Why the ruling rich blunt MLK's legacy

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Martin Luther King Jr. relaxes after historic Selma to Montgomery, From then on, King was on a collision Talking about the decade of the civil rights course with the capitalist rulers and their two struggle, King once said: "The greatness of political parties—the Democrats and this period was that we armed ourselves with Republicans. The American capitalist class dignity and self-respect. The greatness of this was willing to give flattering support to the period was that we straightened our backs up. fight against the archaic system of "Jim And a man can't ride your back unless it's improve their image in the eyes of world Undoubtedly, Martin Luther King would Martin Luther King, if he chose, could mense social movement. But their attitude changed dramatically oppression and exploitation. There is no have had an easy life. An ordained Baptist When Congress passed the Civil Rights when King stepped "over the bounds" by guarantee that he could have made a decisive minister, he came from a fairly well-off Act and Voting Rights Act in 1964 and 1966 linking the demand for economic justice to difference, but one thing is certainly clear: He middle-class family. His father, Martin Luther respectively, it was only because of the ending the war in Vietnam. On April 4, would have been in the front ranks of those King Sr., was the head of the most pressure of this mass movement in the 1967, one year to the day before he was fighting against war, racism and poverty. prestigious Black church in Atlanta. But streets-of which King was a central assassinated, King spoke out: "I speak for the This is the Martin Luther King that the poor of America who are paying the double ruling rich try to bury through false praise.

20 SOCIALIST ACTION JANUARY 1989 On Jan. 15, 1989, the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would have been 60 years old. But an assassin's bullet, fired in Memphis, Tenn., on April 4, 1968, has made that impossible.

Millions of Black people and their allies in the labor, student, and social justice movements will commemorate Martin Luther King's birthday because he was a martyr in the fight for freedom and social equality. He was one of our heroes.

In contrast, the ruling class in this country will try-like vultures-to feed off the memory of Martin Luther King. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the leader of the Russian Revolution, was more than familiar with this "game." He thought it was important to explain what the ruling class does once a great leader of the oppressed has been cut down:

"After their death," Lenin said, "attempts are made to turn them into harmless icons, canonize them, and surround their names with a certain halo for the 'consolation' of the oppressed masses and with the object of duping them... They [the ruling class] omit, obliterate, and distort the revolutionary side... the revolutionary soul," of what the great leaders were striving for.

Furthermore, Lenin continues: "They push to the foreground and extol what is, or seems to be, acceptable to the bourgeoisie [the capitalist class]."

Such has been the approach of the American capitalists and politicians every Jan. 15, when they "celebrate" the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr.

Praised by his enemies People like Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Michael Dukakis, Ted Kennedy, and the chief executives of U.S. corporations all give patronizing lip service to what they say were the hallmarks of Martin Luther King's life. They stress King's commitment to "non-violence" and "passive resistance." And they try to "console" the masses with phony phrases about how they have the same goals Dr. King had.

Meanwhile, they cover up the fact that there was a struggle even to get MLK's birthday declared a national holiday. And While they pay tribute to the great man's life in carefully prepared speeches, they obscure the fact that when Martin Luther King was alive he was visited with, as Lenin said about other martyrs, "relentless prosecution, the most savage hostility, the most furious hatred, and the most ruthless campaign of lies and slanders."

In reality, many of these so-called "admirers" of the dead MLK were enemies of the living MILK. While King was leading the decade-long 1960s fight to abolish "Jim Crow" segregation in the South and risking his life on marches and rallies to demand voting rights for Blacks, the federal government was spying on him. When King organized the massive march on Washington, D.C., in August 1963, the "liberal" President Kennedy tried to get him to cancel it.

And when King spoke out forcefully against the U.S. war in Vietnam and organized a Poor Peoples' Campaign against poverty, he became persona non grata in white liberal circles. Many of those who now praise MILK only do so to bury him.

A dynamic social force instead of a life of relative privilege, he organizer.

Vernon Merritt Ala., civil rights march in 1965.

devoted his life to racial justice and social activism.

From the time he first came into prominence as the chief spokesperson for the 387-day bus boycott in Montgomery, Ala., in 1955—and until his death 13 years later— MLK was recognized as the chief spokesperson for the Black civil rights MLK was not a revolutionary. He was a retormer, a unrisuan, and ne had great illusions in the capitalist system. But he realized that he was the representative and leader of a dynamic social and historical force: the struggle for Black liberation.

Although King was considered to be in the moderate wing of the civil rights movement, he was "tolerated" by the ruling class only because he was an expression of this imBut the logic of this movement, once de jure segregation had been abolished in the South, led King ineluctably from the question of racial justice to the question of economic justice. King recognized that the question of racism was intrinsically connected to eco nomic exploitation.

On a collision course Crow" in the South. After all, they had to bent."

public opinion. price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam." At this Riverside Church speech in New York City, King declared war against the Vietnam War.

Furthermore, King took the crusade for racial justice "Up South" to cities like Chicago and New York to fight against the de facto segregation of the North. He initiated a movement, the Poor People's Campaign, around an economic bill of rights to demand economic justice for whites and Blacks alike. Despite what might have been his instinctive "conservatism," MILK always found himself at odds with the capitalist status quo.

"Most of the poor people in this country," King said, "are working every day but earning so little they cannot begin to function in the mainstream of economic life of our nation. We've got to do something about joblessness, and we are going to Washington to demand an economic bill of rights."

When he was assassinated, King was in Memphis specifically to lend support to a strike by that city's Black sanitation workers.

Crocodile tears notwithstanding, the ruling class was happy to see MLK "put out of the way." His death deprived Blacks and all the oppressed of a dynamic moral and political leader.

A war against the poor If King were alive today he would see that while the ruling class "eulogizes" him, they are conducting a savage economic war against the Black community-and the working class in general. If anything, things are worse today than they were in 1968. The long road of slow reform has led from the so-called War Against Poverty of the '60s to the War Against the Poor today.

While Black unemployment for 1967 was just over 7 percent, 20 years later the Black unemployment rate is over 13 percent. And Blacks today are still more than twice as likely to be unemployed as whites.

For Black children under the age of 18, the poverty rate of nearly 50 percent has scarceiy changed over the last 20 years. Many of the social programs that MLK fought for have been eliminated. Shockingly, over the last two years the life expectancy of Blacks in the United States has declined for the first time in this century.

If MLK were alive today, he would see how effective the capitalist tactic of "divide and conquer" has been. Over the last 20 years, for example, the largest aggregate increase of poverty has been among whites and Hispanics.

It's hard to say what would have happened if MLK had lived. But a number of things are certain. He would have continued to try to build a social movement—to the best of his ability and sense of integrity-to challenge the exploitation being suffered by Blacks and working people today.

He probably would have built a movement that was active and visible not just during elections-but between elections. His efforts might have been frustrated politically, instead of by an assassin's bullet, but he would have tried. today be on the side of those fighting against