Choose political hope over despair
There is a critical need in the United States today to counter growing political despair. Thus, on this Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I am reflecting on King’s understanding and practice of political hope.
It is essential to distinguish hope from optimism. The latter can create complacency and lead to a failure to act against present-day injustices. Optimists imagine that everything will turn out positively even if they do not act.
King reminded us that hope is not empirically demonstrated; it is morally chosen. Hope is the belief that the future will be better than the present only if we believe we have the power to create it.
Two features distinguish political hope: hope for social justice, and a recognition that it is a collective journey by a community of citizens. King challenged us, as people of faith, to rely on our theological imagination to envision the art of organizing hope, which, in community, would enable us to create new narratives of the journey toward a just society. Without hope, King said, “I could not go on.” He focused on community-organizing skills and nonviolent change-making with a theology that emphasized shifts in identity from oppressed victim to constructive agent of change.
The methodology underlying King’s politics of hope was nonviolent action rooted in Christian love. A characteristic of nonviolent movements is sacrifice. King’s suffering and sacrifices are wellknown, but he spoke eloquently in describing the “laborers and domestic workers” who had to “trudge” as many as 12 miles each day to sustain the Montgomery bus boycott. A politics of hope requires the determined courage of individuals willing to suffer and sacrifice for freedom, dignity and justice.
The act of nonviolent sacrifice is both performative and communicative. The larger citizenry must understand activists are sacrificing for a given cause. This is a powerful form of persuasion. King quoted Gandhi when he wrote that “unearned suffering is redemptive. Suffering, the nonviolent resister realizes, has tremendous educational and transformative possibilities.”
Having researched, taught and practiced nonviolent civil resistance, I continue to challenge myself and my students at St. Mary’s University to reflect on King’s image of a “beloved community.” Not a simplistic future, but one visualizing the interrelatedness of political, economic, cultural and environmental justice — with faith as the foundation. Coursework challenges students to describe a personal politics of hope; imagine themselves part of a nonviolent mass movement; discuss the ethics of suffering and sacrifice; and envision, in King’s words, “the Kingdom of God.”
Students in my class represent diverse races and ethnicities, lived experiences, economic status, religion and politics. However, when they are broken into groups to discuss King’s “theological imagination,” they begin to engage in a deep dialogue about their understanding of political hope based on their lived experiences. They gradually cease to see the other as the enemy.
We can honor King by researching his philosophy and theology of nonviolence and political hope. This pursuit could pave a path to overcoming our political despair.