Honoring Justice's Drum Major

By Jacob V. Lamar Jr.

He never commanded an army, never held political office, never made a fortune nor ruled a corporate empire. He had no use for the trappings of worldly power; his clout came from the urgency of his message and his unwavering moral courage. Of this century's heroes, the man he most closely resembled was his model, India's Mohandas K. Gandhi. Combining Christian idealism with Gandhi's principle of nonviolent resistance, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. awakened the conscience of the U.S. and the world to the plight of America's blacks. More than any other single person, King was responsible for the endowment with legal equality of a people who had been enslaved for two centuries, then denied many of their country's basic civil rights for another hundred years. In 1968, at the age of 39, this Southern Baptist preacher, winner of the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize, was cut down by an assassin's bullet. On that day the charismatic leader became the transcendent martyr.

Last week for the first time, the U.S. began celebrating King's birthday as a national holiday. When Congress in 1983 established the third Monday of January as a federal observance, it bestowed upon King an honor granted to only one other U.S. citizen, George Washington.[*] While an estimated 5 million civilian and military personnel were given this Monday off, the tributes to King began on Jan. 15, his actual birthday, and in some cases before that. From Alaska to Florida, candlelight vigils, religious services, concerts, photo exhibits, readings and teach-ins were held in commemoration. "There is a heightened awareness of him that was not present before the holiday," said King's widow Coretta. "I think it has made greater believers of many more people."

The ceremonies became occasions to recall one of the most painful and dramatic eras of American history. Segregated schools, lunch counters and bathrooms. Freedom Riders. Churches bombed and civil rights workers murdered. Helmeted police wading into demonstrators with attack dogs, tear gas, hoses, guns and bayonets. Then the fight to win passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Setting the stage for those landmark bills was the 1963 March on Washington. From a platform in front of the Lincoln Memorial came King's voice, an instrument of astounding resonance, mingling the powerful cadences of black spirituals with majestic Whitmanesque imagery in one of the best-known speeches in American oratory: "I Have a Dream."

In Washington last week, 1,000 guests filled the Capitol Rotunda to witness the unveiling of a cast bronze bust of King, marking the first time a black American has been so honored in the Capitol. On this week's official holiday, concerts were scheduled at Washington's Kennedy Center, New York's Radio City Music Hall and Atlanta's Civic Center, featuring such performers as Stevie Wonder, Bill Cosby, Bob Dylan and Harry Belafonte. The highlights were to be aired on national TV and the profits from the shows donated to Atlanta's King Center for Non-violent Social Change.

Atlanta, King's hometown, was the scene of a ten-day celebration. Tourists flocked to view King's boyhood home, the Ebenezer Baptist Church where he served as pastor with his father, and the crypt that holds his body. The list of prominent visitors was to include South Africa's Bishop Desmond Tutu, Senator Edward Kennedy and Vice President George Bush. "I wish Dr. King were here," gushed nine-year-old Akelia Cobb, excited by all the commotion. "Boy, I'd get his autograph twice!"

Underscoring the contradictions of the American South, Alabama, the civil rights movement's most volatile battleground, will observe the third Monday in January as a dual holiday honoring the birthdays of King and Confederate General Robert E. Lee. In Selma, the city council voted over the protest of Mayor Joe Smitherman to approve a candlelight walk to the Edmund Pettus Bridge, site of a bloody 1965 clash between black marchers and police. In Birmingham, near the Sixteeth Avenue Baptist Church, where a bomb killed four little girls in 1963, a 7-ft.-tall bronze likeness of King was scheduled to be unveiled Monday.

Amid the ceremony, King's friends and former colleagues urged that the civil rights leader's birthday become an occasion not simply for dreamy nostalgia but for an honest inquiry into the meaning of King's life and its impact on the nation. Former King Aide Dr. Wyatt Tee Walker worried about "the risk of getting oversentimental and romanticizing the man to the point that he becomes unreal. The way to honor him is to understand what his work was and commit yourself to doing something."

Other former colleagues spoke last week of a King rarely seen by the public. In a discussion at Atlanta's Morehouse College, King's alma mater, Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young recounted how his mentor used to joke with his lieutenants about the violence they faced on the road, launching into mock eulogies of his aides, embellishing his speeches with ridiculous details about "the deceased." Remembered the mayor: "He had us rolling on the floor. He made us laugh so much at the possibility of dying that we weren't afraid to die."

Another King protege, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, offered a sterner message in a sermon at the Ebenezer Baptist Church. King was not merely a non-threatening dreamer, said Jackson. "Dr. King was not assassinated for dreaming but for acting and challenging the government." He went on to lambaste President Reagan for failing to support any of King's efforts during his lifetime.

The President did in fact oppose much of the civil rights legislation of the 1960s. He also resisted creating a national holiday for King, on the grounds that the Government could not afford to grant its employees another day off. When North Carolina Republican Senator Jesse Helms accused King of being influenced by "elements of the Communist Party U.S.A." and called for the release of an FBI investigation of the minister that is to remain sealed until 2027, Reagan was asked whether he agreed that King had Communist sympathies. "We'll know in about 35 years, won't we?" said the President. He apologized to Coretta Scott King two days later and subsequently resigned himself to approving the King birthday bill. When it won overwhelming support in both the Senate and the House, the President said, rather grudgingly, "Since they seem bent on making it a national holiday . . . I'll sign that legislation when it reaches my desk."

Last week, however, Reagan made several more gracious gestures to honor the slain leader and his cause. He warmly received Mrs. King at the White House. In an address to students at Washington's predominantly black Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School, he paraphrased one of the minister's speeches in which King said he wanted to be remembered as "a drum major for justice." Reagan also awarded the Congressional Gold Medal to the widow of former N.A.A.C.P. Director Roy Wilkins and met with a group of 20 black businessmen and economists.

Attorney General Edwin Meese, however, did much to undercut the President's efforts during an awkward news conference last week. Defending his efforts to rescind a 1965 Executive Order requiring federal contractors to hire minorities, Meese argued that his position is "very consistent with what Dr. King had in mind" when he spoke of a color-blind society. The Executive Order, which does not demand specific quotas, has a good many supporters in the Reagan Administration. It is also precisely the sort of provision for which King fought.

King's true legacy may be found not in this month's nearly universal chorus of acclamation, but in the distance the U.S. has traveled toward an integrated society. Black students are in attendance at all of the nation's best universities. More blacks have joined the legal and medical professions and are making their way in American corporations. Five of America's biggest cities--Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit and Atlanta--have black mayors.

Nevertheless, one-third of black Americans live below the poverty line, and the unemployment rate of black teenagers is 41.6%, compared with 6.9% for the general population. While whites may work and study with blacks, housing patterns in most communities remain segregated. At the same time, many Americans seem to react to the subject of civil rights with apathy or cynicism.

It is almost startling to realize that were he alive today, Martin Luther King Jr. would be but 57 years old, still in the prime of life. Surely, he would know that his work was far from complete. --By Jacob V. Lamar Jr. Reported by Don Winbush/Atlanta, with other bureaus

With reporting by Don Winbush/Atlanta, other bureaus