Most durable power
It’s time to fully understand King’s call not to give up on one another, even when it’s hard.
In life and in death, we’ve known Martin Luther King Jr. by numerous titles, official and unofficial. Reverend. Prophet. Author. Radical. Academic. Pacifist.
How about advice columnist?
In the summer of 1957, about 18 months after the successful and pivotal Montgomery Bus Boycott, an associate editor for Ebony Magazine approached the 28-year-old King about writing a monthly advice column.
And for more than a year, he did so, responding to letters from his Dexter Avenue Baptist Church office in Montgomery.
A reader asked King whether love was really a solution to the problems of racism and white supremacy. “Are there not times when a man must stand up and fight fire with fire?” the reader asked. “Why don’t you preachers admit that love, in the highest sense of the word, is impractical in the world of today?”
King responded in the November 1957 Ebony edition: “I am convinced that love is the most durable power in the world. It is not an expression of impractical idealism, but of practical realism.”
In the long run, King said, love comes through and redeems those brave enough to employ it.
On this MLK Day, almost exactly 93 years since King’s birth, the idea that “love” could help us today might seem as impractical as it did when King said it would be the powerful engine to take down Jim Crow. American democracy is under threat — from those who would overturn elections because their candidate didn’t win and from those who want to make it harder for people to vote.
Some leaders, including plenty of Texans, are working to suppress votes, erode election protection mechanisms under the guise of vote security, and dilute minority representation.
What in the world can “love” do for us now?
King regularly employed the notion of agape love, a Greek word representing the idea that we can and must love even our adversaries. He wrote, “we love men not because we like them, not because their attitudes and ways appeal to us, but we love them because God loves them.”
“Avoiding hate” doesn’t have to mean we don’t push hard against injustice or do all we can to confront unequal systems. King isn’t telling us to accept the status quo. He challenged us to nonviolently fight for a better world without losing sight of the basic humanity of our opposition — even if they’ve lost sight of ours.
Too many politicians and others in America have reduced King’s voluminous legacy to one line in one speech: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” It’s a wonderful, inspiring line, but it’s often used to simplify King’s often profound messages — and when it comes to issues such as affirmative action, it’s used to argue for a kind of context-free colorblindedness he never embraced.
It’s more difficult but so important to fully grapple with his teachings. In that same 1963 “Dream” speech, King said America had “defaulted” on the “promissory note” of unalienable rights of liberty owed to citizens of color. That long-overdue bill is precisely the kind of injustice affirmative action is designed to redress.
Progressives, too, are guilty of sometimes dismissing King’s full complexity, especially when it comes to his call to love. How can one love someone standing firmly in the way of progress toward equality? Why spend any time looking for the humanity of someone who hates you for being gay, or Black, or a woman?
King’s answer? We must not give up on one another.
That’s a message we badly need to hear in 2022, when dividing lines are so sharp.
Refusing to give up on our neighbors, even those who hold us in contempt, is hard work. King didn’t shy from this difficulty.
Five years to the month before he was murdered in Memphis, King wrote out his beliefs in his now-famous Letter from Birmingham Jail. “We need emulate neither the ‘do nothingism’ of the complacent nor the hatred and despair of the black nationalist. For there is the more excellent way of love and nonviolent protest.”
King was never passive, yet always loving. Agape love doesn’t mean backing down, but it does mean staying at the table and not giving up.
What might that look like for us, to work hard for democracy and truth in a loving fashion?
Our myriad troubles in this year, nearly 54 years after King’s death, offer us plenty of opportunities to seek this mix of firmness and respect, of protest and love. In the face of Cy-Fair ISD trustee Scott Henry’s distressful insinuations about Black teachers, we can frame the rejection of his rhetoric in the need to show support for educators of color.
It’s possible, and essential, to push against overreaching book bans in our schools by centering the need our children have for diverse representation and understanding — and to do so without demonizing the parents in opposition.
In his letter from jail, King wrote that those nonviolently combating injustice deserved praise, not scorn. We can remember their example and do the same in our time. When presented with opportunities to rage and disparage, we can choose instead to listen and engage.
This Martin Luther King Jr. Day, with a pandemic still raging, elections upcoming and structures of democracy straining, we might all be served well by reflecting on King’s example of agape love. In our time as in his, maintaining sight of our adversaries’ humanity is the key to victory and to peace.