Years ago, my family visited the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, Texas. When we first walked in, at the end of the hallway in front of us a massive wall displayed a photograph of President Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Over his shoulder, with unlined brow and the softest of smiles, was the man without whom this legislation would not have happened: the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
When I considered the gravity of the moment captured in this image, I was stunned. Following the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments (constitutional amendments passed between 1865 and 1870 that abolished slavery, granted citizenship, and secured voting rights), the blight of segregation had crept in. Local legislation (Jim Crow laws) aided by pernicious Supreme Court decisions (Plessy v. Ferguson and others) craftily undermined the amendments. A codified system of racism continued to plague our land for nearly 100 years until this photograph’s moment.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which survived a 60-day filibuster led by southern Democrats, offered improved voting rights; desegregation of private businesses, public facilities, and public education; and efforts to mitigate workplace discrimination. It was achieved with legislative threats and enticements, horse-trading, and arm-twisting.
But it also came in the wake of freedom riders and bus boycotts, church-bombings and burning crosses, lunch counter sit-ins and letters from jail, police dogs and water cannons. The bill was signed into law on July 2, 1964.
Why honor unfinished struggle?
What is it that informed the spirit of the long-suffering, hope-haunted King? When addressing the audience in Oslo upon receiving the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize, he told us.
King paused at the beginning of his speech to ask a rhetorical question: Why should a man (and a movement) engaged in relentless struggle that has not yet achieved the peace so greatly desired deserve a Nobel Peace Prize? He offered his own answer:
“After contemplation, I conclude that this award which I receive on behalf of that movement is a profound recognition that nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral question of our time – the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression. Civilization and violence are antithetical concepts. Negroes of the United States, following the people of India, have demonstrated that nonviolence is not sterile passivity, but a powerful moral force which makes for social transformation. Sooner or later all the people of the world will have to discover a way to live together in peace, and thereby transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. If this is to be achieved, man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.”
Further on, he added: “I accept this award today with an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in the future of mankind. I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. ... I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality. ... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant.”
King’s dream rooted in Christ
King refused to answer hate with hate, vengeance with vengeance, racism with racism. The cycle, he insisted, had to end. And if that isn’t rooted in the essence of the teachings of Christ, then nothing is. Love your enemy. Turn the other cheek. He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword. And, of course: Have faith in God.
He knew full well that Christ himself bore the crushing weight of the sins of mankind and didn’t lash out with vengeful, fiery, and righteous obliteration. Instead, he absorbed the darkness in its entirety and, in turn, emitted sweet, enduring, salvific light. King spoke to the necessity of breaking the cycle when he confessed, “I say to myself that hate is too great a burden to bear. I have decided to love.” And this awoke the conscience of the world.
We live in an age of rage and resentment where scores, it is insisted, must be settled. But the man with that young face in the picture on the Johnson Library wall – with many battles behind him and only four tumultuous years left to live – begged to differ. The burden is too great, far too great to bear, he told us.
“I have decided to love.”
Dr. Tod Worner is a practicing internal medicine physician and the managing editor of Evangelization & Culture, the Journal of the Word on Fire Institute.