To paraphrase labor singer Joe Hill, I am sure Dr. King's message to us for the day set aside to commemorate him would be, "don't celebrate, organize." That would honor his memory better than anything else we could do.
- James Harrington, Director of the Texas Civil Rights Project
Before you pelt me with rotten tomatoes, let me say that I have no problem with honoring MLK and praising his work/beliefs. But the way his memory has been watered down in American culture, MLK's "dream" may never be fully realized. It's actually quite a feat for MLK to have a national holiday, considering that no one else has a US official holiday dedicated to them, except Jesus or Columbus maybe, and both of them weren't American citizens. Of all the influential, legendary Americans in our young history, so far it's only MLK. All our war heroes get one day, and same for our 43 presidents (the great and the horrible ones alike). Supreme Court justices and US Congressmen don't get holidays, even though some of them made huge contributions to advancing civil rights. I remember when I was discussing the holiday issue with a friend from Arizona (AZ and NH were the last states to recognize MLK day, only after a Congressional order in 1987, and it cost them hosting a Super Bowl among other things). He said he would prefer to call it "Civil Rights Day". After some thought, I strongly agree with that. Though we probably felt that way for different reasons than Jesse Helms (see Wiki link at end). Actually, Reagan previously proposed to have a "National Civil Rights Day" celebrated on August 12 to celebrate MLK's march on Washington.
http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1987/081087d.htm
As Americans tend to do, we mess up a good thing. We do want to honor MLK's legacy and commemorate the civil rights struggle (and we sometimes forget that it was a helluva STRUGGLE that is far from finished), but by mythologizing him into a one-dimensional, abstract character (like Washington, or Jesus for that matter!), we actually take away from his message and lessen his impact/realism. It's like putting women on a pedestal in the old days. Men supposedly did it to protect them, but ended up hurting women by holding them back (or was that the goal all along?). The civil rights movement was complex, extensive, and ongoing, so it can't be condensed into one man's name or one famous quote. Let's be honest; MLK was generally an outcast figure and disliked by much of establishment America (especially for his antiwar and pro-labor views), but after his murder he became a sympathetic icon for the greater struggle for equality and justice, whether it be racial, sexual, disability, or socioeconomic.
We celebrate his memory as if he was a victorious general like Washington, but in reality MLK Day should be a day of mourning to reflect on how far we still need to go. We shall overcome some day (hopefully), but we're not there yet. Making MLK and the greater civil rights movement into just another holiday somehow relegates him into the haze of the distant past, yet if he wasn't assassinated, Dr. King would be only 78 years old now – practically a baby boomer! Some of the people who opposed MLK-style integration are still ticking, and a few even held positions of power until very recently! Maybe America is still uncomfortable about MLK's proximity to present day and his relevance to current national issues, so subconsciously we are mythologizing him into historical obscurity (like other ugly chapters of US history such as the ethnic cleansing of Native Americans and the Vietnam War). Fuzzy snippets of his speeches, street signs in bad neighborhoods, and even an annual holiday won't really inspire us to follow in MLK's footsteps. Does Mother's Day really make us nicer to our moms after Sunday brunch has concluded? Holidays are a "get out of jail free" card, just an excuse to feel inspired for one day, and after the euphoria subsides, postpone our guilt and obligation to action for another year.
Civil rights was a protracted struggle where people involved lived under constant fear/harassment, and risked their lives and their families to fight for a distant goal that in no way appeared assured at the time. They only accepted such long odds and hardships because life under Jim Crow segregation was even worse, and some refused to tolerate it anymore. It was a nasty, difficult, ugly process, like any revolutions I guess. But MLK is almost an untainted, angelic figure (he was not free of controversy, such as promiscuity and leftist associations, though mostly trumped up by the FBI), who made one speech and then the whole nation suddenly decided to get along. But if it wasn't for the thousands of marchers who listened to his speech and actually lived out his message, Dr. King would be just another dreamer. We sometimes forget all the hard work, courage, and pain that went into marginalized people standing up and demanding fair treatment from their own country that often times treated them with hostility and contempt. Heck, Rosa Parks has become a punch line that even black comedians exploit.
I think our sanitized portrayal of the civil rights struggle gives kids the wrong impression that good people just magically prevail and things always turn out right in the end (even though bigotry is far from dead, as we've seen in Jena, Katrina, and US prisons/public schools). Change is VERY HARD to accomplish, and it takes a lot of blood, sweat, and tears from more than just one inspired leader. MLK couldn't have done it without thousands of other dedicated patriots, including many concerned white people. Maybe some kids don't even know that Dr. King was assassinated, and prior to that had multiple attacks/death threats on him and his family, yet he kept going because he believed in the cause. If we want to remember and honor MLK, at least we can do it in a more meaningful way. Kids are lucky today that they don't live in an overtly segregated society anymore, but obviously there are still barriers when over 90% of inner city NYC schoolchildren are black/Latino and over 90% of wealthy suburban schoolkids are white. Maybe the best way to comprehend and combat injustice is to experience it first hand, in a controlled medium of course. Pacific Coast schools often conduct Japanese internment demonstrations (where some students play US military jailors and others play interned Japanese-Americans), and similar Holocaust/Nazi concentration camp experience simulations exist from Texas to New York. Why can't we have hands-on activities for children to understand slavery, Jim Crow, and the civil rights movement? I know such methods may be controversial for parents to accept, but MLK was the epitome of controversy yet we claim to honor him each January.
But ask any US kid under 16 what MLK means to them, and I think you'd get some pretty disappointing answers. That isn't necessarily their fault, but also due to inadequate education and social indifference. And Dr. King held many other beliefs as well, some that go against the grain of mainstream society. Many Americans may still harbor private prejudices, but we generally agree that institutionalized discrimination and racism are wrong, so MLK's integrationist message is easily palatable. But we are still a very pro-war and anti-labor society, and maybe getting more so. As a Christian minister and admirer or Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. King and his followers ardently abided by a code of nonviolence, which is amazing considering how brutally they were assailed with hateful words, tear gas, batons, fire hoses, attack dogs, and sometimes guns/nooses. MLK was one of the most vocal critics of the Vietnam War and militarism in general, so we know what he would say about Bush and the current War on Terror. He also rallied against poverty and promoted worker's rights, which created a lot of enemies for him (the leftist tendencies of other positive historical figures like César Chavez and Hellen Keller have also been downplayed over the years). But for such a principled man, his struggle for justice was not just limited to racial bigotry, but also economic and military oppression.
We have to do a better job of making MLK and the civil rights struggle come to life and mean something tangible to Americans, especially young people. Not that Hollywood should be our cultural barometer, but there have been two major movies on Truman Capote, at least six on Elvis Presley (mostly made-for-TV), yet zero on MLK. Isn't his life interesting and meaningful enough? If we allow Dr. King to become just another old face on a stamp, or a few pages in a boring, whitewashed schoolbook, then I fear his sacrifice was in vain. I worry that MLK day has become just another ethereal holiday like Thanksgiving (do any of us really care that the Pilgrims and Indians shared a meal together, even though such a scenario is historically dubious?), just an excuse for another day off to repaint the garage or hit the mall. And like Christmas, it does no good to venerate and commemorate a great figure if we don't live out his message for the other 364 days of the year. Dr. King would probably prefer that we not honor him with superficial ceremonial tributes, but instead take to the streets and actually help the victims of injustice and prejudice, who are not in short supply both here and abroad. Every day we have opportunities to make our society more tolerant and egalitarian, and unlike many other global challenges like poverty and climate change, one person can make a big difference just by treating others with respect and compassion. But how many times have we participated in or witnessed injustice, and just kept on walking?
I do commend MLK on his enduring, pure message of nonviolent protest and racial harmony, not just "black power" like other reactionaries of his day. He does deserve major recognition in the history books, but we can't afford to compress the entire civil rights movement into a trite holiday for one man's story. And I think MLK would agree. But as our society and our young people assess a new batch of daunting challenges, I would hope MLK reminds us not that "we shall overcome" by default, but that some struggles are so important that it's worth giving your life for. If most Americans understood that and lived rightly, then we would have no need for a MLK Day, and bigotry truly would be a thing of the past.
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/444.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_Day
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