Martin Luther King, Jr's FINAL Dream

During the last years of Martin Luther King, Jr. before his assassination, I was reviewing manuscripts and books in the areas of civil rights and race relations and also in close personal contact with friends working within the civil rights movement. King was not a perfect man. I heard the author of the original report that he was proud that King had plagiarized his dissertation while doing his own at Boston University. And King was noted for his affairs along the way with fellow workers. He was a man under pressure and in a hurray. Perhaps he anticipated the fate that ordinarily lay ahead for effective African American leaders and their supporters in the U.S. -- Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, George Jackson, and many others of the rebels against American racism.

We must, however, particularly appreciate King's revitalization of Thoreau's (and Gandhi's) device of civil disobedience as a mode of protest against social injustice -- an illegal act done after all other means for redressing injustices had failed -- with civilizing limits. The act must be done; 1) publicly, 2) non-violently, 3) lovingly, 4) and be directed at a specific injustice 5) with willingness to accept arrest and punishment. At the time this tactic for reform was formulated in King's "A Letter from Birmingham Jail" insiders suggested that Andy Young may have played a role in its drafting. Whatever, King's dream was not his alone - it was the voice of people too long oppressed in this 'land of liberty' -- and not just African Americans.

A further dimension that may have been lost of King's latter day concerns was that in addition to the right to vote and participate politically in American society guaranteed by the Civil War Amendments, King also began to see that poverty was a further source of oppression in America. As he began to speak out on this issue, his popularity waned and critics began to lash out at his moves beyond already established Constitutional guarantees. King had recognized that equal political protection, itself, is an insufficient raw principle to protect what Jack Rawl's had denominated as the "worst off" in democratic societies from economic oppression.

Let us not forget King's final appeals for justice. As voting is being now manipulated in some parts of our American democratic system by games such as denying felons (now 6 million plus here) the right to vote and muddling the names of legitimate voters with felons to bar people from the polls, so too justice will not be operative in this country until we redress the inequalities of poverty and wealth, the denial of essential medical services and protections to residents of our country by a variety of subterfuges ranging from fiddling with funding programs to outright denials of preventive medical care to those desperately in need of it to survive treatable medical conditions otherwise deadly if not caught in good time.

No, we have not by any stretch of the imagination fulfilled the final dream of Martin Luther King, Jr. What he began, we still have yet to conclude. Let us dedicate this anniversary to getting on with doing the right things -- guaranteeing adequate education, housing, medical care, food, and respect to ALL of our children. This would be King's dream fulfilled. Such is not too much to ask of one of the world's most prosperous, if cruelly unjust, societies?
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort
to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
--

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights

http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/

http://www.bloggernews.net/blognews.asp