On some positions, cowardice asks the question, is it expedient? And then expedience comes along and asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? Conscience asks the question, is it right?
There comes a time when one must take the position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must do it because conscience tells him it is right.
Those words were offered by Martin Luther King, Jr., in a speech at National Cathedral on March 31, 1968, four days before he was assassinated in Memphis. I reencountered them yesterday in a book about education which I will review here in the next week or so, that has the subtitle "How America's Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future." Re-reading those words caused me to re-read the entire speech, and then I realized that King's words are - as is true of so many of his - still relevant to the situation in which we find ourselves today.
King entitled the speech Remaining Awake Through A Great Revolution (the link contains an audio link as well as the text). King's biblical text was from Revelations, "Behold I make all things new; former things are passed away." After his introductory remarks, he turned to the tale of Rip van Winkle, which, as King reminds us, keys on a sign, which when van Winkle fell asleep had a picture of King George, but when he awoke after 20 years the image was of George Washington . Looking at the latter image, Rip van Winkle was lost.
And this reveals to us that the most striking thing about the story of Rip Van Winkle is not merely that Rip slept twenty years, but that he slept through a revolution. While he was peacefully snoring up in the mountain a revolution was taking place that at points would change the course of history—and Rip knew nothing about it. He was asleep. Yes, he slept through a revolution. And one of the great liabilities of life is that all too many people find themselves living amid a great period of social change, and yet they fail to develop the new attitudes, the new mental responses, that the new situation demands. They end up sleeping through a revolution.
King's speech is, as is usually the case with his remarks, infused with biblical language. I hope the parts that I quote will not be offensive to those who, unlike King, do not root their activism in such language.
There can be no gainsaying of the fact that a great revolution is taking place in the world today. In a sense it is a triple revolution: that is, a technological revolution, with the impact of automation and cybernation; then there is a revolution in weaponry, with the emergence of atomic and nuclear weapons of warfare; then there is a human rights revolution, with the freedom explosion that is taking place all over the world. Yes, we do live in a period where changes are taking place. And there is still the voice crying through the vista of time saying, "Behold, I make all things new; former things are passed away."
King talks about the moral response we should make to such a revolution. Let me offer two key points, without his complete explication of each:
Now whenever anything new comes into history it brings with it new challenges and new opportunities. And I would like to deal with the challenges that we face today as a result of this triple revolution that is taking place in the world today.
First, we are challenged to develop a world perspective. No individual can live alone, no nation can live alone, and anyone who feels that he can live alone is sleeping through a revolution. The world in which we live is geographically one. The challenge that we face today is to make it one in terms of brotherhood. . . .
Secondly, we are challenged to eradicate the last vestiges of racial injustice from our nation. I must say this morning that racial injustice is still the black man’s burden and the white man’s shame. . . .
Let me return, at least briefly, to the time in which we find ourselves.
We also face a technological revolution. Part of it is radically changing how most people work, if they still have jobs. It changes how we produce our food. It could be changing how we generate energy to support the rest of the changes going on around us. And the nature of warfare is also changing, to the point that the nation with the biggest army and most sophisticated weaponry cannot assume that it will prevail in conflict with its most likely enemies.
Further, the issue of a human rights revolution is not yet something in the past. King spoke at a time before gays were openly advocating for their rights - Stonewall would not happen for another 15 months. We still wrestle with what that means for our society, even as Catholic countries like Portugal legalize gay marriage, or in the largest Spanish speaking city in the world, Catholic Mexico City, gays have marital rights lacking so far in all but a handful of American states.
How America's Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future - words that apply not only to the issue of education which so consumes most of my waking hours. It also concerns me when I consider issues such as health care, wealth, taxation, economic opportunity . . . almost any subject that might be currently before us as a matter of public policy.
King spoke those 1968 words in the context of an America yet to overcome racism. I think it fair to say that despite the election of a man with a Black face and a Muslim name we see clear evidence that significant portions of this country have also not overcome racism.
But king spoke in a broader context, of a new March on Washington, a poor people's march, because he recognized that even beyond racism this nation was haunted by economic inequity that crossed racial lines, even as it fell more heavily on those of color. And it was not just an American problem. Consider these two paragraphs:
We must come to see that the roots of racism are very deep in our country, and there must be something positive and massive in order to get rid of all the effects of racism and the tragedies of racial injustice.
There is another thing closely related to racism that I would like to mention as another challenge. We are challenged to rid our nation and the world of poverty. Like a monstrous octopus, poverty spreads its nagging, prehensile tentacles into hamlets and villages all over our world. Two-thirds of the people of the world go to bed hungry tonight. They are ill-housed; they are ill-nourished; they are shabbily clad. I’ve seen it in Latin America; I’ve seen it in Africa; I’ve seen this poverty in Asia.
After describing the kinds of poverty he has encountered in other nations, and urging his audience to recognize our interconnectedness - and hence responsibility - to address that, he turns to our nation:
Not only do we see poverty abroad, I would remind you that in our own nation there are about forty million people who are poverty-stricken. I have seen them here and there. I have seen them in the ghettos of the North; I have seen them in the rural areas of the South; I have seen them in Appalachia. I have just been in the process of touring many areas of our country and I must confess that in some situations I have literally found myself crying.
I do not doubt that were he to tour our nation more than four decades later King would still weep, and he would be angry, because we have still not addressed the effects of poverty in this nation, we have allowed it to continue, we have abandoned many of the initiatives that had by 1968 begun to make a difference.
In 1968 as he told his audience about the forthcoming Poor Peoples March, King said
And this can happen to America, the richest nation in the world—and nothing’s wrong with that—this is America’s opportunity to help bridge the gulf between the haves and the have-nots. The question is whether America will do it. There is nothing new about poverty. What is new is that we now have the techniques and the resources to get rid of poverty. The real question is whether we have the will.
In his remarks he spoke about people who had never seen a doctor or a dentist. Perhaps now it is not never, but I have surely encountered those who have rarely seen such medical professionals. It radicalized me. It made me want to weep.
We are not coming to engage in any histrionic gesture. We are not coming to tear up Washington. We are coming to demand that the government address itself to the problem of poverty. We read one day, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." But if a man doesn’t have a job or an income, he has neither life nor liberty nor the possibility for the pursuit of happiness. He merely exists.
Yesterday I wrote about the possible need for movements to pressure this country towards more progressive policies. That diary, which got over 600 comments, used as its title that of a column by Harold Myerson, Without a movement, progressives can't aid Obama's agenda. Perhaps it is serendipity that on the day on which I posted that I encountered the quote with which I began, which led me to reread King's speech, in which I also read him pointing out the failures to act described in the report of the Kerner Commission on violence, ironic given the urban violence that would erupt less than a week later in reaction to King's death. King said
And I submit that nothing will be done until people of goodwill put their bodies and their souls in motion. And it will be the kind of soul force brought into being as a result of this confrontation that I believe will make the difference.
He puts it bluntly:
This is the question facing America. Ultimately a great nation is a compassionate nation. America has not met its obligations and its responsibilities to the poor.
Ponder that last sentence for a moment: America has not met its obligations and its responsibilities to the poor - even more than four decades after the Great Society, more than 7 since the onset of the New Deal, we have still NOT met our obligation to the poor of this nation, at a time when increasing numbers of Americans must rely on foodstamps in order to eat. It is fortunate that they do not starve in mass numbers, but foodstamps are an insufficient commitment to changing their condition of desperation. Even with passage of some sort of health insurance there will be those left out of coverage. Increasing numbers of Americans are sliding down towards poverty. And the hope of a different and better life for their children is being lost by too many families.
King also spoke of the damage to this country of our war in Vietnam, words that certainly seemed appropriate with respect to Iraq, and are becoming increasingly appropriate with respect to Afghanistan. King's words then read like this:
t has played havoc with our domestic destinies. This day we are spending five hundred thousand dollars to kill every Vietcong soldier. Every time we kill one we spend about five hundred thousand dollars while we spend only fifty-three dollars a year for every person characterized as poverty-stricken in the so-called poverty program, which is not even a good skirmish against poverty.
Not only that, it has put us in a position of appearing to the world as an arrogant nation. And here we are ten thousand miles away from home fighting for the so-called freedom of the Vietnamese people when we have not even put our own house in order. And we force young black men and young white men to fight and kill in brutal solidarity. Yet when they come back home that can’t hardly live on the same block together.
Things are different - we now spend many multiples of his half million to kill each identified member of Al Qaeda or the Taliban or their associated groups. And blacks and white increasingly not only live near one another, they may intermarry - my nephew and his wife, the parents of many of the children I teach - although racism still festers in too many hearts.
King had been criticized by many for speaking out against Vietnam. The words with which I began this were offered in response to that criticism.
I do not want to quote the conclusion of the speech. You really should read - or even better, listen - as King raises his audience up. King was never without hope. He would honestly and completely describe the crises we faced, but then inspire his listeners to move forward in the belief that they could make a difference.
As he transitioned to that conclusion, after the words with which I began, King offered this paragraph:
that we have difficult days ahead in the struggle for justice and peace, but I will not yield to a politic of despair. I’m going to maintain hope as we come to Washington in this campaign. The cards are stacked against us. This time we will really confront a Goliath. God grant that we will be that David of truth set out against the Goliath of injustice, the Goliath of neglect, the Goliath of refusing to deal with the problems, and go on with the determination to make America the truly great America that it is called to be.
to make America the truly great America that it is called to be In a sense those words speak to all of us here who continue to argue, and labor, and struggle, and organize - to make America the truly great America that it is called to be
In a much discussed passage in his Nobel Peace Prize lecture, our President offered the following words:
We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth that we will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations - acting individually or in concert - will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.
I make this statement mindful of what Martin Luther King said in this same ceremony years ago - "Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones." As someone who stands here as a direct consequence of Dr. King's life's work, I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence. I know there is nothing weak - nothing passive - nothing naïve - in the creed and lives of Gandhi and King.
But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their examples alone.
I turn to these words because Obama's recognition that he has a different role than did a Gandhi or a King, because he is head of state. I would argue that he similarly has a different role because he is head of government, that is, he must work within the political realities before him to make the progress this nation needs, even as he would almost certainly acknowledge his desire to do much more. He has some responsibility to give voice to the voiceless, using his own powerful voice.
But his should not be the only voice. It cannot be.
At least for me, there are points where I recognize that I must speak out. I read those words with which I began, and have no doubt that I must keep teaching, and speaking and writing. When I have doubts, when I wonder if it is worth it, I remember that King always left his listeners or readers with hope, with the belief that positive change was still possible, for it it no longer is, we face the abyss.
James Baldwin had warned of this in his book first published in 1963, The Fire Next Time Baldwin believed that racial conflict COULD be avoided, with the implication of what might happen were progress not made. His was one voice overlapping that of King. Another was Robert Kennedy, who used the wordslater quoted by his brother Ted at Bobby's funeral, borrowed from G. B. Shaw - "Some men see things as they are and ask why? I dream things that never were and ask why not?" Kennedy had a vision of hope, of things that were possible.
For things to be possible, to be better, will always require people willing to speak up, to act, and to ask of things before them, is it right?
I encountered words of King. They struck me as appropriate. I meditated upon them. I wrote this diary.
Allow me to end as I began, with King's words:
On some positions, cowardice asks the question, is it expedient? And then expedience comes along and asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? Conscience asks the question, is it right?
There comes a time when one must take the position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must do it because conscience tells him it is right.
Peace.