The civil rights movement, as King understood it, was an attempt to construct a new kind of Christian nation - a beloved community of love and equality.
But here’s the rub, and where King parts strongly from Beck. It is important to remember that “King’s Letter From a Birmingham Jail” was written to clergy who believed that segregation was an issue that needed to be dealt with locally. They did not want “outside agitators,” such as King or the federal government, intruding in their local affairs. They did not want the government taking away their liberties, even if it was the liberty to uphold segregation.
As the “Letter From a Birmingham Jail” makes clear, and the entire civil rights movement confirms, churches and local municipalities did little to stop the violation of the human and civil rights of blacks in the South. It was up to the federal government to step in - with a show of force in some cases - to take away the liberty of some (segregationists, who in some cases were in the majority) so that the liberty of all (including a minority, blacks) could be preserved.
It is hard to imagine the civil rights movement without government intervention. The Supreme Court decision Brown vs. Board of Education (1954) integrated schools. In 1957, the 101st Airborne Division made sure that Brown vs. Board was implemented in Little Rock, Ark. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 reaffirmed rights that blacks were already supposed to have received under the 14th and 15th amendments.
This is why a massive rally of libertarian Tea Partyers commemorating King and claiming his legacy is so ironic. I am not saying here that the Tea Partyers are racist, but I am pointing out the fact that there have been times in American history - the civil rights movement being one of them - when local initiative has failed and the only way to bring justice, including “Christian” justice, has been through “outside agitators” such as the federal government.
What we saw on Saturday was a group of anti-big government Tea Party libertarians trying to reclaim the civil rights movement - an initiative whose success ultimately required one of the most forceful and moral acts of federal power in American history.
Wednesday 1 September 2010
How Glenn Beck distorts the Christian teachings that inspired the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. ☀
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