This is the time of year that we will witness an endless list of (mostly meaningless) tributes to Rev. Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. I must admit that I am ambivalent about most commemorations of King, despite the fact that he is — in my opinion — the greatest leader this nation ever produced. (Or, perhaps, it’s because of that fact.) King 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 by clinging to the Bible with one hand and to the Constitution in the other. To achieve what he did — when and how he did — is stunning. And yet …
I am so weary of the confining “prison” in which we have incarcerated King’s work and legacy. We have done so using twin evils. One evil is pretending that he delivered just ONE speech, of which only ONE part typically is quoted — and that part is often taken grossly out of context by those whose words and actions are diametrically opposed to the racial equality for which King was assassinated.
The second evil is the Disney-esque social and spiritual castration to which King has been subjected. He has been pre-packaged and sanitized for mass consumption. His audacious radicalism has been reduced to “feel good” emotional pablum. This consummate warrior for justice is the victim of identity theft — his personhood robbed 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 Super Bowl commercial from last year that had King selling pickup trucks — even as leaders who inherited his legacy protested the collusion that prevents Colin Kaepernick from playing in the NFL. Even Judas would turn his head in shame at such a betrayal.
In short, we are presented with a palatable, digestible, non-threatening 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 unwavering 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.” Indeed, many people today would “unfriend” us if we quote King, who said that “the riot is the cry of the unheard,” or his reference in his final speech to “our sick white brothers.”
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 800 or even 80. Just eight. (They are Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Bernard Arnault, Amancio Ortega, Carlos Slim, Mark Zuckerberg and Larry Ellison.) The richest 1 percent has owned more wealth than the rest of the planet since 2015. In the U.S., the richest 1 percent control 42 percent of all wealth. King spoke passionately against such concentration of wealth — a concentration that is exponentially more out of whack than it was in his day.
I love Rev. 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 that we will achieve the “beloved community” for which he lived. And died.
Larry Smith is a community leader. Contact him at larry@leaf-llc.com.
