In a presidential election year, we hear many voices trying to make sense of our society's problems and proposing different solutions to them, but the clearest, boldest voice addresses issues like income inequality, racial justice and war in a new collection of the writing, speeches and sermons of the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., entitled The Radical King (Beacon Press, collected and introduced by Dr. Cornel West, himself a perceptive contemporary commentator).
As I read, I kept marking passages for reflection, and to quote to friends. The quotability and aptness of Dr. King's thoughts are not the most significant aspect of this book. Dr. West's judicial selection of texts draws a three dimensional portrait of the courageous, insightful and outspoken prophet who was Dr. King. The reassuring saintly figure the mainstream celebrates with a holiday weekend and cliched pieties shrinks before the bold prophet who again and again exposed the injustice, racism and violence of his time. His analyses are unfortunately still relevant, as are his suggestions for action. Long before Pope Paul VI's January 1972 peace message, Dr. King had written “To put it another way, I don't think there can be justice without peace, and I don't think there can be peace without justice.” The Radical King includes Dr. King's 1964 statement from which this quote is taken; it also includes the full text of his April 1967 address on Vietnam at Riverside Church. In a few sentences, he indelibly drew the links connecting poverty, racism and war.
The mainstream makes Dr. King a denatured icon of nonviolence, but The Radical King highlights his radical commitment to nonviolence, based on equally radical love. Again and again, like a mountain stream, his strong commitment to Gandhian nonviolence bubbles up throughout his public career. We don't hear much about nonviolence anytime these days, not even on the day we remember Dr. King and his achievements.
Our secular society has also “whited out” Dr. King's Christianity, but this book corrects all these misinterpretations of the man. Here's one example, “The cross is the eternal expression of the length to which God will go to restore broken community. The resurrection is a symbol of God's triumph over all the forces that seek to block community.” Dr. King was willing to go to that same length and believed wholeheartedly that God triumphs over those forces that attempt to divide us. Reading and rereading these essays and extracts, I renewed my appreciation for Dr. King's daring, love, and wisdom. I urge you to do the same.
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