"CITIZEN KING"
By Grace Lee Boggs
Michigan Citizen, Feb. 8-14, 2004
www.boggscenter.org
For a sense of the trials and tribulations of Movement leadership, I
highly recommend "Citizen King," the new documentary about MLK by Orlando
Bagwell, shown on PBS. I"ve already watched it twice.
"Citizen King" takes you behind the charisma and the applause to the
new contradictions and challenges that come with success and the difficult
decisions Movement leaders must make, often over the opposition of
colleagues.
As I watched the film, I couldn't help thinking of Malcolm in the weeks
before his assassination when, having recognized the limitations of
Black Nationalism, he was struggling to figure out his next steps.
"I'm a Muslim and a revolutionary," Malcolm said, "and I'm learning more
about political theory as the months go by. We've got to learn to creep
before we walk and walk before we run. But the chances are that they will
get me the way they got Lumumba before he reached the running stage."
In the summer of 1965, a few months after Malcolmıs assassination and
three years before his own, MLK had been acclaimed nationally and
internationally. On August 28, 1963, in Washington, D.C., 250,000
people had hailed his "I have a dream" speech. In 1964 he had been awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize. On August 6, 1965 King and other black leaders were at
President Johnsonıs side as he signed the Voting Rights Act.
Then, six days later, black youth explode in Watts, California, and
when King tries to speak to them about non-violence, they greet him with
boos.
For the next three years King struggles desperately to catch up with
events.
Over the opposition of colleagues (who felt they are being "stretched
too thin"), he goes to Chicago in 1966 to relate to urban black youth.
While he is grappling with this unfamiliar reality, James Meredith gets
himself shot on a self-initiated March through Mississippi, and when
King joins the March organized by SNCC to continue Meredith's journey, he
is confronted by the "Black Power" militancy of Stokely Carmichael.
In 1967, despite the reservations of colleagues, King decides that he
has to oppose with all his energy the "abominable war in Vietnam" and that the
"black revolution is much more than a struggle for rights for Negroes.
It is exposing evils that are deeply rooted in the whole structure of our
society." To end both the war in Vietnam and the hopelessness of
black urban youth he advocates "a radical revolution in values that would
combine the struggle against racism with a struggle against poverty,
militarism, and materialism."
But how do we make this radical revolution in values? Unfortunately,
King does not have the time to give this question the attention it deserves.
So he calls for a Poor Peoples March on Washington because past experience
has convinced him that "there is nothing more powerful to demonstrate
injustice than the march of trampling feet."
But was mobilizing poor people for a March on Washington the best way
to begin making a radical revolution in values? Or were new ways needed
to begin this new kind of revolution?
As I watched King trying to reach out to poor people, I couldnıt help
feeling that the reason why he was so obviously distraught during his
final "I"ve been to the mountaintop" speech was not only because he realized
that events were moving beyond his capacity to provide leadership, not only
because he sensed that his assassination was imminent, but also
because he had begun to have second thoughts about his decision to launch the Poor
Peoples March on Washington.
Today, nearly forty years later, discussing Kingıs dilemma might help
us figure out what we need to be doing.
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