MLK and the History of the Civil Rights Movement

March 20th, 2008

"If you have never found something so dear and so precious to you that you will die for it, then you aren’t fit to live. ” - Martin Luther King. Jr. (p. 344)

The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. edited by Clayborne Carson is an excellent assembly of primary sources written or spoken by King. The work is not a true autobiography because King was assassinated before he could write one. Carson, the editor of King's papers, skillfully weaved together a variety of King's writings and speeches in an autobiographical format. The work appears to be a reasonable approximation of an autobiography King would have wrote had he lived long enough to do so. It effectively challenges popular myths about the civil rights movement and has an excellent critique of moderates.

Many people, including some historians and other scholars, think the civil rights movement only lasted from 1954-1965 but King's autobiography shows that the the civil rights movement continued after the passage of the Voter Rights act in 1965. King himself clearly did not think the movement ended in 1965, challenging the 1954-65 periodization used by Juan Williams and others. The work discusses race riots, black power activists, the Chicago campaign, the poor people's campaign, and other events I had heard of but did not know in as great detail before reading this work.

Although he disagrees with them, King clearly had a far superior analysis of the black power movement than Williams, who demonized them, or other accounts of the civil rights movement which ignore them. King critiqued black power on two grounds. Although he agreed that in general the concept of "black power" was a good one, he objected to the slogan on the grounds that it had negative connotations and would alienate potential supporters, which is probably true. He also argued that African-Americans needed non-black allies because they were a minority of the population and would be crushed if they tried to go it alone.

King stated, "Greenwood turned out to be the arena for the birth of the Black Power slogan in the civil rights movement." (p. 320) Note that he considers this to be a subset of the civil rights movement, not a separate movement as some historians do. In fact he criticizes the media for overemphasizing the split over Black Power, an overemphasis continued in the works of some historians. In effect, his views on black power again challenge the 1954-65 periodization by including Black Power activists within the civil rights movement, rather than classifying them as something that came after the movement.

It's interesting the way King classified the location of cities. When discussing the Watts riot he calls Los Angeles a "Northern" city even though L.A. is actually much closer to the Mexican border than the Canadian border. Many residents of Los Angeles think of it as a “Western" city, not northern or southern. King apparently classified everything outside the South as "North," which may be some sort of southern­-centric perspective.

Elements of King's sexism are present in the text, though they are not prominent. The most common case of King's sexism in this work is his frequent use of the term "man" to refer to people. Obviously King’s portrayal of himself is generally positive.

International connections with the civil rights movement can also be found in King’s autobiography. King visited Scandinavia to accept his Nobel Peace Prize, giving him an opportunity to observe Scandinavian democratic socialism in person, which he had a positive impression of. He claimed it also, "reminded us graphically that the tide of world opinion was in our favor. Though people of color are a minority here in America, there are billions of colored people who look to the United States and to her Negro population to demonstrate that color is no obstacle or burden in the modern world.” (p. 258) In his letter from Birmingham jail he argued, "that nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jet-like speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter.” (p. 192) Thus, international events like decolonization acted as an inspiration to King and probably others in the movement.

King's Letter From Birmingham Jail also contains an excellent critique of moderates. One of the best statements in the whole work is:

I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great tumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler [.sic] or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "‘order" than to justice: who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action,” who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical conception of time and who constantly advices the Negro to wait for a ‘move convenient season.’ (p. 195)

Much of his critique of moderates in the sixties is still applicable today. And not just on civil rights issues - moderates still take similar positions on other issues and are still just as wrong.