Tomorrow, on 01.16., the United States celebrates Martin Luther King day. Four days later, the first black president in the history of the nation will leave office. What comes next is highly uncertain. It is fitting that both events will happen in the same week – the coincidence will reflect that a big part of the dreams of the Atlanta-born minister and martyr are still not fulfilled. It also gives us a chance to see beyond the icon of King, and see the real man who dreamt of "black man and white man, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands..."
The hero of civil rights. That is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear Martin Luther King’s name. Rightly so – the advancement of the American Blacks would have been unimaginable without MLK’s leadership. While his life gives hope, inspiration, and example for civil right activist all around the world, we shall not forget that from a political point of view King was a very progressive, leftist public figure. He understood that civil rights and economic justice are not separate but interconnected ideas – neither of them can stand on its own, a fair society has to provide both. He has raised the issues of working conditions, housing shortage, raising the minimum wage, creating a “guaranteed income”, and several other pressing social inequalities. All of this effort culminated in the Poor People’s Campaign, which took him to Memphis to support the sanitation worker’s strike. It turned out to be the last stop in his life.
King's house reconstructed at the King Center, Sweet Auburn, Atlanta
Considering his stance on these issues, no wonder that some parts of the conservative elites want to downplay this part of his life. What they project is a “cleared” Martin Luther King image – a man who only speaks about civil rights, and sometimes peace (do not forget in some circles Vietnam still looks like a heroic fight against communism), nothing else. These forces want us to forget the fact that social injustice still rules the land, and most of MLK’s message would be still relevant today, after those many years. "He was for civil right, he died for that cause, now we have civil rights, end of story" – as their reasoning and communication goes. Some lunatics of them even boast the idea that King was staunch free-market conservative. Do not let yourself be fooled, read his works and speeches instead:
“The evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and evils of racism”
"Why are there forty million poor people in America? And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth.’ When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy. And I’m simply saying that more and more, we’ve got to begin to ask questions about the whole society…"
2. He married a fantastic woman
While King himself is widely known outside of the U.S., his wife, Coretta Scott King stays in his shadow. However, she was an incredible woman, who has her place in history on her own merits. The singer turned minister's wife was not only the mother of their four children, but MLK’s closest advisor, and partner in the movement. Despite the fact that King was a serious womanizer, we have every reason to believe that the couple had a strong and good marriage. After King’s death, Coretta continued his work becoming an advocate for women and LGBT rights. She established King Center, where she lays next to his husband.
The tomb of Martin Luter King and Coretta Scott King
3. MLK and Hungary
Although I knew that Martin Luther King’s work mostly focused on domestic issues, I was happy and surprised that one of his most brilliant writing, the “Letter from Birmingham Jail” featured a mention of my home country, Hungary. King uses the Hungarian revolution of 1956 as an example for the fight against injustices that are codified into laws, thus enforcing them seems legally perfect. While this is a complex and difficult legal and philosophical question, the bottom line was crystal clear in the Budapest of 1956 and Birmingham of 1963 as well.
“We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was “legal” and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was “illegal.”
4. His greatest speech was half-improvised
The pulpit in the Ebenezer Baptist Church, Sweet Auburn, Atlanta, where King delivered some of his greatest speeches
King’s most memorable speech was the “I have the dream” speech, which he delivered in Washington D.C. in front of the Lincoln Memorial as part of the March On Washington demonstration of 1963. In the previous days, King struggled to come up with the final draft of the speech. On the eve of the big day, he finished the drafting with his aides saying: "My brothers, I understand. I appreciate all the suggestions. Now let me go and counsel with the Lord." Still, the morning version has not included the famous line and the following parts. What actually happened was that King used the draft for the first half of his speech (he essentially read it), and improvised the second part from his previous sermons. You may see the shift in this video starting around 12:10.
5. King, the Star Trek addict
King was a huge Star Trek fan. He has even convinced the actress Nichelle Nichols to stay on the show, that she wanted to leave after the first season, and thus continued to provide the first black character on prime television who confronted the racial stereotypes of the time.
A rare photo: King with a cigarette (by Bob Fitch)
It is little-known that MLK smoked – he tried to hide his habit from the public to avoid all the negative connotations. The practice even survived him – after he was shot in Memphis on his hotel balcony, where he stepped out to have a cigarette before dinner, one of his aides took the cigarettes out of the deadly wounded King’s pocket.
7. The incredible first assassination attempt on MLK
King with the letter opener in his chest - he has not sneezed... (by: Vernoll Coleman)
King had a previous assassination attack ten years earlier. Interestingly, a black woman stabbed him with a letter opener during a book signing event in New York. One of two police officers who were the first at the scene was black, the other one white, just as the two surgeons performing the operation saving King’s life. Later he wrote in his autobiography: "When I was well enough to talk with Dr. Aubrey Maynard, the chief of the surgeons who performed the delicate, dangerous operation, I learned the reason for the long delay that preceded surgery. He told me that the razor tip of the instrument had been touching my aorta and that my whole chest had to be opened to extract it. 'If you had sneezed during all those hours of waiting,' Dr. Maynard said, 'your aorta would have been punctured and you would have drowned in your own blood”. King went on to use "If I had sneezed…" line in several of his speeches.
"I have been to the mountaintop" Arguably the best MLK speech - one day before his death
8. King and Rhett Butler
The Ebenezer Church in Sweet Auburn, Atlanta - MLK's father was a pastor here, a role later took over by King
On December 15, 1939, as a member of the Ebenezer Baptist Church Choir the ten-year-old King was present at the premiere of the legendary movie Gone with the Wind. This film, with all of its values, is frankly a nostalgic tribute to the “lost cause” of the slave-owning South.
After the successful Montgomery bus boycott, where he used some of the methods of Gandhi’s nonviolence movement, King wanted to learn more about the lessons of the India’s struggle for independence. So in an unprecedented move, he and Coretta traveled to India, where they spent a month touring and studying the takeaways of the nonviolence struggle. I firmly believe that this example shall be followed by us, contemporary progressives – especially as with globalization, our causes are even more connected and similar than in 1950’s.
10. Westminster Abbey
King is one of the ten modern martyrs who received commemorating statue in the Westminster Abbey, in London, UK, in 1998.
If not marked otherwise, pictures were taken by Dave at Martin Luther King Center, Atlanta
If not marked otherwise, pictures were taken by Dave at Martin Luther King Center, Atlanta
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