Transforming the Jericho road

There may be no greater American than Martin Luther King, Jr. However, no other figure has possibly had his or her image tainted like King’s has as the fire of his message has been twisted in such a way that he has become a lovable puppet that we teach kids about in grade school, so they can believe that each American has an equal standing in our world.

I admit that as a younger student I viewed the civil rights figure as just another warm and friendly civil rights mascot. Just like Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny, MLK was nothing more than a reason to be off school and a deliverer of token platitudes against racism. When I began to explore more deeply who the man was I began to see that King was an outspoken critic of society, someone that threatened those in power and a man that had his fair share of demons that made him as human as the rest of us.

The more I study King, the more I realize he would no doubt be as frustrated today with society as he was in the 1960’s. Sure, African Americans no longer have to sit in the back of the bus and it would be illegal to refuse to serve someone because of the color of their skin, but King wasn’t merely attempting rid the world of institutional racists practices. Instead, King was an outspoken critic of societal racism, the kind of racism that is made excusable by people by way of ignorance and neglect.

One of my favorite scholars is Michael Eric Dyson who is the author of April 4, 1968, a book that discusses the death of King and the way history attempted to forget the kind of person he was in the final years before his death. There are tons of quotes I could mention in this post, but here is one that Dyson uses to highlight King’s push to bring change to America’s founding principles.

“King argued exactly a year before he died that ‘we are all called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside,’ but that was ‘only an initial act.’ We must ‘come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journeys on life’s highways.’ King concluded that ‘true compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is too haphazard and superficial. [True Compassion] comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restricting.”

King’s dream was not simply to have blacks enjoy the same legal status as whites, but instead was to see a society transformed from one that segregates its population based on race and economic standing to one that is truly equal and free. King wanted to see a world where children of all races enjoy the same high-quality education. He envisioned a world where the largest super power did not act like the world’s police officer, but rather the world’s pastor and humanitarian worker.

King was also a man of struggles. Far from perfect, the champion of civil rights dealt with temptation, often falling to its vices. That part of King’s life has been ignored, which I also find disappointing. Here is a man that was able to carry the world on his back and look injustice straight in the eye, yet he was a broken man. The message that brokenness can be overcome on your way to greatness is not just a message that needs to be told to a generation of African American children, it is a message for all of us.

Hampton Sides, an author from Memphis who has written books on King, also calls on us to not forget the true King in an effort to dilute his greatness. In a Washington Post column over the weekend, Sides begs movie makers currently in the process of creating at least three different films on the life of King to not forget the real man.

“Hopefully these and other portrayals will not seek to sanitize Martin Luther King. We have no use for Hallmark heroes — airbrushed, Photoshopped, simon-pure. We need to see King in all his pathos, imperfection and messy ambiguity. In the end, that’s the only way we can relate to his struggles or appreciate his greatness. Through his moments of very human doubt and disappointment, King remained true to the message of nonviolence at a time when the world seemed on the brink of self-annihilation. The night before he was killed, while tornado warnings wailed outside, he spoke of the threats that were out there from “our sick white brothers.” Yet he found a way to preach through his apprehensions, crying out triumphantly: “I’m not fearing any man!”

Our world and society too often lacks the kind of critique King was able to deliver. True truth-telling involves not only the bravery to speak, but the discipline and strength to back up one’s words with a life that demands attention and respect. King embodied that type of truth-telling and on the anniversary of his death I pause to remember his message and the need we have for even more men and women like him.