4 minute read
HISTORY: Remembering it like it never was
from The Contact 2-7-24
by okumc
BY REV. VALERIE STEELE
It’s African American Heritage Month! Although the MLK holiday has passed, if you’re on social media, perhaps you saw it. A video clip of a cute little blue-eyed, brownhaired girl sharing what she learned in school that day. Her response, “Martha Luker King, Jr.” When asked what this Martha Luker King, Jr. did without pause she answered, “He died for our sins.” Of course, the person asking her the questions couldn’t keep it together after hearing this child’s remark. I know I certainly couldn’t. How this little one recalled what she believed she knew about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is not a mistake only children make. Many adults remember a history like it never was, also.
Dr. King is revered for being the leader of the Civil Rights
Movement, mid-1950s through the late 1960s. In 1964, he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his ideology and practice of non-violent civil disobedience against inequity, racism in the U.S. He gave voice to oppressed and disenfranchised persons as he had the ear of presidents and various world diplomats. And, he was assassinated at the very young age of 39 leaving a wife and four children. Was his death just due to someone’s bigotry or was there more to his murder?
Today, people from all walks of life, political leanings, theological underpinnings tend to remember a Dr. King that never was— at least correctly recalled in historical context. Did you know that he had a disapproval rate by the American public at the time of his death of 75 percent, according to a 1968 Harris Poll? That percentage included black and brown people. He was not popular for being outspoken against the Vietnam War, standing with workers receiving unfair treatment and wage inequity, calling America out for its indifference to the existing poverty within its cities, and the dire inequities found in public education. Dr. King was maligned as a Communist with propaganda of the same placed on billboards and printed materials. In his pursuit of equal justice for all, he was arrested multiple times for non-violent, civil disobedience at protests, beaten, stabbed, his home bombed, his own movement and life monitored by the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover for nefarious purposes, and the list could go on and on. Leading the charge with persons facing housing discrimination in Chicago, King moved his family to a dismal apartment complex in the heart of an impoverished community. His presence was not met with hospitality or gratefulness by some of the Black leaders whose palms were being greased by what was known as the Daley Machine (google it.) He was not popular in the best ways.
In his own day, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was considered a man with divisive ideologies. His presence in any town was met with major unwelcoming by the status quo. With an over 90 percent approval rating in recent years by Pew Research, we often choose to recall a Dr. King who never was— at least a historically correct account. Dr. King was radical. He was a non-violent, civil disobedient rebel with a cause. Remembering history the way it was is important.
In Matthew 23, Jesus warned the crowds and his disciples against hypocrisy. When we recall history the way it never was, we do more than a disservice to the hearer, we reshape the story in a way that possibly benefits who we are. We desire a good look, promoting a narrative that we would have never sided with the “bad people” in history. All the while, if we look around, the same interlocking injustices Dr. King vehemently spoke against are still at issue. Oddly, that innocent, cute little girl in the video clip I referenced earlier may not have been too far off in her understanding of “Martha Luker King, Jr.” MLK didn’t die for our sins. Christ did that. However, King certainly was killed because of the sin within humanity. It’s past time to remember history the way it was— the good, bad, and ugly. May it teach us to never repeat the bad and ugly. May it teach us to always promote the good that will launch us into a more just future collectively.
