By LEE N,HOWELL
Politically Speaking

This past Monday was a national celebration of the birth of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the only Georgian ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize — but as far as most folks, black as well as white, are concerned, it is just an excuse to be off from work.

It is the only federal holiday to honor an African-American, but even those who share the color of his skin — and the benefits of living in a society changed for the better by the human rights revolution he led — often do little more to mark his memory than attend a parade or possibly a quasi-religious service in some church in the community.

But, the memory of the man who dreamed of a new dawn in America and then worked tirelessly to make that dream a reality — even though he never lived to see his dream becoming reality as it is today — is too often treated shabbily, even by those who claim to promote his legacy.

For, while the Roman Catholic Church is preparing to recognize him as a 20th century martyr for the faith during ceremonies in Rome this summer and while the Church of England installed a life-size statue of him over the doors of their national church, Westminster Abbey, Dr. King would never have wanted to be just another plaster saint on a pedestal in the darkened corner of some magnificent cathedral.

He was a living, breathing firebrand, an individual filled with passion who was not satisfied with the world as it was and fought for a society as it could become.

Sometimes we forget the man that was as we recall the placid dreamer who delivered memorable speeches which envisioned a new and better America.

Indeed, as Jake Lamar asked in a recent issue of The New York Observer newspaper, “Is there any 20th-century American icon who has been more banalized, neutralized, and homogenized by mythology than Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.?

“From the day he was martyred in 1968, the civil rights crusader has been enshrined as a romantic visionary: the healing, nonviolent, nonthreatening integrationist,” Lamar said. “King's birthday gives Americans, black and white, conservative and liberal alike, the annual opportunity to appropriate his legacy and slather it with sentimental goo, to squeeze the complex ideas of a true revolutionary into four wistful words: “I have a dream.'”

Those words may sound harsh, but the truth contained therein can not be denied.

Dr. King was a nonviolent revolutionary who was never satisfied with any peaceful evolution.

And, it has to be remembered that for Dr. King nonviolent revolution was a tactic: You push and push against an unjust system and, then, when the forces of reaction get to the breaking point, lay your body on the line as a sacrificial victim to their rages of violence.

(Indeed, Dr. King's most successful campaigns were those in which he could get his followers to goad their opponents into violent outbursts which pulled at the heartstrings of men of good will all across this land when viewed on the evening newscasts. In those places like Albany, where his protests were met with restraint and they were simply arrested, not beaten or water-hosed or turned into bait for the dogs, his protest movements were counted as failures.)

But, in most of the memorial services held to highlight Dr. King's legacy, it is never the revolutionary that is recalled but the dreamer.

Consequently, most of those memorials miss the point.

Dr. King was not a one-dimensional individual with only one facet of his character revealed.

He was a flesh-and-blood activist, one who used his eloquence to define and defend his cause when it was appropriate but who was just as willing to use the other tools available to a true revolutionary when necessary.

And, like the Savior he followed, Dr. King was killed, not because he made nice speeches that made folks feel good but because he challenged the very roots of a society into which he was born and was unwilling to accept.

[Lee N. Howell is an award-winning writer who has been observing and commenting upon politics and society in the Southern Crescent, the state, and nation for more than a quarter of a century.]

Back to Opinion Home Page | Back to the top of the page