The radical MLK we need today

SALON

Monday, Jan 20, 2014 07:45 AM EST

The radical MLK we need today

 

As the nation rediscovers poverty, it’s time to replace the safe, airbrushed icon with the revolutionary he was 

 

Joan Walsh

Topics: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Harry Belafonte, Clarence B. Jones, March on Washington, Andrew Young, Glenn Beck, President Obama, Poverty, Income inequality, Editor's Picks, News, Politics News

 

State troopers stand shoulder to shoulder on the steps of Alabama's State Capitol on March 25, 1965, barring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. from entering. (Credit: AP)

When Nelson Mandela died last month, I envied South Africans who had worked alongside him for freedom: Americans haven’t gotten to see many of our icons of justice get that old. My immediate thought was of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., assassinated at 39, though Bobby and John Kennedy, Malcolm X and Medgar Evers, quickly followed.

But the inescapable image was King. Even if the freedom struggle of the 1960s didn’t end up letting King grow old like Mandela, let alone lead his country as president, it was hard not to compare the two, especially since Mandela so often declared his debt to his younger American ally.

King and Mandela had much in common, but one thing stands out this week: As they were lionized globally, both were deradicalized, pasteurized and homogenized, made safe for mass consumption. Each was in favor of a radical redistribution of global wealth. Each crusaded against poverty and inequality and war. Both did it with an equanimity and ebullience and capacity to forgive and love their enemies that made it easy to canonize them in a secular way. White people love being given the benefit of the doubt and/or being forgiven. I speak from experience.

But now, as the country turns again to issues of income inequality and poverty, and economic populism is said to be having a “moment,” maybe it’s time to remember Dr. King, the radical. The one who died trying to ignite a Poor People’s Movement that he saw as the natural outcome of the civil rights movement. The one who tried to branch out to fight poverty and war, but at least in his lifetime – and so far in ours – didn’t succeed.

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I loved pretty much everything about the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington last year, except how the right got it so wrong. It seemed to be the beginning of a movement to reclaim the real MLK, especially among liberals. King was of course celebrated hugely, but so were lefty heroes who never get enough credit, like Bayard Rustin and A. Philip Randolph. There were stories about “The Socialists Behind the March on Washington,” as well as about the media’s and the Kennedy administration’s wrongheaded fears of violence.