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FIGHTER PLANES BETRAY KING'S MESSAGE
San Antonio Express-News 12/19/2005
Exactly one year before his death, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s image took what many saw as a near fatal beating.
Speaking at the Riverside Church in New York City on April 4, 1967, King gave his controversial beyond Vietnam speech. It brought public rebuke from Roy Wilkins of the NAACP and Whitney Young of the National Urban League and forever chilled his relationship with President Lyndon B. Johnson, who felt King was meddling where he had no business.
On Feb. 4, 1968, exactly two months before his death, King preached one of his last sermons to his congregation at Ebenezer Baptist Church. He talked about what he wanted his legacy to be: "I'd like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to give his life serving others. I'd like for somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to love somebody. I want you to say the day that I tried to be right on the war question."
Martin Luther King Jr., civil rights leader, was also Martin Luther King Jr., an unequivocal opponent of war and militarism. He believed poverty, racism and militarism were "triple evils"; therefore, nothing could profane his name and what he stood for more than to inject a high profile military presence into the day that has been set aside to honor him.
Yet, that is exactly what the Martin Luther King Commission is doing this year — profaning King's name and trivializing his commitment to peace and justice by having a flyover of military planes during the Martin Luther King March program.
This latest trivialization of King's memory comes when Americans are increasingly dissatisfied with the war, more than 2,000 American and thousands of Iraqi lives have been lost and the Army has been forced to wage an all-out marketing campaign to counter the effects of black parents telling their sons and daughters, "Don't join the military."
These poor parents have decided they can love their country and be true patriots without sacrificing their children's lives, just as the nation's wealthy white parents have long done.
Some of those arguing for the fighter planes to fly over feel it is a fitting tribute to "lift up" the men and women in the war zone. There is no doubt those men and women would be foremost in King's mind if he were alive today, as would the Iraqi men, women and children being maimed and killed.
However, the fighter planes represent one of the "triple evils of poverty, racism and militarism" of which King is on record as opposing.
We must remember King was not all things to all people during his lifetime. There were even blacks who thought he was "too radical." Were he alive today, there is no doubt he would be labeled with the "L" word — liberal.
The great challenge, then, is to remember that the observance of King's birthday is to honor the King who was, not the King that some apparently wish that he was.
King believed it was his duty as an American patriot to call for the end of militarism, believing even the good that comes out of war can no longer justify war. Like it or not, that is where he stood and that is what we must honor when we honor King.
On being silent, King said: "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." The Martin Luther King Commission's decision to ignore King's position on war and militarism matters greatly.
Kathy Clay-Little is publisher of African-American Reflections and host of "Community Round Table" Saturdays at 10 a.m. on KSJL 810 AM. |
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