Essays From West of 98: Sharpening History’s Edges
The uncomfortable legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.
History can be deceiving. It is written by the victors, they say. That’s not all bad, but the authors of history tend to omit or exaggerate certain details in a manner that is most convenient to their narrative. That is human nature. Time also dulls the sharp edges of history and it can replace uncomfortable truths with rose-colored memories.
Which brings me to Martin Luther King, Jr.
One thing I abhor about social media (that’s a long and ever-growing list) is the need for anyone with a platform to say something poignant about every holiday or noteworthy world event. If you are elected to office and you didn’t commemorate a holiday with a graphic that some staffer created on Canva, did that holiday really even happen? I find Martin Luther King Jr. Day to be most exhausting on this point.
In the 57 years since Dr. King’s assassination at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, he has become one of the Internet’s most quotable figures. It takes only a half-hearted Google search to find an unlimited trove of hopeful-sounding quotes from speeches and sermons delivered by Dr. King. So, when you are looking to make your own statement on the holiday that honors Dr. King, it takes only limited effort to find a nice quote that confirms your pre-existing worldview.
It is true that Dr. King is one of America’s most brilliant orators. He spoke powerfully, in a manner that resonates through the ages. However, the passing of time has allowed Dr. King’s history to be dulled and softened so that he becomes easily quotable without the need to consider the difficult truths behind those quotes and the activism that spawned them. It was not some unruly mob that Dr. King fought for civil rights in America. It was the state. It was people in power. It was the popular people. It was the church. It was “respected” citizens.
My favorite of Dr. King’s works is the Letter from a Birmingham Jail (about which I have written several times in this newsletter).1 I have read this letter from end to end dozens of times and I try to never lose sight of the fact that he addressed this letter to eight powerful clergymen in Alabama—Baptist, Methodist, Catholic, Episcopal, Presbyterian, and Jewish—who were, umm, distressed by his activism. They had effectively asked him to calm down. His letter is a sharp rebuke to that request. Dr. King was hounded by law enforcement. He received threats day and night, from powerful people and from regular citizens emboldened by the powerful. In late 1964, Dr. King received a package and a letter that attempted to blackmail him into committing suicide. It was sent to him by the FBI.
Dr. King was not a friend of the powerful. He spent his life making powerful people uncomfortable, even if they largely agreed with him. He was a discomforting, tireless champion for the cause of civil rights. He did not stop when he reached the pinnacle of his work, either. In the aftermath of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, President Lyndon B. Johnson ramrodded through the transformative Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act, which enacted many of the guarantees for which Dr. King fought for years. It would have been easy, and even understandable, if Dr. King had retired from activism then and there, or at least slowed down. He had shed his own blood. He had been beaten. He had been arrested. He had been threatened. It had all culminated in federal laws that would change American society forever. Anything he did afterwards had to feel like something of a lesser effort, right?
Wrong. Dr. King was not assassinated at the “peak” of his work for national civil rights legislation. He was assassinated while working in Memphis to support a strike of Memphis sanitation workers. These men were protesting low pay and terrible working conditions in the aftermath of the brutal deaths of two coworkers (read about it, you will be sick to your stomach)2. He had written in his 1963 jailhouse letter that “[I]njustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” If he truly believed those words, then his work had to continue beyond any so-called “peak,” no matter his popularity, and no matter how powerful people felt about him.
Today, as we honor Dr. King, I am not going to hit you with any cutesy quote about his hope for America and try to apply it to the things that I am passionate about. There are way too many elected officials doing that. Instead, I encourage you to read his Letter from a Birmingham Jail. As you read it, recall that it was addressed to some of the most powerful men in Alabama, who did not like the uncomfortable nature of his work. Recall that he spent his entire career making powerful people uncomfortable to bring good into our society, and that we should be cognizant of that every time we see powerful people breezily use his words. Think about the road that he would follow in the years to come after that 1963 letter. Think about the incredible success, the threats against his life, and the lonely work advocating for the Gospel of Jesus in our society, no matter whether hundreds of thousands showed up or not. Think about how it ended in Memphis, far removed from Washington, D.C., helping some desperate men working an often miserable job to pull themselves and their families out of poverty.
Good work is often difficult and unpopular. History might dull the edges of that reality, but we must not forget it and we must re-sharpen the edges of history’s truths. We must be encouraged by it, so that we are encouraged to do our own good work, no matter the difficulties on the road that follows.
James Decker is the Mayor of Stamford, Texas and the creator of the West of 98 website and the “Rural Church and State” and “West of 98” podcasts. Contact James and subscribe to these essays at westof98.substack.com and subscribe to him wherever podcasts are found. Check out the West of 98 Bookstore with book lists for essential reads here.
I included this recommendation in the new Prairie Panicle, but I will re-up my recommendation for Hampton Sides’s “Hellhound on His Trail: The Electrifying Account of the Largest Manhunt in American History”. Sides is a brilliant author of history books but he’s also a Memphis native who cares deeply about the story. He brings to life the events of the sanitation strike that led to King’s trip to Memphis. If you are an audiobook fan, he narrates the book himself.