People who don't read history or weren't alive during the King era may have
forgotten, or never knew, of the character assassinations made against him.
Some white preachers claimed he kept company with communists. Others
appealed to the most virulent forms of racism, suggesting that if black men
gained their "endowed unalienable rights" they might marry white women, thus
"polluting" the gene pool. To younger people, this may sound like fiction.
Those who lived through it, especially black people (who were called
"negroes" on a good day) know it as fact.
It was in this environment that Dr. King lived, preached and worked. It is
easy to bask in his glow four decades after his death. It took incredible
bravery at the time to walk with him in support of his cause. And it wasn't
only his cause. It was an American cause. He challenged this country to live
up to its ideals and what he knew was its better nature, if it could escape
from behind the barricade of prejudice and ignorance.
He said, "I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to
the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace
and brotherhood can never become a reality I believe that unarmed truth
and unconditional love will have the final word."
Two months after King's murder, Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated. Kennedy
echoed King when he said, "Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts
to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends
forth a tiny ripple of hope."
King sent out more than a ripple of hope, he sent out a flood. Without him
there might not have been a civil rights movement, at least not one as
effective in breaking the chains of injustice. That's a legacy that should
make all Americans proud. That's why King deserves more than a national
holiday. In what he said about race and brotherhood, he deserves to be
followed. |