For HÃ ¤gglund, too, across the ocean in Sweden, the "middle-class preacher" in pursuit of "middle-class goals" was King. This representation of King, far from radical, is deliberately intended to conceal the radical activist, hated by both the political and religious establishments, particularly after his 1967 Riverside Speech, in which he comes out against the war in Vietnam. King wasn't preaching about that pie-in-the-sky, by-and-by, but, rather, how our home Earth demanded our attention. Humanity on Earth, life on Earth, perpetually demands our attention, for we should be humble guardians not money-hungry tyrants.
For King, it wasn't a matter of reforming the state of unfreedom and inequality. As HÃ ¤gglund notes, the first phase of the struggle, begun in 1955 with the Montgomery boycott, was an all-out blitz against unjust laws, resulting (ten years later) in the overturning of Jim Crow legislation and the passage of the Voting Rights Act. There was nothing subtle about the torture and murder of activists or the bombing of churches and homes. Certainly the anger and hatred whites feeling defeated again lead to the second phase, where King exercising far more "radical measures," isn't courting the "goodwill" of government, but instead develops tactics to "compel unwilling authorities to yield to the mandates of justice."
King's Poor People's Campaign is one result of this second phase strategy; its goal, far from benefiting the middle class, was intended to be a "'genuine class movement' transcending racial and ethnic lines to include Native Americans and Hispanics," poor and working-class whites as well as the unemployed. In Memphis, hours before he is murdered, King told the press: "'You could say we are engaged in a class struggle, yes.'" Why--because "'something is wrong with capitalism.'" He labored with trying to change the system from within for years, but now, it was a new day!
"'I feel quite differently, I think you've got to have a reconstruction of the entire society, a revaluation of values.'"
A revaluation of values!
This isn't the King the media described before or after his death. As a teen in the North, raised in a Catholic family who believed Baptist to be heathens, for openers, King was a troublemaker. In my family, it was who is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.?
In subsequent years, I've read King's speeches and his writings. From my research, arose a phoenix. Sounds like the man read Karl Marx. I'd venture to say I suspect that over time he was less and less religious and more a human being in pursuit of freedom. When I read that This Life concluded with a discussion on King's pursuit of freedom and equality, I wasn't surprised.
Neither Marx nor King could begin to analyze the pursuit of freedom and equality without discussing the wrongs of an economic system that represents the direct opposition of democracy (freedom and equality). However, both thinkers considered ways to disable cruel and unjust policies. Both Marx and King prioritized freedom on Earth rather than eternity in the elsewhere. For both thinkers, capitalism was not a given.
For King in particular, "'the problem of racism, the problem of economic exploitation, and the problem of war'" are all of a piece. Yet, HÃ ¤gglund explains, King's "radical legacy" is ignored in cultural celebrations of his birthday and death. It's ignored in the way textbooks frame his activism and work as examples of a Southern preacher, advocating non-violence. In other words, King became an advocate for the good behavior of African Americans. HÃ ¤gglund, quotes the late Rev. Hosea Williams, fellow activist with King: "'there is a definite effort on the part of Americans to change Martin Luther King, Jr. from what he was all about to make him the Uncle Tom of the century. In my mind, he was the militant of the century.'"
As HÃ ¤gglund rightly points out, King called for a "redistribution of wealth." King recognized that the root problem stifling freedom, equality, and justice is "fundamental economics." HÃ ¤gglund, citing a speech King gave at the Workers Union of America in 1962, recognizes the activist in King shifting from a liberal stance to a radical one, calling for the complete dissolving of an unjust economic system. King: "'We cannot create machines which revolutionize industry unless we simultaneously create ideas commensurate with social and economic re-organization, which harness the power of such machines for the benefit of man. The new age will not be an era of hope but of fear and emptiness unless we master this problem.'" All those decades before, King recognized that life in a thing-oriented society produces slaves of hate rather than human beings in pursuit of freedom.
King transformed; he becomes an individual for whom the economic system can no longer appease with the latest technology or fashion. There is something at stake, something worth dying for. After all, freedom is to love while engaged in the battle to overcoming hate.
In Marx's version of King's "I Have a Dream," he speaks of transforming "our understanding of our struggle, our dreams, and our desires," thus overcoming the contradictions within the practice of religion and politics." Isn't this understanding of our reality the lesson that the philosopher King learns about the struggle?
In the long run, HÃ ¤gglund argues, the struggle, difficult as it is, must be sustained. He considers his own work, his own "philosophical account" as a thinker and writer, to be "a part of the revolution, rather than external to it." "The lives we lead," HÃ ¤gglund adds, "the form of society we sustain, will always depend on us and on what we do with our time."
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