January 15th, 2006
The Legacy of Martin Luther King
Rev. Amy Russell

Many of us have grown up with an almost saintly image of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Those of us who were just growing up when he was assassinated remember that time and its' ghastly reminders of the hatred of those who hate justice. Like we remember the day when John F. Kennedy was assassinated, we remember the day we heard about King's murder. Both events stand out in my mind as a time when my young idealistic hopes for the world were shattered, broken by the reality that others did not see these men as the leaders of our century, offering us a new world of equality for all.

And while we remember Martin Luther King, Jr., with somewhat distorted lenses, we know that he was a man who while having courage and vision, also was a man of his times, a real human being. When we imagine what he might have become if he had in fact, lived, our visions become more hazy.

In the seventies, while the civil rights movement had taken hold of the nation and truly changed it for the better, we began to see a more radical movement among the African American community, one of bitterness and anger. While King had taught a non-violent approach to gaining civil rights, the new tone of black activists was tinged with the power and possibility of violence.

We might forget that in the last years of King's life, he took on a more radical political tone, arguing against the war in Vietnam and organizing people of all races who were poor. He became a "militant pacifist" against the war, arguing that while he was not a strict pacifist in wars between nations, he believed that the war in Vietnam was an unjust war. Not only was it waged in an unjust manner, he also believed that black soldiers were being used as cannon fodder while more affluent white young men could get draft waivers because they could afford to attend college. He also believed that the resources that our country invested in Vietnam were resources that could be better used against the poverty that existed at home. King's anti-war sentiment sprang from his deep spiritual belief in non-violence. But he admitted that he was not a strict pacifist.

At first when he was deeply involved in the civil rights movement, he felt he could not speak out against the war since he was working closely with the government to move the agenda of civil rights. He also felt that speaking out against the war would move him away from his black supporters. But by 1965, King felt he could not morally stay silent on his opposition to the war. He braved opposition from his own advisors and supporters to stand up and oppose the war publicly.

When we think of Martin Luther King, we don't think of him as an anti-war activist, but he was. If he had not been assassinated in 1968, I'm sure we would have heard and seen more of his leadership in warning our nation against the mistakes it was making in Vietnam.

Once when King had visited black youths in the ghettos and spoken to them about using non-violence in their struggles for their rights, they asked him, "But what about Vietnam?" King was taken aback but spent a great deal of time thinking about their response. He came to believe that they were right in bringing up the example that America was playing by being as he said, "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today". He later spoke about how this example of violence leads all other groups and countries to use violence in response to oppression.

It brings me to wonder what Martin Luther King would say of where our nation stands today in terms of those issues that he gave his life for- both civil rights and opposition to the war. What would he say if he saw the human rights issues that we are struggling over today?

What would King say about a government that allows itself to spy on its citizens either by phone or email, without a search warrant? What would he say about prisons where people are held without trial, without charge and tortured to release information? What would he say about the civil rights in a country where people are suspected of terrorism simply because of their ethnic background and religion?

What would he think about a war that the United States entered without provocation? A country that we now occupy without a formal declaration of war ever being made?

If Martin Luther King, Jr., had lived and was alive today, what do you think he would be doing?

King as a leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, pointed to its' motto "to save the soul of America" as the mission of the civil rights movement. This carried over to his leadership in the anti-war movement.

Today many of us feel a lack of leadership in human rights and foreign policy issues. We feel we know the direction that our country should be going but we don't see strong leadership igniting us to action. I fear this makes us apathetic. Since we don't hear the kind of voice that Martin Luther King used in stirring people to action, we tend not to listen to the voices calling to us. King in his day spoke to other church people saying that they remained silent "behind the safe security of stained glass windows" when injustice was outside staring at them.

Today our country needs its soul saved just as it did then. We have friends sitting among us who cannot enjoy the right of legal marriage. Their human rights are denied them. We hear of people who are detained and questioned simply because of their Islamic faith. Their human rights are denied them. We have a government who is listening in on our phone calls and reading our emails and checking what library books we are checking out of the library because of the fear of terrorism that has been used as the excuse to deny us our right to privacy.

Martin Luther King's legacy is what he taught us about having the courage to speak out. What would he be doing today? I think he would be speaking out against renewal of the Patriot Act, asking our government what right it has to deny the right of privacy to individuals, and speaking out about the war in Iraq. I believe he would denounce the denial of civil rights to gays and lesbians as oppressive.

Let us remember his words again:

"When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"