"Nonviolence
is a powerful and just weapon, which cuts without wounding and ennobles
the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals." - Reverend Martin
Luther King Jr., Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1964
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| Martin Luther King Jr. January 15, 1929 - April 4, 1968 |
Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia 94 years ago today, but he never lived to see his 40th birthday because he was assassinated on April 4, 1968.
A little more than a year before his untimely death, the nonviolent icon delivered an important speech at Stanford University that is well worth hearing and studying.
"Let me say as I've always said, and I will always continue to say, that
riots are socially destructive and self-defeating. I'm still convinced
that nonviolence
is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their
struggle for freedom and justice. I feel that violence will only create
more social problems than they will solve."
Dr. King's message is still relevant today, and his family works at The King Center to teach new generations about nonviolence and to share his writings and speeches.
King's radical critique of the United States
Martin Luther King Jr. was an outspoken critic of American society. He repeatedly challenged the United States to live up to its own lofty ideals, seeking reforms to end segregation and ensure voting rights for African Americans through nonviolent action and democratic norms. He was also a radical critic of communism.
Reverend King's political philosophy is best described as Christian Democracy. This school of thought, which includes parties on the center left and center right, is based, like Reverend King, on a Christian view of humanity in which "every individual is considered unique and must be treated with dignity." In his April 4, 1967 speech, Beyond Vietnam gave full expression to this outlook:
"We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a
person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and
property rights are considered more important than people, the giant
triplets of racism, militarism and economic exploitation are incapable
of being conquered. A true revolution of values will soon cause us to
question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present
policies. On the one hand we are called to play the Good Samaritan on
life’s roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must
come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men
and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their
journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin
to a beggar. It comes to see than an edifice which produces beggars
needs restructuring. "
Mohandas Gandhi, a major influence on King, advocated for social responsibility and trusteeship. Gandhi, a self-described socialist, was not an enthusiastic supporter of an expanded social-welfare state, arguing:
"The State represents violence in a concentrated and organized form. The
individual has a soul, but as the State is a soulless machine, it can
never be weaned from violence to which it owes its very existence. Hence
I prefer the doctrine of trusteeship. [...] What I would personally
prefer would be not centralization of power in the hands of the State,
but an extension of the sense of trusteeship, as, in my opinion, the
violence of private ownership is less injurious than the violence of the
State. However, if it is unavoidable, I would support a minimum of
State-ownership."
Furthermore, both King and Gandhi's critique of a "thing-oriented" society or the state as a "soulless machine" focuses on the person or the individual rather than an economic mechanism or economic class. The emphasis is on the human person and policies that recognize and respect the uniqueness and dignity of each human being.
King was targeted by both the FBI and the KGB
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| KGB targeted Martin Luther King Jr. for active measures. |
When he was alive, the civil rights leader was a divisive figure. The FBI in the United States wiretapped Martin Luther King Jr., monitored the Civil Rights Movement, and took active measures against him.
Many
people are aware of this, but few are aware of the other campaign
launched against the civil rights leader by Soviet intelligence, also
known as the KGB. It is also important to remember that Russian intelligence operatives have previously attempted to sow discord, division, and hatred among citizens in the United States.
A high-ranking Russian intelligence officer defected to the United Kingdom in 1992, bringing with him notes and transcripts compiled over the previous thirty years as he relocated entire foreign intelligence archives to a new headquarters just outside of Moscow. Vasili Mitrokhin was the Russian intelligence officer whose information became known as The Mitrokhin Archive.
In Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin's 1999 book The Sword and the The Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB, details were obtained from the Mitrokhin Archive on Soviet efforts to replace Martin Luther King Jr. with a "more radical and malleable leader" such as Stokeley Carmichael in order to incite a race war in the United States.
The following excerpts from The Sword and the Shield detail elements of the Soviet intelligence campaign and the active measures arrayed against the civil rights leader:
“In
August 1967 the Centre approved an operational plan by the deputy head
of Service A, Yuri Modin, former controller of the Magnificent Five, to
discredit King and his chief lieutenants by placing articles in the
African press, which could then be reprinted in American newspapers,
portraying King as an “Uncle Tom” who was secretly receiving government
subsidies to tame the civil rights movement and prevent it threatening
the Johnson administration."
[...]
"King’s assassination on
April 4, 1968 was quickly followed by the violence and rioting which the
KGB had earlier blamed King for trying to prevent. Within a week riots
erupted in over a hundred cities, forty-six people had been killed,
3,500 injured and 20,000 arrested. To “Deke” DeLoach, it seemed that,
“The nation was teetering on the brink of anarchy.”86 Henceforth,
instead of dismissing King as an Uncle Tom, Service A portrayed him as a
martyr of the black liberation movement and spread conspiracy theories
alleging that his murder had been planned by white racists with the
connivance of the authorities."
On September 28, 1999, University of Cambridge professor Christopher Andrew, who coauthored The Sword and the Shield with Vasili Mitrokhin, was interviewed by Charlie Rose on PBS about the book and, near the end of the interview, discussed how the Soviets celebrated the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. by James Earl Ray. The Russians rejoiced because they did not want an independent African American leader over whom they had no control and who practiced principled nonviolence.
Taylor Branch wrote about the Reverend's views on the militant call to armed struggle in the streets of the United States in January 1968 in the third book of his trilogy on Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement, At Canaan's Edge.
“Riots just don’t pay off,” said King. He pronounced them an objective failure
beyond morals or faith. “For if we say that power is the ability to
effect change, or the ability to achieve purpose,” he said, “then it is
not powerful to engage in an act that does not do that–no matter how
loud you are, and no matter how much you burn.” Likewise, he exhorted
the staff to combat the “romantic illusion” of guerrilla warfare in the
style of Che Guevara. No “black” version of the Cuban revolution could
succeed without widespread political sympathy, he asserted, and only a
handful of the black minority itself favored insurrection. King extolled
the discipline of civil disobedience instead, which he defined not as a
right but a personal homage to untapped democratic energy. The staff
must “bring to bear all of the power of nonviolence on the economic
problem,” he urged, even though nothing in the Constitution promised a
roof or a meal. “I say all of these things because I want us to know the
hardness of the task,” King concluded, breaking off with his most basic
plea: “We must not be intimidated by those who are laughing at
nonviolence now.”
These words are as true today as they were over a half-century ago. Reverend King's legacy continues to inspire activists worldwide. This Baptist minister who risked everything for the freedom of all African Americans and the redemption of the United States by fulfilling the creed that all men are created equal.
Unlike others who were funded and supported by the Soviet Union, Martin Luther King Jr. was targeted by both American and Russian intelligence agencies because he was his own man, with no one controlling him except his conscience. He did not advocate or engage in violence while changing the United States and the world for the better.
King's living legacy
Bernice King, Martin Luther King Jr.'s daughter, is hosting the aforementioned Beloved Community Global Summit and carrying on her father's work to advance nonviolence.
Today, on what would have been his 94th birthday, let us remember him and renew our commitment to continuing his work "to shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society."
Let us participate in the King Center's day of service tomorrow, and if you are in the Atlanta area, please join the King family in carrying on Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.'s mission.
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