When Words Speak Louder than Guns: The Paradox of Martin Luther King Jr’s Non-Violent Social Change
Abstract
This research aimed to examine the life of Martin Luther King, Jr and the non-violent principle that had been known as his strategy to end segregation and discrimination towards black people in the United States. Using several books and journals as references, this research provides some detailed understanding regarding the early life of Martin Luther King, Jr which made him who he was; his involvement in several civil rights movements that had significant impacts on the establishment of Civil Rights Acts and Voting Right Acts; also, the paradox behind the non-violent approach that seemed not non-violent when connected with the way protests were conducted. Several controversies were also explained which affected some experts’ considerations on how to preserve Martin Luther King’s Jr’s legacy in social change.
Introduction
Unless learning the history, the current generation would probably never expect that the world they are living in right now is far from the same as the life their ancestors lived decades ago — especially in terms of having equal rights regardless of their race, gender, religion, social status, and anything. Simply being in the same school and on public transportation with white people was something to dream and fight for back then, especially throughout the southern US, in the 1950s to 1960s. Countless movements, protests, and demonstrations were held to end the segregation among races, all thanks to activists who had been fighting to the very end. Among all those fighters, there was Martin Luther King, Jr., who had been well-known as one of the prominent leaders of civil rights movements. His contribution was very significant and his birthday is currently celebrated in the US as MLK Day to commemorate his service in fighting for the civil rights movement.
Aside from the massive social changes that had been done by Martin Luther King Jr to end segregation, he was also globally respected as the figure who succeeded in creating changes through a peaceful and non-violent approach. However, throughout his life, Martin Luther King Jr’s reputation was never as clear as a bell — even up until now. The philosophy of non-violence that he adopted from Mahatma Gandhi, which was already known and practiced for so long, caused various critics among experts (Adjei, 2013, p. 82). The critics range from radicalism hidden behind that so-called non-violence approach to the passive-aggressive intervention tactics that Martin Luther King Jr played to push the government to pass the bill of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. As a social justice figure, Martin Luther King Jr also got many critics due to his writings and his career as an academic. It was proven that Martin Luther King Jr had plagiarized one of his academic research papers and ghost-wrote his autobiography (Thelen, 1991, p. 13). These critics and controversies challenge the way people see him as a figure and the movements he has led for social justice. Although there was no doubt that his contribution had made tremendous changes, all those controversies triggered many questions to emerge from the experts in regards to the continuity of the non-violence approach practiced to change the US and the world as a whole.
Knowing the number of shadows buried under his legacy to fight for social justice, this research is done to dig deeper into the analysis of Martin Luther King Jr as a figure, the non-violence philosophy being brought, and the paradox behind it. Hopefully, this research will serve as a new perspective in a wider context regarding Martin Luther King Jr, his political thoughts, movement paths, and what should be done next to continue his legacy in social change.
While He Was a Kid: Early Life of MLK
Discussing the life of Martin Luther King Jr means that we got to see him from an early age, as his family and educational background affected him a lot in shaping who he was and his political thought. Being born from a black family in 1929 during the Jim Crow laws era, especially in the city of Atlanta, the young MLK had to witness strong segregation in many aspects. He had to be separated from his white best friend when they turned six since they had to go to a different school; MLK went to school for black children and his friend went to school for white (Bader, 2007, p. 15). Luckily, MLK was born from quite privileged parents; his father was a minister and his mother was a college graduate. He had both good spiritual and educational support that made him a bright and smart human being. Long story short, MLK grew up to be a vocal person who was not only good at public speaking but also good at heart. Just like his father, he wanted to continue living to serve for the betterment of people, especially to fight for the same rights that all black people deserve in the very first place (Bader, 2007, p. 19).
The turning point of MLK’s life was when he worked during the summer in Connecticut. Since segregation was not that severe in the North, he realized how beautiful it was to live in a world where people of all backgrounds could get along with each other without any discrimination. MLK also came across the essay of Henry David Thoreau. Thoreau lived in an era where slavery was still allowed in the US. Although it was a legal thing to do, Thoreau thought that slavery was something against human rights hence he decided to protest peacefully and stop paying taxes. He then, later, was put in jail but never in his life, he regretted doing it since he knew that he did the right thing. His essay moved MLK, especially the way Thoreau led the protest peacefully. Thoreau inspired him so much that MLK made up his mind that he wanted to be a minister. That way, he could speak about segregation more often. Before becoming a minister, Martin Luther King Jr continued his study of theology at Crozer Theological Seminary and Boston University. During his study, he discovered a similar peaceful approach to social change brought by Mahatma Gandhi (Bader, 2007, p. 22–26).
Non-Violent Social Change
Many news-breaking events that were going to be mentioned further in this research were all using the non-violent approach, meaning no action intended to harm others or use any force by any means. It is surely because of the obvious reason, the principle strongly held by Martin Luther King Jr to win the people by heart, not by force — “soul force that could defeat physical force” (Fairclough, 1986, p. 4). These nonviolent mass protests are also considered the ultimate cause of two major legislative advantages of the Civil Rights Movement half a century ago — which is1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act (Nimtz, 2016, p. 1). Several movements that had been done and led by Martin Luther King Jr using a non-violent approach that successfully created significant impact in ending segregation in the United States are as follows:
Where Everything Began: Montgomery Bus Boycott
King’s remarkable endowment began during the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama (Kirk, 2004, p. 329). A brave black woman, Rosa Louise McCauley Parks, refused to sit at the back of the bus since it was the rule back then when Jim Crow Laws were still strongly practiced: white people sit upfront and black people sit at the back. As expected, she was arrested for going against the law. Knowing this, Martin Luther King Jr came up with the plan to boycott the bus in Montgomery. The plan was for all black people to stop riding the buses which would cause a huge loss for the company as black people were the majority of the population in Montgomery. As expected, the local government was angry and did everything it could to stop the boycott including raising the minimum fare of the taxi so that people didn’t have any choice but to go back to riding the buses. Luckily, black activists were so supportive that they came up with the idea of carpooling. As a result, not long after the boycott, the local government announced the end of the law that separated the black and white on buses (Bader, 2007, p. 42).
Historians and activists generally agree that this bus boycott started what came to be called the Civil Rights Movement (CRM) with the desegregation of public transportation as its consequential outcome. It became so influential because it changed history; the nascent movement now had a victory, gaining national honor, and being a highly possible model to end the system of Jim Crow elsewhere (Nimtz, 2016, p. 3) It even motivated Martin Luther King Jr and other black leaders to form an organization called Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) which Martin Luther King Jr was chosen as the leader of the group.
Lesson Learned from the Albany Movement
After gaining massive success in the Montgomery bus boycott, this event triggered other civil rights movements to occur in many areas of the Southern US, one of them being in Albany, Georgia, which was one of the cities where segregation was being massively practiced there (Carson, 2004, p. 172). The Albany Movement focused on ending all kinds of racial segregation in the city, focusing mainly on desegregating public transportation, and establishing a permanent multiracial committee to discuss further desegregation and the release of those who had been put in jail during segregation protests (“Albany Movement”, n.d.). The protests went very severe and hundreds of people were arrested for doing the protests. Knowing that the circumstances would get worse if it were not stopped, King decided to give up during the Albany movement and failed due to tactical reasons, especially in terms of inadequate planning and poor choice of target (Fairclough, 1986, p. 5). This was very unfortunate as twenty-seven thousand blacks lived in Albany but a hundred years of political, economic, and educational oppression had fettered them and unjustly enslaved them with a ruthless system of segregation. (Carson, 2004, p. 172).
Birmingham Demonstration and Selma-to-Montgomery March Paved the Way
The defeat during the Albany movement pushed Martin Luther King, Jr to fight harder. He then looked for the city with the toughest Jim Crow Laws practice, which was Birmingham, Alabama. If Albany, Georgia was counted as bad, Birmingham would be counted as worse. Several things like schools were still strongly separated between white and black schools. The water fountains were also still marked “colored” and “white” (Bader, 2007, p. 59). However, Martin Luther King, Jr didn’t run out of ideas. Just like the protests in any other place, Martin Luther King, Jr, and other black people did protest by doing anything against the Jim Crows laws. They did sit-ins at lunch counters that were supposed to exclusively be allowed for whites and did peaceful marches by singing together at church to encourage other black people to join the protests.
Sure, there had been many people arrested due to the protests, but even Martin Luther King Jr was eventually put in jail. While in jail, Martin wrote a letter in response to news media that was talking about his protest. The letter is named “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”. Letter from Birmingham Jail is notably a defense for the rights of the oppressed people to protest in a nonviolent way. About halfway into the seven-thousand-word letter, MLK suggested his critics examine the alternative to what he trying to advocate — pieces that have got insufficient attention (Nimtz, 2016, p. 7). One of the famous lines written in the letter was when Martin confessed his despair towards endless discrimination towards black people, especially in Birmingham — when segregation was slowly but surely erased in other cities.
“I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” “We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. For years now, I’ve heard the word “wait!” it rings in the ear of every negro with piercing familiarity. This wait has almost always meant never.” (King, 1992, p. 836).
Long story short, the protests in Birmingham continued. People continued to boycott the white business which ended up hampering their business since the majority of the population in Birmingham was black. As a result, the local government was fed up and decided to give in to almost all the protestors’ demands, including lunch counters, restrooms, fitting rooms, and drinking fountains would no longer be segregated; black people would have the opportunity to get better jobs; the protestors that were still in jail would be released; and there would be committee between black and white in hoping to ease the tensions between both races (Bader, 2007, p. 69).
The demonstrations in Birmingham successfully triggered black activists across the US and it eventually made President John F. Kennedy ask Congress to pass the Civil Rights Bill. This was a huge momentum that Martin and other black leaders held a march in Washington DC. Martin Luther King Jr gave a phenomenal “I Have a Dream” speech that was still pretty iconic up until now. The next year, which was in 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act which officially ended the Jim Crow Laws all over the US, and it was a huge momentum in the history of the Civil Rights Movement. Anyone now could register to vote and any kind of segregation, as well as discrimination, is no longer allowed.
Just because the Civil Rights Act was signed, it didn’t mean that it would be effectively implemented all over the US. In 1965 in Alabama, black people still faced discrimination in terms of voting. The local government made it hard for black people to get their rights to vote as there were only two percent of the black population in Alabama (300 out of 1500) were eligible to vote. Knowing this, Martin Luther King, Jr, and other black leaders decided to conduct a march from Selma to the state capitol of Montgomery. It took them three days to walk 54 miles away. Fortunately, as a result, President Lyndon B Johnson signed the Voting Rights Acts. This act mainly banned literacy tests as the requirement for eligibility to vote –the test had made it very easy for discrimination to occur (“Selma to Montgomery March”, 2010).
The cities of Birmingham and Selma in Alabama have been the places of the most effective non-violent protests in modern history. The Birmingham demonstrations made the way for the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which erased segregation in public accommodations. Meanwhile, the Selma protests of 1965 established the Voting Rights Act, a legal protection of equality to vote that erased the political foundation of white supremacy by ending the disfranchisement of blacks (Fairclough, 1986, p. 1).
It Didn’t Stop Right There: Poor People’s Campaign
The prolonged discrimination that has been happening for hundreds of years might have been ended by the establishment of the Civil Rights Acts and the Voting Rights Acts. But the long-term effects caused by unequal access could never disappear right away, and one of the most visible ones would be in terms of economy. Martin Luther King, Jr once said, “What good is having the right to sit at a lunch counter if you can’t afford to buy a hamburger?” to emphasize how the fight was not done and the world had not been fully equal yet only by officially disallowing segregation and discrimination (Crash Course, 2022). Even having the right to vote, sit anywhere on a bus, and eat in any restaurant they wanted, black people were still struggling in so many aspects. Many blacks were still jobless and even if they had a job, that job didn’t make enough money for them to live decently. It was so severe that they were often sick and couldn’t afford to see a doctor (Bander, 2007, p. 89).
Knowing the condition that was faced by the blacks, Martin tried to help them by marching and conducting nonviolent protests. Sadly, the poor blacks were tired of listening to Martin and chose to riot due to their despair of having a decent life. However, Martin Luther King, Jr did not give up on supporting the blacks to the fullest. He conducted a march to the higher-ups in Washington DC. Even though the march was meant to be nonviolent, they had to face violent backlash along the way. The peak of sorrow happened when Martin Luther King, Jr was shot to death when he discussed the march strategy with other leaders on a hotel balcony in Memphis, Tennessee (Crash Course, 2022).
The Paradox of the Non-Violence Approach by MLK
The non-violence approach is practiced in almost all major faiths and religions, including Islam, Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism, Jainism, and Buddhism. In some faiths, non-violence is not merely a choice, but a way of life that must be strictly maintained by the followers (Adjei, 2013, p. 82). Any action that did not involve armed struggle could be considered non-violence, such as protests, boycotts, sit-ins, and civil disobedience — and these are actions conducted by black activists who were often led by Martin Luther King, Jr. However, there were several quests regarding this approach. Martin Luther King, Jr never clearly explained his theory of nonviolence systematically, including all of his tactics. In addition, many of his books, speeches, and articles were partially and even wholly “ghosted.” Worse, it was not always easy to specify exactly what he wrote. There were also only a few pieces of proof that King ever believed nonviolent protest could work solely as a form of moral persuasion. The rest had been proven that nonviolent itself wasn’t enough to effectively change the status quo. Meanwhile, in one of his public writings, he described nonviolence as an approach that met a lot of struggles and could only work through the help of a militant mass movement. Philosophically and in practice, he explicitly disagreed with the notion that said oppressed groups could fight for their rights through an ethical approach and rational argument as they also needed a certain amount of pressure (Fairclough, 1986, p. 3).
Now the question is, why would many experts question his nonviolent approach? That is mainly because although it was true that what King had done was nonviolent action, it was not the only key to winning the movement. After all, the “soft” approach that usually was correlated with the non-violent approach was not nearly similar to every action done during the civil rights movements — it was not “soft” at all. Many high-risk strategies were implemented along the journey, such as involving children during Birmingham protests to gain sympathy, encouraging the people to walk miles away every day during the bus boycott until the demands were accomplished, letting hundreds of people get arrested, and even continuing the demonstrations even though the condition had become way more violent from the opposition side which could danger the activists. In addition, this not-so-soft approach was created this way — by intentionally provoking the opponents so that they could respond to it with violence and gain empathy from people in the grey area. This passive-aggressive movement then led to the chance to push the government to the edge so that they didn’t have any option but to change the rules.
If in the end rules were changed and segregation had come to an end, then what was the problem? The problem could be easily seen in the aftermath of the Montgomery bus boycott and the efficacy of civil rights acts at the very beginning after it was signed. The victory of the Montgomery bus boycott didn’t make the protests during the Albany movement easier. It was even harder because the opposition had become stronger than before. After the Civil Rights Act was signed, many people were still very discriminative towards blacks — even the local governments. These were all because what Martin Luther King, Jr claimed was a “soul force” was not a “soul force” after all. The racist local government erased the Jim Crow Laws not because they knew it was wrong, but because they did not have a choice but to stop the protests. The white people were willing to be in the same school and counters with black people not because they wanted to, but because the blacks had won the protests and the segregation was lifted. The status quo changed not because the people inside it were changing, but because of the “non-violent” force that they had received continuously which then made them not have any option but to agree. As a result, they would still try to discriminate against the blacks every time they had the chance, hence the Selma to Montgomery March occurred. They would try everything they could to gatekeep the blacks from having a decent life, hence the poor’s people campaign occurred. After all, had the goal of a “non-violent” approach that aimed to make a change through changing the heart of the people truly been accomplished?
Conclusion
Examining the path of Martin Luther King, Jr in fighting for civil rights movements would always be complicated as there would be many aspects to consider. Should we let the plagiarism mistakes slide — which means ignoring the academic ethics? Should we just ignore the fact that he ghost-wrote his autobiography which made us doubtful of which one was his original and sincere thought? Should we pretend to think that his “nonviolent” approach was the ultimate key to the success of the civil rights movements — when it was clearly not? However, the fact that Martin Luther King, Jr had been fighting for the future of blacks until his very last breath was not something that should ever be belittled or forgotten. Martin Luther King, Jr’s life might not be as clear as seen-through glass, but he had always been one of the front-liner of the movements. If not because of Martin Luther King, Jr, there would be many “Rose Parks” who would be arrested for disobeying the law. If not for Martin Luther King, Jr, segregation in the Southern US might still be strongly practiced now. In the end, even though he could not change the people’s hearts, he succeeded in changing the law which could trigger the integration and eventually erase the discrimination. Even though not all people in the US were moved by his actions, many were and that is all that matters.
References
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Carson, Clayborne. (2004). The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr (Edited by Clayborne Carson). New York: Warner Books. 171–172.
Eskew, Glenn T. (1997). But for Birmingham: The Local and National Movements in the Civil Rights Struggle. Chapel Hill, NC: the University of North Carolina Press. 42–52.
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Nimtz, A. H. (2016). Violence and/or Nonviolence in the Success of the Civil Rights Movement: The Malcolm X–Martin Luther King, Jr. Nexus. New Political Science, 38(1), 1–22.
Thelen, D. (1991). Becoming Martin Luther King, Jr.: An Introduction. The Journal of American History, 78(1), 13.
Anonymous. (n.d.). Albany Movement. In Martin Luther King Jr Research and Education Institute Stanford University. Retrieved from
Anonymous. (2010). Selma to Montgomery March. In History. A&E Television Networks. Retrieved from https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/selma-montgomery-march
Crash Course. (2022). Martin Luther King, Jr: Crash Course Black American History #36. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmeUT7zH62E
King Jr, M. L. (1992). Letter from Birmingham jail. UC Davis L. Rev., 26, 835.
