SPECIAL EDITION-3 How Things Work – A Brief History of Reality
The Foundational Flaw of America: Part-3 – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement
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Tuesday, May 3, 2022
“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
CONSIDERATION #29 – “The Foundational Flaw of America” PART III Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement (Based on excerpts from “Being American: A Primer for All Parties & Persuasions”)
PREFACE
Welcome Everybody!
For thousands of years, human beings have fought each other, enslaved each other, and killed each other. Changing the prejudices of the human heart is no easy matter. In 1863, Abraham Lincoln traveled to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to deliver a eulogy for the nation. In 1963 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. traveled to Washington D.C. to cash a check. A promissory note written by the founders of this nation and guaranteed by its 16th president. After an additional hundred years of oppression and suffering, this prophet of America still had a dream; The American Dream.
CONSIDERATION #29 – Dr. Martin Luther King
Cashing A Promissory Note – The Civil Rights Movement
“In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.”
― Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., I Have a Dream Speech – 1963
After the death of Lincoln, slavery ended in the United States. However, discrimination against black Americans was still common throughout America, and in the South, “Jim Crow” laws had been instituted to keep black citizens completely separate from white citizens. Segregation in the south called for separate restrooms, drinking fountains, schools, churches, hotels, and virtually every other kind of public facility. Though technically free, black Americans still had no real civil rights in America by the 1960’s. For Martin Luther King Jr., a hundred years after the Civil War had been long enough: time was up.
The humble Southern Baptist minister from Atlanta Georgia had the heart of a lion and the voice of a prophet. The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was a combination of Moses, John the Baptist, and Thomas Paine. He would lead his people to freedom, challenge the hypocrisy of government authority, and demand African Americans gain their inalienable rights of liberty and equality as guaranteed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Like Lincoln, he recognized the immediacy of the crisis and the necessity for expeditious change. He would take responsibility for shouldering the burden of that change, and fulfilling the promise of America.
"We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience."
― Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., How Long? Not Long! – March 25, 1965
Not since Mahatma Gandhi has a political leader had the courage to use nonviolence as a means to try and make substantial change in the world. A strategy of nonviolence meant one thing: you had to take all of the pain and suffering involved in your cause without inflicting any harm or injury on your enemy. Dr. King repeatedly asked his followers, “Are you able to accept blows without retaliating? Are you able to endure the ordeal of jail?” This is a difficult thing to get people to sign up for. However, Dr. King argued that once black and white Americans went to war with each other, there would be no hope of ever living together peacefully in America.
“We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”
– Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
He also believed that as long as African Americans were denied their inalienable human rights, we would also never be able to live together in peace. However, he encouraged black Americans to rise above their rightful anger and see the true goal: justice for all. For Dr. King, the only possible solution was love.
But if we allow that anger to make us bitter, cynical, or hateful, we are forgetting the reason we want justice so badly, the reason we are angry in the first place: our love of justice for all people. We are angry because of our love.
― Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Dr. King was also an Enlightened thinker whose reasoning led him to conclude that nonviolent protest was the only possible hope of obtaining his goal of a truly integrated and united America.
The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy, instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate.
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
― Martin Luther King Jr., Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community – 1967
Like Lincoln, the Reverend King often made biblical references to the current crisis at hand. Here, Dr. King references the words of Jesus from the Gospel of Matthew to reinforce the importance of developing friendships instead of enemies.
Hate begets hate; violence begets violence; toughness begets a greater toughness. We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love... Our aim must never be to defeat or humiliate the white man, but to win his friendship and understanding.
― Martin Luther King Jr., Struggle for Equality
On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested because she refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white person, as required under Jim Crow laws. This resulted in the Montgomery bus boycott led by Dr. King, who was arrested during the campaign. His role and leadership in the boycott became his first step in becoming the nation's most important civil rights leader. In 1957, he, along with other civil rights leaders, formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC); which served as the grassroots organization and base for the nonviolent movement.
”I have decided to stick to love... Hate is too great a burden to bear.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., Where Do We Go From Here 1967
In 1963, major civil rights organizations, including the SCLC, led a march on Washington D.C. in the sweltering summer heat to focus the nation’s attention on their cause. More than a quarter-million Americans filled the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, spilling onto the National Mall. Dr. King delivered a seventeen-minute speech using the promise of America to focus on the problem in America. After the introduction in the “I Have a Dream Speech,” Dr. King refers to Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, and the Emancipation Proclamation, and the hope for the liberty and freedom they had promised:
“Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.”
However, after a hundred years, America had prospered and become a great nation; yet black Americans were still waiting for the full blessings of liberty and equality. And he was here to embarrass America into keeping its promises:
“But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.”
In one of my favorite parts of the speech, Dr. King tells America that he is here to cash a check from the Bank of Liberty, as originally drafted by the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. A check written to all Americans.
“In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Dr. King explains that when his people tried to cash the check, there were insufficient funds, making the promissory note worthless. America had written them a bad check. However, he questioned that the bank of justice was really empty. Now was the time to pay up.
“It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.”
It is critically important for the bank to pay its debt; there will be no peace until it does. They have been waiting a long time for the promised payment and are rightfully becoming impatient.
“It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.”
After rebuking America for not paying its debt, Dr. King cautions black Americans that they are close to attaining their goal, and to refrain from exasperation and retribution.
“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.”
Here, he basically warns black Americans to hold onto nonviolence, because both black and white Americans share the same destiny. For there to be a United States there must be a united people, and they must take responsibility for showing the way.
“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. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.”
Dr. King urges his followers to lead by example; yet never be satisfied until all of the promises of America are kept.
“As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, ‘When will you be satisfied?’ We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating ‘For Whites Only’. We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Dr. King acknowledges the many inequities committed against black Americans but urges them to go home, to the racist south and the northern slums, with hope that things will change soon.
“I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.
Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.”
In the most famous and memorable part of the speech Dr. King expresses the fulfillment of America’s promise as his dream. For all Americans to share in the full expression of that commitment. In his vision of America, citizens would be brothers and sisters who did more than just co-exist together; they would love each other. A vision in which all Americans were truly free and equal.
“I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."
And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.
Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!
Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!
But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.
From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, when we allow freedom to 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!"
― Martin Luther King Jr., I Have A Dream Speech – August 28, 1963
On July 2, 1964 President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Act ended segregation in all public places based on race, religion or national origin. It also ended discrimination by employers and labor unions based on race, religion, or gender. President Johnson used seventy-five pens to sign the bill. He gave one of those historic pens to Dr. King, who was present at the signing.
We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.
― Martin Luther King Jr., Loving Your Enemies sermon – 1952.
Despite the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, some in the South ignored the new laws. In 1965, a series of three marches for voting rights were organized in the state of Alabama, where Governor Wallace railed against the new federal statute. The marches would start in Selma and end in the capital city of Montgomery. Just weeks before the first march, a peaceful protester was shot and killed by an Alabama state trooper at a march in nearby Marion, Alabama.
Tensions were high when on March 7, 1965, state troopers and local “posse men” attacked the unarmed protesters with billy clubs and tear gas as they attempted to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Bloody Sunday had been captured by the news cameras and seen across not only America, but the entire world. The racist brutality that Dr. King had been talking about had just entered the living room of every American. And it was shocking. Like the Vietnam War, seeing actual images of the savagery on their own television made it real; for the first time they were beginning to recognize and understand the truth. Something important had been communicated.
People fail to get along because they fear each other;
they fear each other because they don't know each other;
they don't know each other because they have not communicated with each other.
― Martin Luther King Jr., Cornell College – 1962
The second march took place on March 9, but because of a court injunction, Dr. King and the marchers were forced to return back to the church. However, that night a white Unitarian Universalist minister from Boston who had come to participate in the march was brutally beaten and murdered by a group of local white racists. Governor Wallace tried to stop the march by refusing to use state resources or troopers to protect the marchers, despite them having all the legal paperwork required for the march.
However, President Johnson used his federal power to protect the protesters. On March 21, 1965, over 25,000 marchers crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge, and arrived March 25 in Montgomery under the protection of 1,900 National Guard members, along with a substantial number of FBI agents and Federal Marshalls. Now known as the “Selma To Montgomery Voting Rights Trail,” it is a designated U.S. National Historic Trail.
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
― Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from a Birmingham Jail, 1963
Entering the Promised Land
“Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., Man Who Was a Fool sermon, 1961
After forty years of suffering and wandering through the desert wasteland, the Jews finally came to the Promised Land. Moses was led to the top of a mountain, where God showed him the land he had promised to the Israelites. However, Moses would not be allowed to enter. He remained behind and the Jews entered the Promised Land without him. John the Baptist was promised he would herald the arrival of the Messiah. Shortly after baptizing Jesus, he was arrested by King Herod and beheaded. Only days after winning the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. While it is difficult to understand Providence, there certainly does seem to be a pattern.
"No one really knows why they are alive until they know what they'd die for."
― Martin Luther King Jr.
On April 3, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech at Mason Temple in Georgia. The prophetic words suggested a destiny that Dr. King not only understood; but had accepted.
“Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop… And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land.”
The next day, April 4, 1968, a shot rang out in the Memphis sky, striking Dr. King as he stood on his second-floor hotel balcony. At 7:05 p.m. he was pronounced dead at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. He was only thirty-nine years old. James Earl Ray, an escaped fugitive, pleaded guilty to the assassination and was sentenced to ninety-nine years in prison.
"We must accept finite disappointment but never lose infinite hope."
― Martin Luther King Jr.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 would later be expanded to include disabled Americans, the elderly, and women’s sports, under title nine. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibited discriminatory voting practices, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 banned housing discrimination. Martin Luther King Jr. had demanded that America live up to its covenant, and through love had expanded the blessings of liberty and moved the Union ever closer to perfection.
In 1965, Dr. King risked his life to lead a march protesting for African American voting rights. In 2009, Barack Obama was elected the first African American President of the United States.
“Those who are not looking for happiness are the most likely to find it, because those who are searching forget that the surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others.”
― Martin Luther King Jr
POSTSCRIPT
A Trilogy of Founders
“America is another name for opportunity. Our whole history appears like a last effort of divine providence on behalf of the human race.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson (American Poet)
The arch of the idea known as America spans a trilogy of founders. The original founders representing the mind and reason of America; recognizing and implementing the principles of law and logic that would over time change the entire world. Lincoln reflects the heart of America; learning and empathizing with all its citizen’s suffering – standing steadfast in the remedy of its redemption. Finally, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. actualizes the soul of America; bringing to life the original spirit of liberty and equality promised to all Americans and moving us closer to an Enlightened society.
The future of the nation, started not so long ago, is now in our hands. It does us well to understand our past and how it has brought us to where we are today. However, what we do with it will determine America’s future. It is now our responsibility to take the idea of America and move it even closer to perfection.
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”
― President Ronald Reagan
Next week we begin to consider the impact of a new Cartesian America on the world.
Learn More About the Idea of America: “Being American: A Primer for All Parties and Persuasions!” Available Exclusively from BooksNotOnAmazon.com
