Martin Luther King Jr. rejected the cult of violence. Will you?

On riots, and rebellion in the United States

Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. at Grosse Point High School

Despite the successes of the civil rights movement in the United States by 1968 Martin Luther King Jr. found his nonviolent posture challenged by a black power movement that instead of accelerating change in areas of social and economic justice brought it to a halt. Less than a month before his assassination on April 4, 1968 Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave a speech at  Grosse Pointe High School on March 14, 1968 "The Other America" where he addressed, among other things, riots.

"Now I wanted to say something about the fact that we have lived over these last two or three summers with agony and we have seen our cities going up in flames. And I would be the first to say that I am still committed to militant, powerful, massive, non­-violence as the most potent weapon in grappling with the problem from a direct action point of view. I'm absolutely convinced that a riot merely intensifies the fears of the white community while relieving the guilt. And I feel that we must always work with an effective, powerful weapon and method that brings about tangible results. But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard."

A year earlier in 1967 Reverend King had warned black activists not to take the way of the Castros and Che Guevara:

“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.”

In a 60 Minutes interview around the same time he re-stated his position on riots to Mike Wallace.

Today, all sides want to claim Martin Luther King Jr., and his family has fought to keep his real memory alive. 

Please don’t act like everyone loved my father. He was assassinated. A 1967 poll reflected that he was one of the most hated men in America. Most hated. Many who quote him now and evoke him to deter justice today would likely hate, and may already hate, the authentic King. #MLK pic.twitter.com/yGdQXL5MJ3

— Be A King (@BerniceKing) January 18, 2021

When riots sparked last year with the death of George Floyd a partial quote by Reverend King circulated widely, but misrepresented the totality of his view on the subject. The second half of the quote at the top of the page was included, but left out his condemnation of riots. It happened again now with the riot at the U.S. Capitol.

That is unacceptable, and his full message needs to be shared. Not edited and misleading partial quotes. The fact is that until his dying day Martin Luther King Jr. embraced nonviolence. He rejected the cult of violence. Will you?

A thread of Dr. King in color, as we commemorate his 92nd birthday. #MLK #CorettaScottKing #BelovedCommunity #MLKDay pic.twitter.com/gRlYpsFvnf

— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center (@TheKingCenter) January 18, 2021

Ernesto "Che" Guevara was captured and killed On October 8, 1967 but his bloody legacy is being visited on American streets today

 "Hatred as an element of the struggle; a relentless hatred of the enemy, impelling us over and beyond the natural limitations that man is heir to and transforming him into an effective, violent, selective and cold killing machine. Our soldiers must be thus; a people without hatred cannot vanquish a brutal enemy." - Ernesto "Che" Guevara, Message to the Tricontinental (1967)

53 years ago today in Bolivia

Ernesto "Che" Guevara was captured and killed On October 8, 1967 after attempting to violently over throw the government of Bolivia with an armed insurrection.

The Argentine guerilla was a failure who advocated guerilla warfare and violent insurrection to overthrow existing governments around the world and replace them with communist dictatorships. It led to a generation of right wing military juntas in South America.  And the one place where it succeeded, Nicaragua, has a left wing authoritarian dictator Daniel Ortega, who also has a lot of blood on his hands.

Guevara's siren call to violence also impacted on the streets of American cities generating an escalation in violence and costs in lives lost, injuries, and hundreds of millions in material losses. The CIA report "DISSIDENT ACTIVITY: January 1966 through January 1973" approved for release on June 19, 2003 described a dire situation in 1967 that "[a]lthough severe racial rioting had occurred in U.S. cities in previous summers, it never had been as widespread or as intense as it became in 1967. In the two cities hardest hit, Newark (26 dead) and Detroit (43 dead), conditions of near-insurrection developed in ghetto areas, and police and National Guardsmen responded with volleys of automatic weapons fire."

Lamentably, Guevara's image and his writings have been shared around the world, including by UNESCO, and today cities are again burning, and foreign influence is again suspected. We should not be surprised that the cost in 2020 is over a billion dollars, a new and historic record..

Ernesto "Che" Guevara was also an advocate of nuclear war if it meant destroying the imperialists declaring in November 1962: "What we affirm is that we must proceed along the path of liberation even if this costs millions of atomic victims.”

Many were not taken in by this call to mass murder. Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. told his staff in 1968 to combat the “romantic illusion” of Che Guevara style guerilla warfare among young radicals concluding: “We must not be intimidated by those who are laughing at nonviolence now.”

Critics of nonviolence like to point out that Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated in 1968, but fail to mention that he succeeded in transforming the United States into a better country by successfully and nonviolently addressing historic injustices.

What did Reverend King accomplish? He led the successful Montgomery bus boycott that ended segregation on buses in Montgomery, Alabama in 1956. He led the Birmingham campaign in 1963 that faced off with the Birmingham Police Department, led by Eugene “Bull” Connor, who used high-pressure water jets and police attack dogs on children. The campaign ended with Connor losing his job and the city’s discriminatory laws were changed.

Reverend King played an instrumental role in the August 28, 1963 march on Washington, D.C. with over 250,000 participants. It was done to pressure for the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The Selma to Montgomery marches in 1965 in Alabama demonstrated African Americans desire to vote. The violence by local authorities, racists, and the Klu Klux Klan and the nonviolent resistance of the civil rights activists were key to passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. These laws gave African Americans political power that had been denied them.

 

 

Ernesto "Che" Guevara was executed in Bolivia in 1967. What did he accomplish? Installing a communist dictatorship that killed thousands, and left millions in misery. Inspired guerrilla wars and international terrorism across the world that in Latin America helped give rise to a new generation of military dictators to combat the guerrilla threat. Che Guevara and Fidel Castro created the conditions for Augusto Pinochet to become the dictator of Chile. This is but one example.

Reverend King spent the last few hours of his life making the prophetic Mountaintop speech courageously predicting that he would not lead a long life and campaigning for the rights of poor people. What about Che? He was hunted down, while trying to overthrow the Bolivian government to impose a communist dictatorship and executed while trying to beg for his life.

 

After the death of Martin Luther King Jr., groups inspired by Guevara's writings wreaked havoc and led to the victories of Richard Nixon in 1968 and 1972 with his promise of restoring law and order.  

Both the civil rights leader and the communist revolutionary died at the age of 39. However their legacies could not be more different.