Death had always stalked Martin Luther King, Jr. And when he was assassinated on April 4, 1968, the sadness was in knowing that it was a fate he could not avoid. Having traversed treacherous political territory since the 1950s, it had been quite a given that King's enemies would never let up on their macabre mission of doing away with him. And they did. When King fell, it was the end of a dream of the many other dreams he was busy shaping in his imagination.
So many decades after King's passing, it makes sense to sit back and reflect on the changes he wrought in America. It was a country he loved and yet a place where racial discrimination reigned supreme, until he came along. On all those marches he organized in defence of the rights of the Black community, he was pounced upon by the police, was kicked to the ground, was jailed, was pelted with slurs and led away to prison. The FBI's J Edgar Hoover for years went about the odious job of trying to dig up dirt on him. And yet the pastor in King, a devoted follower of Gandhi, never gave up the struggle. Perseverance was the pillar of his moral strength.
It was a supreme sense of morality which led him to the Lincoln Memorial in August 1963, to share his dreams with all Americans, descendants of former slave owners and of former slaves coming together as one mass of humanity on the red hills of Georgia. There was in King, on that day, a prophet pointing out to his suffering people the Promised Land. It was a day painted in the sheer beauty of the biblical when he envisioned a day when his people would not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character. Good men and women, and among them were whites at that rally, cheered.
There was the messianic about Martin Luther King. Human rights formed the core of his beliefs, a reason which convinced the Nobel Committee to confer the award for peace on him in 1964. It was a very young King to whom that honour came. His speech accepting the Nobel was a remarkable testament to his vision of an America and the wider world covering fresh new ground. And this is how he expressed his feelings:
“I accept this award today with an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in the future of mankind . . . I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits.”
This audacity of conviction was the vehicle which would carry him towards the goal he had set for himself. That he had come a little closer to his goal of an America turning its back on racism was demonstrated through President Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act in 1964, a step which clearly consecrated the struggle which King had given flesh to. And yet King had his doubts about the future of his movement but more about the future of the Black community in the United States. Till the end of his life, he felt that much more remained to be done, that there was no room for him or for his comrades in the struggle to feel complacent. The future was yet to be mapped in new contours.
King did not live, though, to witness some of the more tangible of results of his struggle for human dignity. Less than nine years after his murder, his young follower Andrew Young would become US Permanent Representative to the United Nations in the administration of President Jimmy Carter. Jesse Jackson would gain national prominence and at a point would vie for the Democratic Party nomination for President. His trusted friend Ralph Abernathy would carry the movement forward in his absence. King inaugurated a phase in American history it was not his fate to live through.
Black Americans, referred to in politically correct phraseology as African-Americans, would claim increasing swathes of territory in politics. Condoleeza Rice, who saw her friends die in a racist attack in the 1960s, would hold office under President George W Bush as Secretary of State. General Colin Powell would reach the top of the military before working for Bush as Secretary of State. Perhaps the culmination of King's politics was reached when Barack Obama was elected the first African-American President of the United States in 2008 and would go on to serve two full terms in the White House. At this point of time, Lloyd Austin, a former general, serves as Defence Secretary in the Biden administration.
Martin Luther King's politics of inclusivity has extended beyond his country. The long imprisoned Nelson Mandela, emerging from prison in 1990, quickly went for the creation of a Rainbow Nation in South Africa, whose last White leader F W De Klerk had abandoned apartheid and opened the doors to sweeping political change. The argument can surely be made that in Europe King's idealism took the form of reality when Black politicians served as ministers in French governments. In Britain, where Enoch Powell once spoke of rivers of blood if immigration was not dealt with (and Edward Heath punished him through removing him from Conservative Party policy-making), the political landscape has had a remarkable transformation. Kemi Badenoch is an important part of government today. James Cleverly is Foreign Secretary. And non-whites like Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman hold the fort in politics today. Kamala Harris is a heartbeat away from the White House in Washington.
All these post-King achievements notwithstanding, America's Blacks have continued to suffer racial abuse and violence. The image of a White police officer with his knee on a prostrate Black man and forcing the life out of him is repulsive to human conscience everywhere. That Black Lives Matter is therefore a potent movement going beyond America's borders makes sense. King journeyed a long distance in his mission of ensuring racial equality in America. His political descendants in our times know only too well that the journey has not ended, that human instincts yet keep prejudices alive.
It was a riotous moment in historical time when Martin Luther King Jr was murdered in April 1968. Lyndon Johnson, in the face of the anti-Vietnam War movement by Eugene McCarthy, had just announced his intention of not seeking a second term as President. On the day King died, Robert F. Kennedy, campaigning for his party's presidential nomination, announced the tragedy to the crowd gathered to hear him. Kennedy would be assassinated two months later.
In May of the year, student protests in France would rock the country, almost forcing President Charles de Gaulle from power; and in August, a Soviet-led Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia would destroy Alexander Dubcek's dreams of socialism with a human face in his country. Richard Nixon would narrowly beat Hubert Humphrey to gain the White House in November. In December, Apollo-8, with three astronauts on board, would travel to the vicinity of the moon, go around it before returning to Earth.
These were images of life and politics King would not see. Today, in our remembrance of King, we return to him, to understand anew the ways in which he made the world a better place, for all of us who inhabit it, in the brief period he was with us.
Syed Badrul Ahsan is Consultant Editor, Dhaka Tribune
