TruthBook Religious News Blog

January 19, 2008

The Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday, mandated by federal law to fall on the third Monday in January, is the least celebrated federal holiday.

The King holiday was born in controversy and took 15 years to become law; it faced stiff opposition from national leaders. President Reagan opposed the measure and finally relented and signed the bill creating the holiday in 1986 after perceiving that his veto would be overridden.

One of the leaders of the opposition, Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina, continued to express outrage over the bill, declaring that King had been a racial agitator and Communist sympathizer.

The opposition to the holiday usually today is put in terms of cost, about 8 billion dollars in lost revenues.

But nonunionized businesses generally do not observe the holiday, and as commentator Earl Hutchinson has put the matter, the biggest reason for nonobservance of the holiday is ''the still widespread public perception that the King holiday is a holiday exclusively of, by, and for blacks.''

The King holiday provides us with a moment to reflect on the spiritual state of our nation, to recall the terrible legacy of slavery and racism, and to reflect on King's call for peace and justice.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., a Baptist minister with a Boston University Ph.D. in systematic theology, is remembered as the undisputed leader of the American civil rights movement.

He pushed hard at the forces in American life that were oppressing the poor and marginalized -- racial discrimination, economic injustice and war.

Inspired by Thoreau, Gandhi and Jesus, he became an inspirational leader known for oratorical wizardry, and his commitment to nonviolence earned him the Nobel Peace Prize.

But King was mired in controversy and opposition all the time. Not only did he receive daily death threats for his civil rights work -- he was stabbed in Harlem at a book signing in 1958 -- but even fellow civil rights leaders objected to his outspoken opposition to what he called America's ''imperialist war'' in Vietnam. Many of King's supporters saw this opposition as a betrayal of Lyndon Johnson and his administration, which had done more for African Americans than any administration before or since.

I was recently in Atlanta and wanted very much to take some time to visit the King Center near the old Ebenezer Baptist Church, where King had preached, and where King's mother, some years after King's death, had been shot and killed while playing the organ one Sunday morning. A museum with continuous film loops and mementos of King's life are there, a souvenir-bookstore shop, and the tombs of King and his wife, Coretta Scott King.

As I contemplate the life and legacy of King this January, I recall that visit. I am remembering that at my hotel, when I asked how to get to the King Center, I was told, ''You don't want to walk in that neighborhood. Take a cab.'' When I went east on Auburn Avenue I noted that a huge highway overpass cut right through the center of the community there, something that reminded me of similar dislocations of communities I had seen in the old District 6 in Cape Town, and have even heard about in Allentown, where the Martin Luther King Drive is today.

Those who study environmental racism often make note of public works projects that cut through neighborhoods where people lack the power to oppose them. The office of the Southern Christian Leadership Office is on Auburn Avenue, but nearby are low-income housing projects and small businesses looking a bit run down.

Metal protection screens were on some windows. The reputation of this part of town I had received from my hotel concierge, and I am realizing how close this part of town was to the upscale hotel where I had been attending a Christian ethics conference -- a 20 minute walk.

King would have been 79 on Jan. 15. Were King alive today, I suspect he would be working on the same issues even in his old neighborhood. The problems of racism and discrimination are still with us.

Although the Voting Rights Act brought a major shift in American political and social life, and King worked for it tirelessly, he would no doubt be commenting on the million African American males in jails and prisons today, many of whom lose their voting privileges by conviction.

Would King be talking about the subtle disenfranchisement of blacks today, noting that the civil rights movement never got into our prisons? And would he be focusing attention on America's public schools, where the divide between rich and poor, black and white, is as pronounced today as it was in his lifetime?

And war? There is no question that King would stand in opposition to the Iraq war, having foreseen the tragic loss of life and a waste of treasure that cripples opportunity for many.

It is surprising that America chose to honor so critical a spiritual leader with a national holiday. That it did so, however, provides all of us with an occasion to reflect about who we are and what we value. For we do what we value; and among the painful things we must confront is our tendency to resort to violence to solve problems.

America today uses war as an instrument of foreign policy; incarceration and execution are responses to crime; and meantime we do not provide health coverage to 45 million citizens, and 36 million Americans live below the poverty line.

The true legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. is that he would not let us forget that what we value we do, and we have need to be reflective about the meaning of what we are doing.

The King holiday, born in controversy, should continue to be controversial if we are to do honor to the man it remembers. May this King holiday be a time for us to connect ourselves to King's call for racial, social and economic justice.

May we remember his life as it stands before all of us as a challenge to do better than we are doing.

Lloyd Steffen is university chaplain and professor of religion studies at Lehigh University.

Labels: African-Americans, contoversy, justice, legacy, Lloyd Steffen, Martin Luther King Jr., racism, slavery

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Friday, January 18, 2008

To continue freedom's work

A Christian Science perspective on daily life.
from the January 18, 2008 edition

For many people, the Martin Luther King holiday has become yet another three-day weekend, time off from work or school. The Civil Rights movement, which began with the bus boycott in Montgomery, Ala., in 1955, may seem like ancient history in a society where there's "instant" everything from coffee to messaging.

But this special day is a time to consider that despite the progress that has been made, racism hasn't been completely eliminated.

Discrimination against indigenous peoples, against immigrants (including legal ones), as well as those of different races still remains, even though it sometimes takes subtler forms. For example, in many large cities young African Americans still grow up in poverty and remain there because they can't escape that mental environment. Breaking out of the culture of poverty isn't just about getting more money. It's about knowing that you have value, that your presence in this world can be a blessing.

In a way, that is perhaps the last but also the most challenging aspect of the civil rights struggle. Mary Baker Eddy, who founded the Monitor, witnessed this country's struggles with slavery, and the transition out of it. In her book "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," she observed, "Legally to abolish unpaid servitude in the United States was hard; but the abolition of mental slavery is a more difficult task" (p. 225)

For Jesus, healing was not only about setting people free from suffering, but also about changing the thought of society, especially among those who felt superior to others. So, for example, when he was criticized for healing a woman on the Sabbath (because no work was supposed to be done that day), he replied, "Doth not each one of you on the sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering? And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound ... be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day?" (Luke 13:15, 16)

To me he was saying, "You value your animals enough to take care of them. Can't you see that this woman, as a descendant of the man to whom God promised His care, has an even greater heritage?

Society has changed greatly from the times of Jesus, yet the same mental struggle goes on: the need to value each individual, to see his or her spiritual heritage and the blessings to be gained from unlocking those talents. Each of us can contribute by not looking down on someone else because of race, background, handicap, or gender, and by praying for the day when all people will be valued.

And there's a direct, personal benefit to taking this step. Each time we can see others as children of God, we reinforce our own spiritual heritage as God's offspring. We become freer from the mental slavery that says some are "top dogs" and others are not. We are loosed from the burden of despising or rejecting others to rejoicing in the knowledge that our Father's house is big enough for everyone to have a place and for each one's gifts to be joyfully expressed.

Labels: discrimination, Jesus, Mary Baker Eddy, racism