Remembering King’s Challenging Words

Forty years ago today one of the great voices for human dignity was silenced by an assassin’s bullet. Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. came to Memphis in support of striking sanitation workers demanding better wages and union representation. A leader of soaring eloquence and historic importance, King had met with presidents, traveled the globe as a hero of nonviolent resistance and at age 35 was the youngest person awarded the Nobel Prize. But in his final hours King was still in the streets walking the long road to justice with men who struggled to earn a living collecting garbage.

As we pause to honor King’s legacy it’s tempting to sanitize his radical call for economic justice or temper his prophetic words about war. We prefer King as a safe icon stored behind history’s glass case. When his words are quoted these days, we rarely hear the righteous anger of a preacher who denounced the Vietnam War and described America as the "greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” We choose not to reflect on his warnings about the arrogance of American foreign policy by reminding his country that God has a way of putting the mighty in their place. We avoid an honest grappling with his critique of capitalism as a system that permits “necessities to be taken from the many to give luxuries to the few.” To ignore this legacy is a mistake.

The racism, poverty and militarism that King shined a moral spotlight on during his time remain profound challenges today. The gap between the rich and poor has reached Depression-era standards. Corporate CEOs now make nearly 400 times the average worker. African Americans earn less, die earlier and are imprisoned at disproportionate rates than whites. Our government has spent by one estimate more than $1 trillion on the Iraq war as our inner cities crumble and 47 million Americans lack health insurance. We insist on human rights for other nations even as our leaders justify torture in the name of national security. King would indeed be a busy man today. He would be joined by people of all faith traditions who understand racism, torture, genocide and any assault on human dignity to be evils unworthy of a great nation.

One of King’s most important contributions was his sweeping vision of what it would take to build a just society. Racism, poverty, and militarism were not isolated social ills, he understood, but related in systemic ways that required a deeper social transformation to overcome. King was not a single-issue prophet. He knew that building the beloved community required us to make connections and confront the American infatuation with individualism because our fates are tied to a “single garment of destiny.” His vision was rooted in his faith’s demands to serve the poor and confront injustice. Inspired by King, I look to my own faith and Catholic social teaching, which commands me to alleviate poverty and suffering, and to oppose racism.

King’s challenge to a nation he loved is often hard to hear, but an honest reckoning with his words can help us build a new movement for racial, social and economic justice desperately needed today.