Tag: MLK50

An American Peacemaker

In honor of the 50thAnniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Institute for Human Rights is publishing various outlooks on the life and contributions of Dr. King. This is the second entry in the series.

“Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called children of God.” Matthew 5:9

photo of a dove midflight
peacemaker by Mohamed Mula, Creative Commons

The Peacemaker Defined

When confronted by a system permitting injustice, denying universal human rights, and thwarting peace for marginalized groups, many of us are deeply unsettled. To fully understand the destruction humans have wrought on one another is to simultaneously accept one’s own capacity to perpetuate evil in the world. Humans are capable of peace and war, justice and violence. A critical question arises here: what compels an individual to choose peace in the face of adversity? What inspires an individual to rise above violence, utilizing an ethos of peace as both a means and an end? In short, how can we become peacemakers?

Informed from many interviews of indigenous persons weaving peace from conflict, Marc Gopin offers the following personal traits that embody the peacemaker:

Responsibility; courage; independence; evangelical passion

A desire to inquire

A strong sense of ethnic roots that is combined paradoxically with universal love

Patience

Dignity

An embrace of love and the way of the heart as the key to peace

Emotional honesty

A consistent desire to seek out shared values across the boundaries of groups

A desire for leadership through social network creation

Long-term engagement with adversaries and faith in the value of ongoing debate and slow and steady influence

In Bridges Across an Impossible Divide, Gopin (2012) is quick to add that any and all of us can be peacemakers – if we so choose. It boils down to choice: choosing how to move through conflict, choosing to leave the world better than we found it.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. – The Peacemaker

There is no doubt Dr. King ushered a new wholeness to American culture. His contributions to American society are legendary: leading the American Civil Rights Movement, raising collective American consciousness to address structural discrimination, and developing innovative strategies of nonviolent social protest still used throughout the globe. He taught a generation of civil and human rights footsoldiers, he constructed new theological language grounded in human equality, and he personally transformed the lives of those around him. He was a person of immense spiritual power– calling on his training as a man of the cloth to inform his philosophy and theology demanding racial equality in the United States. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is among the most prominent and revered peacemakers the world has ever seen.

Per Gopin’s definition, peacemaking describes not only works but also the personality of an individual. Being a peacemaker is not just directing policy change or charismatic leadership, but an ethos of resilient gentleness, and formidable commitment to the transformation of conflict to better the human experience. It is an understanding that peacemaking is not a vocation – it is a divine calling. Today, we remember that his faith and deeds literally transformed the soul of America. Dr. King was a true American peacemaker.

References

Gopin, M. (2012). Bridges across an impossible divide: The inner lives of Arab and Jewish peacemakers. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

“We’ve got to see it through”

I AM A MAN. Source: Ashleigh Burt, Creative Commons

Today is the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s tragic death. It is imperative we reflect on his contributions as a civil and human rights icon while working together, in these trying times, to pursue Dr. King’s dream. This blog, the first in IHR’s MLK, Jr. 50 series, commemorates Dr. King’s commitment to economic and social justice by describing the events preceding his assassination in Memphis, Tennessee.

On February 1, 1968, two Memphis Department of Public Works garbage collectors, Echol Cole and Robert Walker, were crushed and accidentally killed by a deficient truck. In the following weeks, amid repetitive neglect from the city, 1,300 black men representing the department went on strike. One of the garbage collectors, T.O. Jones, took on the role as a union organizer, alongside American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) president Jerry Wurf, demanding union recognition, improved safety standards and a better wage.

Though the sanitation workers were granted a charter in 1965 by the AFSCME, a 1966 strike that addressed usage of out-of-service trucks and overtime pay was foiled by then-mayor Henry Loeb. On February 11th, 700 men attended a union meeting, ultimately deciding to go on strike and, within a week, the local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) officially supported their efforts. On February 22nd, a sanitation worker led sit-in provoked a City Council vote to recognize their union. However, under Mayor Loeb’s authority, this vote was rejected.

After Mayor Loeb’s controversial decision, a nonviolent march to City Hall led resulted in local police challenging demonstrators with mace and tear gas. This event generated a meeting between 150 local religious leaders, where they formed the Community on the Move for Equality (COME). COME was a nonviolent disobedience collective, led by Dr. King’s ally James Lawson, designed to fill Memphis jails and create attention for the sanitation workers’ plight.

After being updated by Lawson over the phone, Dr. King arrived to Memphis on March 18th and spoke to a crowd of nearly 25,000, the largest indoor civil rights gathering at the time, where he exclaimed, “You are demonstrating that we are all tied in a single garment of destiny, and that if one black person suffers, if one black person is down, we are all down”, encouraging a citywide sanitation work stoppage.

On March 28th, thousands of strike supporters and Dr. King attempted to march, but violence promptly cut the event short. This was followed with shop looting and the murder of a 16-year old by a police officer. Though Dr. King sought refuge in a hotel, many of the marchers fled to Clayborn Temple where police released tear gas into the place of worship and proceeded to club disoriented activists. Subsequently, Mayor Loeb declared martial law, leading to the deployment of 4,000 troops from the National Guard. However, avoiding discouragement, over 200 striking workers marched the following day, holding the acclaimed “I Am A Man” protest signs.

Memphis sanitation workers strike watched by the National Guard in 1968. Source: Abayomi Azikiwe, Creative Commons

Back at his home in Atlanta, working on the Poor People’s Campaign, Dr. King considered not returning to the chaos in Memphis, but, in the name of successful nonviolent struggle for economic justice, decided he must. Reluctant to invite Dr. King, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) agreed to welcome him back on April 3th where he presented his legendary “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech, declaring, “We’ve got to give ourselves to this struggle until the end.  Nothing would be more tragic than to stop at this point in Memphis. We’ve got to see it through”. The following evening, Dr. King was assassinated on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, leading to national mourning and despair.

Under scrutiny from this tragedy, President Lyndon Johnson ordered his Undersecretary of Labor to negotiate a deal with Memphis leaders to end the strike. Soon after, on April 8th, 42,000 people, led by Dr. King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, SCLC and union leaders, marched to City Hall where AFSCME pledged to support the sanitation workers until the bitter end. On April 16th, negotiations finally allowed the City Council to offer the union a deal, finally ending the 65-day strike and guaranteeing sanitation workers a better wage.

Over the past 50 years, the progress made in Memphis of 1968 has served as a microcosm of labor rights accomplishments across the nation. However, the current U.S. political climate threatens these achievements by decreasing the number of Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) inspectors, rolling back public reporting of workplace deaths, removing paycheck transparency and banning forced arbitration clauses for sexual and discriminatory violations.

Reflecting on the Memphis sanitation strike demonstrates how the voice of a generation helped intensify one community’s plight, though it is also a testament of how ordinary people can successfully advocate for social justice when they believe “we’ve got to see it through”.