COMMENTARY: Is enthusiasm for the King vision fading?

c. 1999 Religion News Service (Rabbi Rudin is the National Interreligious Affairs Director of the American Jewish Committee.) UNDATED _ On January 18th America will once again go through its annual ritual of dutifully remembering the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. There will be a plethora of newspaper”retrospectives”on the career of the black civil […]

c. 1999 Religion News Service

(Rabbi Rudin is the National Interreligious Affairs Director of the American Jewish Committee.)

UNDATED _ On January 18th America will once again go through its annual ritual of dutifully remembering the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday.


There will be a plethora of newspaper”retrospectives”on the career of the black civil rights leader who was assassinated over 30 years ago in Memphis, Tenn. Coretta Scott King, his widow, and her children will be interviewed by the media as will two of King’s loyal lieutenants: Andrew Young and Jesse Jackson.

There will be the laudatory if predictable sermons in churches and synagogues describing King’s difficult struggle to achieve full rights for black Americans. And, of course, there will be TV replays of King’s 1963 speech delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, perhaps the single best sermon of the 20th century.

But correct me if I’m wrong. It seems that with each passing year the holiday in memory of Martin Luther King is being observed with less and less enthusiasm _ especially by white Americans.

Indeed, for many people the holiday has become a dose of prescribed but distasteful medicine taken each year to treat the disease of racism.

And that is unfortunate because King was a true American original in the extraordinary way he wove several doctrines together into a coherent program of action designed to break the back of racial segregation. That he was ultimately unsuccessful in his efforts and murdered at the age of 39 reveals much more about America’s failures than it does about King’s.

His life and death are unpleasant reminders that America’s fault line as a society has always been and still remains one of race. For 380 years, from the moment Africans were brought here as slaves in 1619, until today, the open wound of racism has poisoned America. Unlike Europe where the historic core problem has frequently been religious bigotry (intra-Christian warfare and virulent anti-Semitism), race remains the unsolved, perhaps insoluble American problem.

As a black minister living in the South, King instinctively understood and correctly diagnosed the searing problem of racism in this country. But then so did millions of other Americans. It was King’s uncommon response to racism that has guaranteed him a permanent place as an authentic American hero. Like other great leaders in history, his program was at once both uncomplicated and profound.

Surprisingly, King did not lacerate whites with vitriolic attacks. Nor did he engage in the cheap shameful game of anti-Semitism as did Eldridge Cleaver, Stokely Carmichael, and the Jesse Jackson of the 1980s. Instead, combining great eloquence with personal charisma, he offered a startling simple platform: he demanded white Americans look into their collective mirror and live up to the oft-professed ideals that have shaped the national character:”All men are created equal … one man, one vote … live the American dream … the land of the free and the home of the brave … life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness … one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all …” King’s message of civil rights contained the doctrine of nonviolence even in the face of physical abuse from the police, and in the noble tradition of many other revolutionaries, he served a jail sentence. While in the Birmingham, Ala. jail, King wrote a powerful letter outlining his goals and tactics. In his public speeches, he constantly invoked biblical images with special emphasis on the Israelites’ Exodus from Egypt. King was blessed with a compelling personal presence, and an unforgettable name not even Hollywood could have invented.


King constantly used nonviolent”creative tension and confrontation”against the white power structure as a means of achieving voting rights and public accommodations for black Americans. Sometimes that tension and confrontation took the form of an economic boycott; other times it was a peaceful public march that drew leading rabbis, ministers, and priests to his side.

It was only late in his life that Martin Luther King turned his attention to international relations. He was a steadfast advocate of the state of Israel and a supporter of the Soviet Jewry movement that was emerging in the late 1960s. King also condemned the war in Vietnam and saw it not only as a waste of human life, but a diversion from America’s many pressing domestic problems.

Of course, he had flaws in his personal and professional life. Who among us does not? But it is important to remember King and his lasting achievements before the mist of indifference remove him from our midst.

DEA END RUDIN

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