MLK

Wednesday, April 4 marks a half century since the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.  

In the pantheon of American heroes, King stands alongside George Washington and Abraham Lincoln as one of the most iconic and important leaders in the nation's history. Just as Washington helped establish the new nation and Lincoln helped hold the Union together during a devastating civil war, King articulated a vision of what the nation could, should and must be—a diverse and inclusive republic committed to liberty, equality, opportunity, and justice for all. Although it is self-evident that the United States has still fallen far short of achieving his vision, King's monumental “I Have a Dream Speech,” delivered on the National Mall in August 1963, remains the defining speech of modern American history.

Amazingly, King was only 39 at the time of his death. To put that in context, King was four years younger than Washington when he took command of the Continental Army in 1775 and 13 years younger than Lincoln when he became president in 1861. Moreover, King first emerged as a leader of national importance at age 26, when he helped lead the Montgomery Bus Boycott in December 1955. Thus, between the ages of 26 and 39—a time when the vast majority of people are only beginning to find their way in the world—King challenged the racial and class hierarchy of American life and in the process helped redefine the meaning of the American Dream. 

In light of what the nation lost on April 4, 1968, it is understandable that the media will focus this week on the circumstances of King’s death. Controversy has lingered over the assassination from the moment the deadly shot was fired on the evening of April 4, 1968. In March 1969 an ex-convict named James Earl Ray pleaded guilty to shooting King, but Ray subsequently recanted his confession, and continued to deny his guilt until the day he died in prison in 1998. 

Nevertheless, multiple government investigations have concluded that Ray was indeed the assassin. In the 1970s, the House Select Committee on Assassinations conducted a comprehensive investigation into King's assassination, the full findings of which are available at the National Archives website. The committee concluded that in murdering King, Ray may have had assistance from some of his associates, but the committee found no evidence of government involvement in the assassination. Two decades later, in response to Ray’s claims of innocence and renewed allegations of a government conspiracy, the Clinton Justice Department mounted its own investigation, but found no credible evidence to undermine the findings of the congressional investigators. Nevertheless, leading civil rights figures like Congressman John Lewis and former United Nations Ambassador Andrew Young continue to insist that King died as the result of a major conspiracy that extended far beyond James Earl Ray and his circle of associates.  

The assassination debate tends to overshadow one of the most disappointing developments in the wake of King’s death: the ongoing restriction on the public dissemination of King’s words and images. On YouTube you can see in its entirety FDR’s 1941 Pearl Harbor speech, John Kennedy’s 1961 Inaugural Address, and Ronald Reagan’s 1987 Berlin Wall speech as well as countless other historical addresses. But King’s speeches are much harder to find, and the versions that appear on YouTube tend to be truncated or of poor quality. The reason is because the King estate has exercised its copyright in MLK’s speeches and writings, thus significantly restricting their public dissemination. For example, in a 1999 lawsuit brought by the King estate against the CBS television network, the 11th Circuit reversed a district court’s ruling that King’s “I Have a Dream Speech” fell within the public domain. King was a private citizen, not a government official, and thus he retained copyright in his speeches and writings. The legal consequences of that fact have been far-reaching. For example, in making the 2014 film “Selma,” the director Ava DuVernay had to paraphrase King’s words because the family had already licensed the movie rights to Steven Spielberg.

King’s speeches will not enter the public domain until January 1, 2039, more than 20 years from now. Two decades is simply too long to wait for King’s words to become as omnipresent as Lincoln’s. Indeed, although King has been dead for 50 years, the nation needs his message now more than ever. As in King’s lifetime, the United States remains one of the most unequal societies in the world among rich countries. A 2017 study by the World Economic Forum ranked the United States 23rd out of 30 wealthy countries in terms of "income, health, poverty, and sustainability."

Racial fault lines also still run deep. For example, a 2016 PRRI survey found that 65% of whites view police shootings of African American men as isolated incidents whereas 81% of blacks see them as part of a pattern of racially discriminatory treatment. Not coincidentally, polling data reveals that Americans believe that race relations have sunk to their lowest point in generations. In 2016 the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that 74% of Americans described race relations as “bad,” the highest figure in the poll’s history.  A December 2017 Pew Research Center study found that 60% of Americans believe that race relations have worsened since President Trump’s election in November 2016. Similarly, a Washington Post poll found that 82% of Americans described 2017 as a bad year for race relations, one of the few issues on which Republicans and Democrats agree.

Words alone will not resolve underlying issues of inequality, injustice, and racial conflict in 21st century America, but they will at least help frame where we have been and where we must go. In many respects, America in 2018 is even more polarized and class stratified than it was in 1968. King’s provocative message—which combined a call for racial unity with a demand that America become a better, more egalitarian and more just nation—has never been more relevant and more pressing than it is today.   

I am no copyright lawyer, but if it is at all possible for the government to purchase the copyright in King’s speeches from the King estate, then Congress should make the effort. In 1883, the federal government paid more than $100,000 to the family of Robert E. Lee to claim lawful title to the Custis-Lee estate, the site of Arlington National Cemetery. If the U.S. government could come up with funds to pay the family of the most famous Confederate general for title to Arlington Cemetery, then certainly Congress can come up with a sufficient offer to compensate the King family fully and fairly for the right to disseminate King’s immortal speeches. The words of Lincoln, Jefferson, and Madison are ubiquitous in American life. King’s words should be as well. Whatever it costs to make that happen, it's worth it.

Comments

[Patrick S. O'Donnell]

Another informative and wonderful post!

It’s important, I think, to also consider and appreciate King’s “internationalist” (or ‘cosmopolitan’) and foreign policy views and perspectives. For instance, King and his wife, Coretta Scott King, at the invitation of the new Prime Minister of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, attended in 1957 the celebrations marking Ghana’s independence from Great Britain. Immediately afterward King said,

“This event will give impetus to oppressed peoples all over the world. I think it will have worldwide implications and repercussions–not only for Asia and Africa, but also for America…. It renews my conviction in the ultimate triumph of justice. And it seems to me that this is fit testimony to the fact that eventually the forces of justice triumph in the universe, and somehow the universe itself is on the side of freedom and justice. So that this gives new hope to me in the struggle for freedom.”

Later, upon returning to the U.S., he said

“Ghana has something to say to us. It says to us first, that the oppressor never voluntarily gives freedom to the oppressed. You have to work for it. [….] Freedom is never given to anybody. Privileged classes never give up their privileges without strong resistance. [….] So don’t go out this morning with any illusions. [.…] If we wait for it to work itself out, it will never be worked out! Freedom only comes through persistent revolt, through persistent agitation, through persistently rising up against the system of evil.”

Consider too his brilliant critique of the Vietnam War captured in part in his speech now known as “Beyond Vietnam,” an address delivered to the Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam, at Riverside Church in New York City, 4 April 1967. Or recall his outspoken views on apartheid in South Africa, including his first public call for economic sanctions against the government of South Africa in a statement issued jointly with Chief Albert Luthuli on December 10, 1962: “Appeal for Action against Apartheid.” Here is an extract from his speech on apartheid in South Africa in London, December 1964 (in route to Oslo to receive the Nobel Peace Prize):

[….] “In our struggle for freedom and justice in the United States, which has also been so long and arduous, we feel a powerful sense of identification with those in the far more deadly struggle for freedom in South Africa. We know how Africans there, and their friends of other races, strove for half a century to win their freedom by non-violent methods. We have honoured Chief Lutuli [Inkosi Albert John Lutuli] for his leadership, and we know how this non-violence was only met by increasing violence from the state, increasing repression, culminating in the shootings of Sharpeville and all that has happened since.

Clearly there is much in Mississippi and Alabama to remind South Africans of their own country, yet even in Mississippi we can organize to register Negro voters, we can speak to the press, we can in short organize the people in non-violent action. But in South Africa even the mildest form of non-violent resistance meets with years of imprisonment, and leaders over many years have been restricted and silenced and imprisoned. We can understand how in that situation people felt so desperate that they turned to other methods, such as sabotage.

Today great leaders —Nelson Mandela and Robert Sobukwe — [alas, I doubt few Americans know anything whatsoever about the latter individual] are among many hundreds wasting away in Robben Island prison. Against the massively armed and ruthless state, which uses torture and sadistic forms of interrogation to crush human beings - even driving some to suicide - the militant opposition inside South Africa seems for the moment to be silenced: the mass of the people seems to be contained, seems for the moment unable to break from oppression. [….]

It is in this situation, with the great mass of South Africans denied their humanity, their dignity, denied opportunity, denied all human rights; it is in this situation, with many of the bravest and best South Africans serving long years in prison, with some already executed; in this situation we in America and Britain have a unique responsibility. For it is we, through our investments, through our governments’ failure to act decisively, who are guilty of bolstering up the South African tyranny.

Our responsibility presents us with a unique opportunity. We can join in the one form of non-violent action that could bring freedom and justice to South Africa - the action which African leaders have appealed for - in a massive movement for economic sanctions.

[….] If the United Kingdom and the United States decided tomorrow morning not to buy South African goods, not to buy South African gold, to put an embargo on oil; if our investors and capitalists would withdraw their support for that racial tyranny, then apartheid would be brought to an end. Then the majority of South Africans of all races could at last build the shared society they desire.” [….]

I wrote about this in a post for Religious Left Law on 1/20/2-14: “The International Anti-Apartheid Movement & Martin Luther King Jr.’s Call for Economic Sanctions against the South African Regime.”

Finally, King’s critical views on capitalism and his commitment to democratic socialism, evidenced most strongly in his later campaigns and speeches, are still insufficiently appreciated and should be considered as part of this “internationalist” outlook (in this case, international political economy). (See, for example, the online piece by Matthew Miles Goodrich for In These Times on January 18th of this year.)

[I did not provide links out of fear the post would have landed in the spam folder.]

[Patrick S. O'Donnell]

On this “internationalist” perspective (and solidarity), see too Robert Greene’s post at the U.S. Intellectual History Blog, “Martin Luther King, Jr., Ghana’s Independence, and Cold War Civil Rights,” March 22, 2018.

[Litowitz]

Let's not forget why he was in Memphis that day. He was supporting sanitation workers in the quest for moving beyond starvation wages. He thought it was a crime for the richest country on earth to pay people so little. His later work was about economic inequality as well as social and racial inequality. That is so-often forgotten about him. He would be disgusted and shocked at Amazon, Uber, McDonalds, and how most of the job creation has been in jobs that pay poverty wages.

[Anthony Gaughan]

Thank you for your comments, Patrick. You are absolutely right that MLK's international legacy is very important as well.

[Anthony Gaughan]

Thank you for your comments, Litowitz. You make a very important point about why King was in Memphis in the first place. It is a telling fact that he did not die among the rich and the powerful. Instead, he died fighting for the rights of sanitation workers, a deeply noble, honorable, and important cause. The broader context of King's death thus reflected the nobility of King's life.

[Anthony Gaughan]

I should also add that, at the time that he shot MLK, James Earl Ray was not only an ex-convict, but was in fact an escaped convict from a maximum security prison in Missouri. PBS's American Experience program aired an excellent documentary on MLK's assassination last night called, "Roads to Memphis." Here is a link: http://www.pbs.org/video/roads-to-memphis-3pnbtd/.

[Deep State Special Legal Counsel]

I am loath to inject politics into the discussion here. However, that ship sailed long ago.

Does anybody know what the current President did or said for this memorial event? Was he golfing? Talking to his buddies Ted Nugent? Patrick Stein? Selling arms to the Middle East making "tremendous deals?"

This was a really important day...I observed lots of folks talking about it, except the one person who could have shown a tiny bit of leadership. We know who the "good people" are in DJT's world.