with fulfillment. I had no basic problems or burdens. . . I sallied through high school, college, theological school, and graduate school without interruption.”[1] Considering the social problems and restrictions of his time and culture, King was very fortunate in this regard.
King was a precocious young man and despite not yet graduating from high school in 1947, he was given a license to preach. He was later ordained a Baptist minister and graduated from Morehouse College in 1948, graduated from Crozer Theological Seminary in 1951 with a BD degree. Thereafter, he was installed as the senior pastor of the Dextor Avenue Church in Montgomery, Alabama in 1954, and received his PhD in Systematic Theology from Boston University in 1955. It is clear and evident that King was a highly intelligent and resourceful man.
Beginning in 1955 (until his murder by James Earl Ray in 1968), King was deeply involved in the civil rights movement and other social causes. During these endeavors, King was elected president of the Montgomery Improvement Association in 1955, endured many threats upon his life, had his house bombed in 1956, was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957, was stabbed in the chest in 1958, was jailed innumerable times,[2] led many demonstrations and peace marches, wrote many books advocating for social equality, and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.[3]
In the modern cultural milieu of narcissism and self-serving political systems, it is far too easy to associate King with a multitude of social activists who serve a private, personal agenda rather than the greater public good, but this would be a tremendous mistake. Yet, King deserves his day of honor. As one reads and listens to King’s words, it is apparent that his motivation is more sacrificial than sanctimonious, more authentic than argumentative, and more compassionate than controlling. King’s actions and words speak more of a man of character and heart who lived out his inner beliefs with integrity, honesty, and humility.
Character and Social Activism
For Martin Luther King, Jr., being a Christian (and a human being) meant more than just having a passive existence in life. These two realities demanded of him a high degree of loving action, which naturally evolved into a high degree of social action. In King’s mind, every human being, every believer and non-believer, was a “child of God.”[4] This entitled each individual to the respect and dignity God grants to His beloved creations, regardless of their appearance or biology. This required certain sacrifices and responsibilities of the believer. He wrote,
“The Christian virtues of love, mercy, and forgiveness should stand at the center of our lives.”[5]
The believer does not just have the title of “Christian;” the Christian should act, think, and feel as a devoted follower of Christ should, as demonstrated in the Bible. This meant, essentially, that people ought to live out their lives in similar fashion to Jesus’ expression of love to neighbor and to God.
No greater example of this can be found than in the parable of the Good Samaritan. King expressed that the Christian truly is the good neighbor who “looks beyond the external accidents and discerns those inner qualities that make men human and, therefore, brothers.”[6] The life of the believer is not to be a cutthroat, self-centered, isolated, insulated experience. Christians ought to develop and cultivate a depth of perception and kindness like that of their namesake. There is no time or justification for “pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities”[7] for the Christian.
Furthermore, as men and women of proper Christian character, an attitude of compassion should be maintained even for people perpetrating evil. King states,
“We must recognize that the evil deed of the enemy-neighbor, the thing that hurts, never quite expresses all that he is.”[8]
Jesus’ words of “Father, forgive them for they know not what they are doing,”[9] certainly seem apropos considering King’s aforementioned pronouncement. Jesus’ words were not theoretical to King.
He summed up his call to Christian character when he writes,
“Only through an inner spiritual transformation do we gain the strength to fight vigorously the evils of the world in a humble and loving spirit.”[10]
King’s admonition seems in complete agreement with Christ’s Biblical example. The Gospel was not meant to just be studied like a dry, outdated, historical tome; it is a trumpet call for the Christian responsibility to share God’s love with the rest of the world. Bringing the Good News to others meant taking care of them, personally and physically. This required courageous involvement in the Christian revolution, as he saw it, going on in America in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Character had to be followed by social application—the two were not separable or disconnected.
King wrote,
“Any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the economic conditions that damn the soul. . . is a dry, dead, do-nothing religion in need of new blood.”[11]
This certainly calls to mind visions of painted sepulchers and Pharisees in Matthew 23:27. For King, it was the difference between saying one is a Christian versus actually being one in word, deed, and attitude. Not surprisingly, King saw this as a call to action against the evils of the world involved in the racial oppression of peoples in the United States and the world. If all people on earth are the children of God, then segregation and prejudice are evil sins pitting brother against brother (or sister against sister) much like Cain and Abel.
Discrimination, based on selfishness and greed, only causes undue pain and suffering, no matter how it is justified in human society, and is clearly condemned in key Biblical texts. Thus, King challenged the racial prejudice that he encountered and stated,
“We Negroes have long dreamed of freedom, but still we are confined in an oppressive prison of segregation and discrimination.”[12]
He further remarked,
“Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals. . . This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action.”[13]
In his sermons, speeches, and writings, King was calling for men and women to rise up and take an active part in removing racial prejudice from American society. This action was to be applied exuberantly, yet in peaceful love. Thus, King called for passive resistance in the style of both Jesus Christ and Mahatma Gandhi. King wrote,
“Nonviolent soldiers are called upon to examine and burnish their greatest weapons—their heart, their conscience, their courage, and their sense of justice.”[14]
King could see in history that violence only brought out more violence; moreover, the Bible had shown Jesus’ example of dealing authentically but peacefully with His attackers. King saw these two factors and used them to maintain the loving discipline of nonviolence. He sought to change the social structure of his time, but in a way that did not compromise the foundation of his faith, which could only make matters worse. His desire was to fix the social problem—not fan the flames of anger and hatred—and passive resistance successfully accomplished King’s goal.
The result of the passive resistance movement was a productive one, even though the people promoting it often found their well being threatened with violence and hardship. Many black and white advocates of racial equality were jailed, abused, physically harmed (or worse) in their unwavering yet loving challenge of the social status quo in the South. Fortunately, this sacrifice seems to have been worth it, in the end. The goal of desegregation in America was legally accomplished; unfortunately, the ultimate goal of universal brotherhood and complete equality has not been fully realized in greater society, yet, but perhaps it will in time, with a great deal of thanks to people like King.
King has been a powerful example for millions of Americans to emulate in the forty some years since his death, and social equality in America can easily be linked to him. However, no one is an island, and King never attempted to run this movement alone. Truly, he only succeeded because people of all races began to work together for the common good of humanity.
Conclusion
King once stated,
“The end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the beloved community.”[15]
Ultimately, he did not want a reversal of the social structure—that did no one any good; he wanted greater community between blacks and whites, and between all human beings and their God. Moreover, King did not want vengeance—he only wanted loving justice. He saw his black brothers and sisters suffering under the oppressive weight of a society claiming to be Christian, but not acting in Christ-like ways. He wished to help America “transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.”[16]
Although his chosen path to promote racial equality was often controversial, through listening to King explain his motives and methods, and through seeing the man in action, it is evident that King’s motivation was consistent and noble. He sought to fulfill the greatest Biblical commandment to love God with all his heart and mind, and to love his neighbor as himself.
This is no better understood in a passage of his “I Have a Dream” speech, given on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. in 1963. King proclaimed to his listeners that day,
But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold, which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.[17]
Racial tensions still exist today, but they definitely have been lessened dramatically in the United States because of the remarkable efforts of Martin Luther King, Jr. His bravery, balance, and benevolence in attacking the problem of racial inequality in America should be appreciated for what it was—Christianity at its best. Alhough Luther has been gone for many decades, one can still hear the echoes of his calling for Americans, for all humanity, to daily and bravely live out a life of love, character, and godliness.
Endnotes
[1] Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1963), 113.
[2] Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” 1963; http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/resources/article/annotated_letter_from_birmingham/.
[3] “Timeline of Events in Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Life; http://www.lib.lsu.edu/hum/mlk/srs216.html.
[4] Martin Luther King, Jr., The Measure of a Man (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1963), 14.
[5] Martin Luther King, Jr., I Have a Dream (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1992), 21.
[6] King, Strength to Love, 33.
[7] Martin Luther King, Jr., Why We Can’t Wait (USA: New American Library, 1964), 79.
[8] King, Strength to Love, 51.
[9] Luke 23:34 (RSV).
[10] King, Strength to Love, 27.
[11] King, The Measure of a Man, 27.
[12] King, Strength to Love, 92.
[13] Martin Luther King, Jr., Stride Toward Freedom (New York: Harper & Row, 1958), 174.
[14] King, Why We Can’t Wait, 25.
[15] King, I Have a Dream, 22.
[16] King, I Have a Dream, 105.
[17] King, I Have a Dream, 90.