Embracing MLK’s legacy to overcome extremism
Extremism feeds on grievances. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s rejection of victimhood provides an alternative. I was 12 when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered by an extremist in Downtown Memphis on April 4, 1968, while I played basketball with friends a few miles away.
Our background music from a transistor radio tuned to WDIA was interrupted by the DJ telling us that Dr. King had been killed. Stunned, we took off running for home.
I hadn’t fully grasped all Dr. King endured while fighting for equality — the bombing of his home, dozens of arrests, constant threats. Still he declared: “We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence.”
As one of the few black students at a recently integrated junior high, his
words helped me overcome intimidation and slurs. Rather than sink into victimhood, I grew up determined to seize my American birthright of freedom and equality.
But decades later, extremism would scar my own family. After getting into trouble at college, my son, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, began a quest to straighten out his life. We didn’t understand why he needed the new path he chose, but still tried to be supportive.
Then, one day, he removed a portrait of Dr. King from his bedroom wall. This portrait hung in my home when I was a boy, and we placed it in my son’s room to honor the sacrifice that helped make our dreams a reality.
Taking it down felt like a rejection of our history and culture.
My son was angry, believing his new identity was under attack. His journey took him to a prison in Yemen before we got him home. Then in June 2009, shortly after he returned, he attacked an army recruitment center in Little Rock, killing a young man and wounding another.
Since that terrible day, a stream of young people have followed a similar path overseas or attempted attacks at home. Meanwhile, extremists of different ideologies have also taken innocent lives: Charleston churchgoers killed for the color of their skin and worshippers gunned down in a Quebec mosque.
These acts of hate always outrage me, but, as a father who still loves his son, I know the story is more complicated. These are often vulnerable young people searching for the “solid rock of brotherhood” Dr. King talked about.
Instead, they find radical groups offering a false shortcut: achieve “justice” through violence against a scapegoat that isn’t the true source of their pain.
Dr. King is a model for young people tempted to resolve grievances through extremism.
Meeting “desperate, rejected and angry young men,” he counseled them that “Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems.” While victimized repeatedly, Dr. King never adopted an identity of victimhood and remained committed to non-violent reconciliation.
Even in prison, my son’s story is still being written. I see glimpses of the boy I raised taking renewed interest in his family history and heritage. Meanwhile, I try to honor Dr. King’s legacy by joining with others impacted by extremism.
In our network — called Parents for Peace — people from different backgrounds stand together to make a difference. Sometimes we want someone to blame for what happened: extremist recruiters, the government for not acting in time, even ourselves. But we focus on channeling pain into a positive mission: helping families worried about a loved one going down the path of extremism.
The night before he was killed, Dr. King said that “Trouble is in the land; confusion all around.”
Despite all the progress he made possible, trouble and confusion remain. But he also said that “only when it is dark enough can you see the stars.”
May we all be guided by Dr. King’s star and embrace his crucial message, so we might once again overcome.
Melvin Bledsoe is a Memphis business owner and co-founder of Parents for Peace, a nonprofit assisting families grappling with extremism via a confidential helpline (844-49-PEACE).