Democracy Uprising
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      A new wave of movements against Trumpism is…

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      Hacer Que Nuestras Demandas Sean Tanto Orácticas Como…

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      Come il movimento Occupiamo Wall Street si sta…

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      ガンジーはどのように勝利したのか? (Japanese)

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      Imigração tem efeito positivo sobre emprego e salários

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      Arabic

      Abandoning the World Bank (in Arabic)

      Arabic

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Democracy Uprising

  • About
    • About Mark Engler
    • About Democracy Uprising
  • Books
    • This Is An Uprising
    • How To Rule the World
  • Topics
    • All Labor Latin America Social Movements Religion U.S. Politics / Elections War / Militarism Book Reviews Environment Essays / First Person Global Economy Immigration
      U.S. Politics / Elections

      Could we be entering a ‘movement moment’ against…

      Social Movements

      Trump’s backpedaling shows he’s not invincible

      Blog

      It’s going to take multiple strategies to win…

      2023-2025

      A new wave of movements against Trumpism is…

      Social Movements

      How to make sure your disruptive protest helps…

      Social Movements

      Why protests work, even when not everybody likes…

      Latest Articles

      Harold Washington’s lessons for taking on a political…

      Social Movements

      Strategy is a Craft

      Labor

      This new model for upholding labor law may…

      Labor

      Democrats Won Power in Several States. Will They…

      Labor

      The Case for a Social Distancing Wage

      Labor

      The Seattle Protests Showed That Another World Is…

      Labor

      Reviving the General Strike

      Labor

      Jeff Bezos Has Enough! It’s Time for a…

      Labor

      There’s Still Power in a Strike

      Labor

      The Amazon Effect: Sweat, Surveillance, Exploitation

      Latin America

      How movements can maintain their radical vision while winning…

      Latin America

      The Pan American

      Latin America

      Lessons from the Pledge of Resistance

      Latin America

      The Children of Intervention

      Latin America

      Against Shithole Nationalism

      Latin America

      The Last Porto Alegre

      Latin America

      Kissinger Is Not Our Friend

      Latin America

      Even If You Have Nothing to Hide

      Social Movements

      Could we be entering a ‘movement moment’ against…

      Social Movements

      Trump’s backpedaling shows he’s not invincible

      Social Movements

      It’s going to take multiple strategies to win…

      Social Movements

      A new wave of movements against Trumpism is…

      Social Movements

      How to make sure your disruptive protest helps…

      Social Movements

      Why protests work, even when not everybody likes…

      Social Movements

      Harold Washington’s lessons for taking on a political…

      Social Movements

      Strategy is a Craft

      Religion

      In God’s Country

      Religion

      Reverend Billy’s Holiday Shopocalypse

      Religion

      Toward the “Rights of the Poor”

      Religion

      The Pope and the Poor

      Religion

      Will the Next Pope Embrace Liberation Theology?

      Religion

      Remembering Romero

      Religion

      John Paul II’s Economic Ethics

      Religion

      Against the God of Free Trade

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      Could we be entering a ‘movement moment’ against…

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      Trump’s backpedaling shows he’s not invincible

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      It’s going to take multiple strategies to win…

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      A new wave of movements against Trumpism is…

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      Harold Washington’s lessons for taking on a political…

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      Strategy is a Craft

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      Think #MeToo didn’t make a real difference? Think…

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      This new model for upholding labor law may…

      War / Militarism

      Does It Make Sense to Protest a President…

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      Is Rambo Still A Republican?

      War / Militarism

      War: The Wrong Jobs Program

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      The Ascent of Niall Ferguson

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      Those Who Don’t Count

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      Six Essays About War and About Peace

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      The Dangerous Dignity of War

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      The Pan American

      Book Reviews

      The Godfather of Microcredit

      Book Reviews

      Capitalism as Catastrophe

      Book Reviews

      Four Ways of Looking at an Aztec Eagle

      Book Reviews

      The Ascent of Niall Ferguson

      Book Reviews

      Ordinary Outrages

      Book Reviews

      No Better Place

      Book Reviews

      In God’s Country

      Environment

      Why Wendell Matters

      Environment

      The Gulf at the Gas Station

      Environment

      Climate Disobedience

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      Farming the Everglades

      Environment

      The Winter of the Climate Denier

      Environment

      Climate of Change: An “Inside-Outside” Strategy Against Global…

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      Provoking an American Climate Crisis

      Environment

      The Real “Farmer” Story: So God Made High-Fructose…

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      Is Rambo Still A Republican?

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      Meet the Bailout’s New Slush Fund for Corporate…

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      The Seattle Protests Showed That Another World Is…

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      Jeff Bezos Has Enough! It’s Time for a…

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      The Amazon Effect: Sweat, Surveillance, Exploitation

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      The Godfather of Microcredit

      Global Economy

      Capitalism as Catastrophe

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      Immigration Economics: An Interview with Professor Giovanni Peri

      Global Economy

      The World Is Not Flat

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      When Undocumented Activists Infiltrated ICE

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      The Children of Intervention

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      Immigration Economics: An Interview with Professor Giovanni Peri

      Immigration

      Science Fiction From Below

      Immigration

      Four Ways of Looking at an Aztec Eagle

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      Treated Like a Criminal

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      When Sanctuary is Resistance

      Immigration

      The Massive Immigrants Rights Protests of 2006 Are…

  • Translations
    • All Italiano Japanese Português Arabic Thai Chinese Deutsch Español Français
      Translations

      Jordlösa kombinerar radikala visioner med praktiska reformer (Swedish)

      Español

      Hacer Que Nuestras Demandas Sean Tanto Orácticas Como…

      Italiano

      C’è più di un modo per colpire il…

      Português

      As reformas não reformistas de André Gorz mostram…

      Español

      Las reformas no reformistas de André Gorz

      Deutsch

      Die nicht-reformistischen Reformen von André Gorz

      Italiano

      Richieste dei movimenti: sia pratiche che visionarie

      Chinese

      泛美洲人 爱德华多·加莱亚诺的世界 (Chinese)

      Italiano

      C’è più di un modo per colpire il…

      Italiano

      Richieste dei movimenti: sia pratiche che visionarie

      Italiano

      La strategia di Gandhi per il successo –…

      Italiano

      Le promesse infrante di Obama

      Italiano

      Guantanamo deve sparire

      Italiano

      IL BANK TRANSFER DAY: UN SUCCESSO

      Italiano

      Come il movimento Occupiamo Wall Street si sta…

      Italiano

      Economia tabù

      Japanese

      ガンジーはどのように勝利したのか? (Japanese)

      Japanese

      Truth Versus Superpower (Japanese)

      Japanese

      Bush’s Bad Business Empire (Japanese)

      Japanese

      Revenge of the Combat Cartoonist (Japanese)

      Japanese

      Bush’s Uneasy Mexican Visita (Japanese)

      Japanese

      Mark Twain in Iraq (Japanese)

      Japanese

      Globalization’s “Lost Decade” (Japanese)

      Japanese

      Hawks Say the Damnedest Things (Japanese)

      Português

      As reformas não reformistas de André Gorz mostram…

      Português

      A vida na Nação Prisão

      Português

      Outro pretexto?

      Português

      Imigração tem efeito positivo sobre emprego e salários

      Português

      O império hipotecado

      Arabic

      Abandoning the World Bank (in Arabic)

      Arabic

      The Return of Daniel Ortega (in Arabic)

      Arabic

      Where’s The Jubilee? (in Arabic)

      Arabic

      The Last Porto Alegre (in Arabic)

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      Seattle At Five (in Arabic)

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      Is Market Access the Answer to Poverty? (in…

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      Mexico’s Democratic Transition Still Incomplete (in Arabic)

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      2006: A Global Justice Year in Review (In…

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      WTO: Best Left For Dead? (In Thai)

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      Die nicht-reformistischen Reformen von André Gorz

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      Als Martin Luther King seine Feuerwaffen aufgab

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      Mikrokredite: Die Entlassung eines Nobelpreisträgers

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      CAFTA – am besten stillschweigend beerdigen

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      Bush in Mexiko

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      Das globale Duell in Evian

      Deutsch

      Die Rückkehr des Daniel Ortega

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      Hacer Que Nuestras Demandas Sean Tanto Orácticas Como…

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      Las reformas no reformistas de André Gorz

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      ¿Adoptará el nuevo papa la teología de la…

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      Wall Street quiere que les estemos agradecidos

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      Si Las Monjas Se Fueran a una Huelga,…

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      ALEC retrocede; a la derecha le da un…

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      ¿ALEC disgustado ante la pérdida de patrocinadores? Se…

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      Le pari risqué du populisme au Pérou

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      Bush Nuit Même Aux Compagnies U.S.

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      Le dynamisme du mouvement pour la paix

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      La guerre en Irak : une expo des…

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Past FavoritesFrom the Archives2015-2016Social MovementsU.S. Politics / Elections

Martin Luther King Jr. Was a Disruptor Not a Peacemaker

by Mark Engler and Paul Engler April 7, 2016
written by Mark Engler and Paul Engler April 7, 2016
Martin Luther King Jr. Was a Disruptor Not a Peacemaker

Like those of Black Lives Matter activists today, King’s methods were widely criticized—even when they were effective.

Published in Salon.


Martin Luther King Jr. is often held up as one of the leading pacifists in American history—a moral voice who called for the nation to come together across lines of racial division.

Yet, while this vision of King as a peaceable and unifying figure may be comforting, it is incomplete at best and in many ways misleading.

In its time, King’s use of nonviolent resistance generated a nearly unending stream of controversy. And in this era of Black Lives Matter, it is critical to remember that, far more than a serving as a peacemaker, King was an advocate of disruption.

Looking back from the safe remove of history, it can be easy to imagine that landmark social and political causes of the past—whether they involved ending slavery, securing the franchise for women, or establishing standards of workplace safety—were popular and widely celebrated. But the truth is that these issues generated tremendous acrimony. In promoting them, activists had to make the difficult decision to invite division and hostility before they achieved their most impressive results.

King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) often drew criticism not only from defenders of segregation, but also would-be allies who believed the protests the organization helped lead were unduly abrasive and ultimately counter-productive. In this way, King bears much in common with the #BlackLivesMatter activists who are currently being attacked for perceived impatience and incivility in promoting their cause.

* * * * *

The Peril of Lukewarm Support

Today, groups ranging from climate change divestment activists on campuses, to immigrants’ rights advocates, to Black Lives Matter protesters are constantly told that they are going about things in the wrong way—particularly if they dare to undertake actions that are disruptive. Yet, as we argue in our new book, This Is an Uprising, disruption is not incidental to the success of protest movements—it is essential. As Martin Luther King Jr. discovered, confrontational action may make some supporters uncomfortable, but it nevertheless provides crucial force in leveraging change.

In November 2015, after 24-year-old Minneapolis resident Jamar Clark—an unarmed black man—was shot and killed by police, Black Lives Matter activists set up an encampment at the Police Department’s Fourth Precinct headquarters. U.S. Representative Keith Ellison, widely known as a champion of progressive causes, initially expressed support for the protesters. However, after five activists were shot by a group of white supremacists in front of the camp, Ellison joined Mayor Betsy Hodges and a variety of other local officials in releasing a joint statement calling for “ending the occupation at the Fourth Precinct immediately.”

In a social media exchange with Black Lives Matter activists that followed, Ellison invoked King to defend his position against the protest encampment. He tweeted “Pls read Letter From Birmingham Jail. MLK didn’t just sit on Edmund Pettus Bridge. Moved to 1965 Voting Right Act.”

Although Representative Ellison possesses a strong record on civil rights, in this case Black Lives Matter activists were correct to charge that Ellison was getting King’s famous letter exactly wrong.

Today, King’s 1963 “Letter from Birmingham City Jail” is viewed as an eloquent explanation of the aims and methods of the struggle against segregation. It stands as one of the most significant and closely studied essays written by one of America’s national heroes. It is less commonly remembered, however, that King did not write the letter as a response to racist opponents. Instead, he was addressing would-be supporters who criticized the movement’s approach as too uncompromising and impetuous.

On April 12, 1963, during the second week of mass protests in Alabama, King, along with his close friend Ralph Abernathy and forty-six other demonstrators, was arrested for kneeling down in prayer in front of Birmingham’s City Hall, a clear violation of the recently instated injunction against public demonstrations in the city. The day after the arrest, eight clergymen, prominent white liberals from the state, published an open letter in the Birmingham News voicing their opposition to the direct action tactics being used by King, the SCLC, and the local Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights.

Uncomfortable with the heedless confrontation of the civil rights campaign, the ministers wrote, “We recognize the natural impatience of people who feel that their hopes are slow in being realized. But we are convinced that these demonstrations are unwise and untimely.”

“When rights are consistently denied,” the ministers further argued, “a cause should be pressed in the courts and negotiations among local leaders, and not in the streets.”

Having been placed in solitary confinement, King was unnerved by the isolation of imprisonment. Yet when he was permitted news from the outside and he saw the ministers’ open letter, he focused his attention. He promptly began writing a reply on whatever scraps of paper he could find.

King charged that the ministers preferred order to justice. “You are exactly right in your call for negotiation,” he wrote. “Indeed, this is the purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront an issue.”

Due to the previous intransigence of local powerbrokers, King argued, civil rights protesters had little choice but to take up direct action “whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and national community.”

Although the letter started polite, King soon expressed a righteous frustration with ostensible allies who devoted themselves to criticizing the movement. “Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will,” he wrote. “Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”

* * * * *

Pressure, Not Proposals

Black Lives Matter activists were right in their contention that Ellison and other members of Minnesota’s political establishment—in taking the stance of those “who [agree] with the goal, but not the tactics” of protest—were adopting the role of King’s interlocutors.

A common complaint of such critics is that those employing nonviolent resistance today do not focus narrowly enough on legal and legislative plans that might be feasibly implemented by those in power. Ellison’s mention of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and his claims that Black Lives Matter activists should train their attention on the grand jury proceedings in the Jamar Clark case, reflects this bias.

Yet this is a misreading of what made the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s effective in the first place. As historian and King scholar Adam Fairclough argues, Martin Luther King Jr. “maintained to the end of his life that it was far more important to dramatize the broader issues and generate the pressure for change than to draft precise or specific legislation. The exact manner in which the federal government responded to the problem of discrimination did not greatly concern SCLC. What mattered was that its response should be determined, vigorous, and thorough. The administration responded to pressure, King reasoned, not proposals.”

Nor did King believe that the need for disruptive protest had grown any less urgent following the passage of major civil rights legislation in 1964 and 1965. In a lecture delivered in late 1967—later collected in a book entitled The Trumpet of Conscience—King argued, “There is nothing wrong with a traffic law which says you have to stop for a red light. But… when a man is bleeding to death, the ambulance goes through those red lights at top speed.”

Despite advances such as the Voting Rights Act, King stated, “by now it is obvious that new laws are not enough.” He argued, “There is a fire raging now for the Negroes and the poor of this society,” and what was needed was a strategy of “massive civil disobedience” that would be “at least as forceful as an ambulance with its siren on full.”

To address this emergency, King intended to lead a Poor People’s Campaign of nonviolent direct action in Washington, DC in the summer of 1968. Sadly, he was assassinated before he could carry this out. In many respects, the Black Lives Matter movement is taking up the unfinished business of the 1960s—and it is using the same tactics of nonviolent of confrontation that King envisioned in order to create the pressure needed for change to take place.

No doubt, as protests continue in the future—around urgent issues such as racial justice, climate change, economic inequality, and the corporate hijacking of democracy—we will again hear a familiar refrain: that activists are unduly divisive; that their demonstrations are untimely and counterproductive; that they should show more patience in letting the system respond; and that they need to be more pragmatic in laying out legislative remedies.

We should see these criticisms as a natural outgrowth of activists’ decision to follow the path of Martin Luther King Jr.—to take up a legacy of activism that was effective, but that was first disruptive.

__________

Photo Credit: Andy Witchger / Wikimedia Commons.

DisruptionBlack Lives MatterMartin Luther King
Mark Engler and Paul Engler

Mark Engler is a writer based in Philadelphia and an editorial board member at Dissent magazine. Paul Engler is founding director of the Center for the Working Poor, in Los Angeles. They are the authors of This Is an Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the Twenty-First Century.

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The Author

Mark Engler is a writer based in Philadelphia and an editorial board member at Dissent magazine. His latest book, written with Paul Engler, is entitled This Is an Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the Twenty-First Century (Nation Books). Mark’s full bio is available here.

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