Whitewashed History
“MLK would not have wanted these riots.” “MLK believed in nonviolence.” “This is not what MLK did, he protested peacefully, and he was successful.”
I’ve seen the memes. The countless Facebook posts which follow the same, cookie-cutter format: “Sure, George Floyd’s death was bad, and the police officers who choked him to death should be held accountable, BUT…”
After that “but” usually comes a lengthy, drawn out description lamenting property damage, talking about how awful it is that the entire criminal justice system is being blamed for the acts of individuals, and ending with a common refrain about MLK.
It is tempting to write a piece diving into the protests sweeping America today, and subsequently address the sentiment above. However, I neither have the time nor qualifications for such a piece.
Furthermore, if you’re looking to develop your knowledge of racism in America, I’d recommend speaking with someone who has actually experienced it, and not me.
What I can do here is engage in a specific aspect of this debate, and state something which, sorry, is almost certainly true: you don’t know who Martin Luther King Jr. was.
Sure, you have the basics down: he was a civil rights leader in the 60’s, he fought to end segregation and gave the “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial, and he was assassinated. We named a holiday after him.
But you don’t know him. You and I can’t say with a 100% guarantee what he would think of the protests today because he isn’t here, and to a certain extent, the protests which occurred in his time and those of today are contextually different.
You may be in agreement with me on this so far. But you could also say “Ok sure, we don’t literally know what he’d think of the protests today, but we can look at his actions and beliefs during his life and make an educated guess.”
Can we?
You can make a guess, but I’m sorry to say – it probably won’t be educated.
Here’s the thing, it’s not your fault. Well, at least not entirely.
The fact is, you and I are both the victims of whitewashed history.
Simplify, Simplify, Simplify
The first sin of the common narrative taught about MLK in most schools today is an easy one: his legacy is simplified. Yes, we were taught about MLK’s fight against segregation – how he wanted everyone to be treated equally. And he did.
But that wasn’t everything. Not even close. For starters, he was a strong opponent of the Vietnam War.
In a 1967 speech titled “Beyond Vietnam – A Time to Break Silence,” King spoke out not just against the war, but against a large military in general: “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.”
Another cause MLK endorsed? Improving healthcare standards.
At a March 1966 Chicago press conference, King argued that “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and the most inhuman because it often results in physical death.” He argued both at this conference and others for “massive direct-action” to elevate the healthcare received by African-Americans.
On economics, King was a large supporter of wealth redistribution. In a 1952 letter to his wife, Coretta Scott King, he wrote “I imagine you already know that I am much more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic…” and even went on to say that “capitalism has out-lived its usefulness.”
To be even more explicit, in a 1961 speech to the Negro American Labor Council, when speaking of his economic philosophy, King said “Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God’s children.”
In terms of specific policies to redistribute wealth, King supported a direct approach: universal basic income. King argued that other anti-poverty programs were indirect, saying that “Each seeks to solve poverty by first solving something else.”
To King it was simple, either the government provides the jobs, but if that proved infeasible, then “the solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income.”
Like many other civil rights leaders of his time, King was committed to an array of causes outside of “just” desegregation, a fact often overlooked by those who speak of MLK today.
A Unifier?
We’ve established what many of the things MLK believed and fought for were, and now turn to a new question: how was he perceived by the American public?
The common narrative of the man today is that he protested peacefully, his message was unifying, and he convinced the citizens of the U.S. to turn towards the better angels of their nature and end segregation. This is a sugar-coated, distorted version of the truth.
But don’t take my word for it, look at the data and opinions of Americans at the time. MLK’s lowest approval ratings actually were recorded during the week he was assassinated in 1968, when nearly 75% of the American public disapproved of King.
This high disapproval rating came during his anti-Vietnam comments, despite the fact that public opinion would shift sharply in his direction not long after his death. However, this downward turn in approval for King was also a result of his push for a $50 billion federal aid program specifically for African-Americans, an idea which many white Americans drew the line at.
In one report, President Lyndon Johnson (D), angrily asked “What is that goddamned n**ger preacher doing to me? We gave him the Civil Rights Act of 1964, we gave him the Voting Rights Act of 1965, we gave him the War on Poverty. What more does he want?”
But even years before his death, a substantial number of Americans still disapproved of MLK. In 1966, 63% of Americans disapproved of King, while only 33% of Americans held a positive view.
In fact, at no point during the 1960s did a majority of Americans approve of King. His highest approval rating, in May 1965, was 45%.
Let’s All Not Come Together
Given King’s unpopularity and divisiveness throughout the 1960s, a legitimate question may come to mind: if he was so unpopular, how did his policy goal of desegregation come to pass?
After all, didn’t he convince everyone that segregation was immoral?
To briefly answer this second question. No. Hell no.
In fact, King’s push to desegregate was proceeded by others which were largely unsuccessful. So why did King succeed when others did not? The answer lies primarily in elections, political coalitions, and geopolitics. Simply put, King had an opening.
In 1947, W.E.B. DuBois spoke at the newly formed United Nations in a speech literally titled “An Appeal to the World.” In the speech, DuBois lamented racial inequality and segregation in America to the global body.
Throughout the Cold War, the Soviet Union continuously argued that the experience of African-Americans was proof that the American capitalist system did not work for everyone and that the United States was hypocritical in its advocacy of equality.
This came with the backdrop of Africa increasingly becoming a Cold War battlefield, adding more pressure on the United States to improve the status of the African-American community.
Racial inequality in the United States had become a global embarrassment at best and a geopolitical risk at worst.
At home, a domestic political transformation was at work, one in which the African-American vote would play a central role.
It is true that in many northern states, there were white politicians such as Democrats John and Robert Kennedy and Republican Nelson Rockefeller, who genuinely believed in desegregation and other forms of racial justice.
But it is also true that many of those in power at the time supported the Civil Rights movement for a simple reason: votes. The best example of this would be Lyndon Johnson himself. Born and raised in Texas, Johnson frequently referred to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as the “n**ger bill.”
Throughout his tenure as a Congressman in the House of Representatives from 1937 and 1956, Johnson voted against every civil rights bill to hit the floor. It was only when he became President after JFK’s death that he pushed for the legislation.
MLK’s success at desegregation was not because he convinced everyone what a great thing it was.
It was because he used his skills as an orator and organizer to mobilize people to pursue a fairly unpopular cause and pressure their leaders. There was an opening both at home and abroad which led to a coalition of Cold War hawks, vote-minded politicians, and yes, some truly well-meaning white supporters in both parties to unite behind the cause.
Furthermore, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was met with fierce opposition by a substantial minority in Congress and much of the American people, and ended with the longest Senate filibuster in history before it was finally passed.
It was not “all of us coming together” to do the right thing. It was one political coalition railroading its opponents – dragging the rest of this country kicking and screaming towards its goal.
MLK, his immediate supporters, and their white political allies rarely changed hearts.
They changed laws.
To the Same End
At this point, you may be thinking: “Ok, so King was not loved in his time, and held many views which people today could disagree with. But [here it comes] he still protested peacefully, and he was successful, which is a lesson for today.”
There’s a lot to unpack here in this narrow version of the truth. First of all, MLK was successful in his major goal of desegregation (for which he should rightly be celebrated). However, there are many other policies he supported which he was not successful in having implemented – and which are still hotly contested today.
So, the idea that he achieved everything he wanted through peaceful protest is not totally accurate. But we will get back to that later. The bigger issue here is the sentiment I see expressed all too often in regards to today’s more violent protests, that “MLK would not have wanted this.”
Like all things regarding the treatment of MLK today, it’s more complicated than that.
It is true, MLK did not believe in violent protesting, saying that “Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral.” His commitment to nonviolence was first demonstrated in the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott, when he refused to hire armed bodyguards despite the death threats which were made against him.
However, what those who cite MLK’s nonviolent acts to criticize today’s protestors fail to recognize is that not personally committing violence does not mean King was against the motives of those who did. Quite the opposite.
In a 1966 60 Minutes interview, King told Mike Wallace that “a riot is the language of the unheard.” King then went on to say that he hoped riots would be avoided, but that he understood the anger behind them.
The best example of King’s attitude would be a letter he wrote to Betty Shabazz, the widow of Malcolm X, shortly after Malcolm X’s assassination:
“While we did not always see eye to eye on methods to solve the race problem, I always had a deep affection for Malcolm and felt that he had a great ability to put his finger on the existence and root of the problem.”
While Malcolm X and King disagreed on King’s nonviolent methods, they nonetheless shared many of the same political and economic goals for the African-American community.
Furthermore, in the years following the death of Malcolm X, King began to adopt more fiery rhetoric himself and pushed harder for policies considered radical at the time.
By the end of his life, King began to open up to the validity of violent protest, although he still felt it was not sustainable and nonviolent protest was more effective.
One passage from a September 1967 speech to the American Psychology Association has such particular relevance to today that it deserves to be quoted in full:
“Urban riots must now be recognized as durable social phenomena… They may be deplored, but they are there and should be understood. Urban riots are a special form of violence. They are not insurrections. The rioters are not seeking to seize territory or to attain control of institutions. They are mainly intended to shock the white community. They are a distorted form of social protest. The looting which is their principal feature serves many functions. It enables the most enraged and deprived Negro to take hold of consumer goods with the ease the white man does by using his purse. Often the Negro does not even want what he takes; he wants the experience of taking.”
Which leads us to a critical point, with particular relevance to the events of today:
The violent protests of the late 1960s and 1970s began to rise, in part, when the progress of King and other nonviolent reformers began to stall (à la the “What more does he want?” quote from LBJ cited earlier).
When more peaceful reform efforts are ignored, and when their leaders are mocked or rejected (or in the case of MLK, assassinated), more violent methods of change are often pursued; something King himself recognized towards the end of his life.
Continuous Embers
We’ve established that the common narrative today about MLK is wrong on three counts: that all he fought for was desegregation (it wasn’t), that he was a unifying figure (he wasn’t), and that his movement succeeded by persuading everyone that desegregation was the right thing to do (they didn’t).
We’ve also pointed out that while the perception that MLK believed in nonviolence is true, that does not mean that he was opposed to the goals of those who did protest violently, nor that he did not share the passions behind the violence.
However, an arguably more egregious lie that the common story of MLK today tells is that he is a solitary, historical figure, rather than an actor in a movement for equality which commenced long before he was born and has continued after his death to this very day.
The battle for the things King fought for, whether you agree with them or not, is not over. This makes simplifying King’s legacy to just the fight against segregation far worse.
If white Americans today learned about King’s push to close the wealth gap experienced by African-Americans, or his push for improving healthcare standards for the black community, or his support of universal basic income to fight black poverty, or any other goal, they may realize that these issues still plague the African-American community today.
Furthermore, they may abandon the belief that America “got over race” once segregation ended and MLK was victorious. Because in many of his other goals, he was not.
A Life of Fear
There is one question which remains to be answered: why?
If the story of MLK we are all told is so inaccurate, why does it persist in the (white) American psyche? I am not qualified to give a definitive answer to such a question. But I have a theory.
Fear.
The fear of those who would prefer to live their lives without being reminded of the uncomfortable facts about MLK, America, and the civil rights movement.
The fear of those who prefer to view history as a series of solitary events, rather than a continuous push-and-pull over issues we still debate today.
The fear of those who view racism as simply “people being mean to other people because of their skin color,” rather than a system of power set up over hundreds of years in countries across the globe. One which has harmed countless human beings at the most intimate level.
The fear of those who’s frequent desire is to retreat behind the white picket fence of suburbia, and live in a world where racism is a thing of the past that America “beat.”
The fear of those who believe that anybody who complains about racism today is either an isolated case, or just a troublemaker.
Well, Martin Luther King Jr. was considered one of those troublemakers.
To be clear, I’m not saying that you or I have to agree with every single thing that MLK and his allies fought for. What I am saying is that if we are going to be talking about the man in today’s political environment, we should get our facts straight.
MLK was one of the most hated men in America in his day – he was a divisive figure then, and he holds a set of policy views which would likely make him a divisive figure today.
And where would those policy views fall on today’s political spectrum?
From wealth redistribution to universal basic income to healthcare to the military, MLK possessed a philosophy which would make him decidedly left-wing, and diametrically opposed to many of the policies espoused by today’s Republican Party.
He sympathized with and understood violent protestors, although he did not share their methods, and led an extremely polarizing political movement to achieve the change he sought.
So, if you want to honor Dr. King’s legacy, go for it. But do so in a way that actually acknowledges the man for who he was and what he believed, not what you want him to have believed.
Perhaps the best way to carry on his incomplete mission would simply be to learn about the world and understand its injustices and flaws as best we can.
Then, have the uncomfortable conversations, force the arguments, “bring up” race, and work towards the day that “let’s fight for what is right” finally matters more than “let’s all get along."