In 1953, a landmark case was heard by the Supreme Court of the United States. Brown v. The Board of Education led to the outlawing of separate but equal schools. One of the principle foundations of a segregated South began to crumble. Two years later, the struggle to bring Jim Crow segregation to an end took another step when the Montgomery Bus boycotts were launched by the actions on an unassuming woman by the name of Rosa Parks. The boycott lasted for 385 days, and it brought a name and a face to the attention of Americans of all races: Martin Luther King, Jr.

For the next five years, King would alter the face of the Black Church. Beginning with the Montgomery Boycott, and continuing for another five years, King effected a virtual reversal of black religion life. Prior to King, the Black Church has grown increasingly conservative. Many Black ministers went on record in opposition to the launching of a campaign of civil disobedience to bring an end to Jim Crow segregation, and the National Baptist Convention, Inc., the principle Black Baptist group took a reactionary posture. Confronted with this sheer apathy where social change was concerned, Martin Luther King helped to make the black church relevant again.

He did so, by launching a revival that took place largely outside the institutional church. The agency for this revival were such para-church groups as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference which was formed in 1957. Groups such as this, drew in leadership from outside the Southern church, and became the center and focus for King's activities on behalf of civil rights. And yet, ironically, it was this para-church body and the civil rights movement it helped engender, sparked a religious revival within the Black Church.

Who Was Martin Luther King, Jr?

Martin Luther King, Jr. tends to be stereotyped in one of two ways. He is painted as either being a saint or a black radical. But in reality, he was neither. King came from a long line of Baptist ministers. He attended Morehouse College, and received his seminary degree from Crozier Theological Seminary. When he received his Ph.D in the 50's from Boston University, he was one of the most educated black men in America.

He was the son of one of Atlanta's leading ministers, and his family one of the most prominent black families in the South. He could have led the good life. But King instead choose to lead a movement of social reform. He became involved in the civil rights struggle in 1955 with the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and under his leadership he helped bring together members of the African-American middle class and black preachers to create a movement that he would remain at the forefront of for the remainder of his career.

King faced almost constant criticism throughout his career, much of it harsh. His enemies circulated rumors of his affairs, rumors that were latter confirmed. There was also innuendo about his academic record. He was accused, for instance, of plagiarism on his Ph.D. dissertation. But in the face of these attacks, he not only persevered, he succeeded. Like such Biblical figures as Abraham and David--each of whom had their own moral failings--King did not succumb to weakness, but overcame it. As a result, the landscape of modern America will never be the same. His strategy of civil disobedience and his philosophy of non-violent resistance made him one of the most influential Americans to ever live.

Influences

King's strategy of civil disobedience and his philosophy of non-violence was shaped by four major influences.

First, King was deeply influenced by Ghandi's concept of satyagrapha or true force. He was introduced to this concept while at Crozier. As he reflected on Ghandi's teaching, he began to sense that there is in the natural order of things an eternal truth, and that once one has glimpsed that truth, one can never again be the same. One is compelled to act on it. For King the essence of this truth was non-violence. The force of one's moral character--not acts of violence--can change even ingrained social institutions like segregation.

The second influence was the Sermon on the Mount. This served as the bedrock of King's philosophy of non-violence. He believed that Christian love was valid not only for individual relationships, but social relationships as well. More importantly, Christian love could become the instrument for reforming the social order.

The third influence on King was Reinhold Niebuhr's concept of social evil. King studied Niebuhr in seminary and graduate school, and was impressed with his "Christian Realism." King, like Niebuhr, was not so naive or simplistic to assume that love in simple terms would ever be sufficient to the reform social order. But this love could be expressed in tangible, real ways that would have a social and political impact. In the Montgomery Bus Boycott, for instance, King had learned about the "real" impact of such measures on the finances of a community, and how that impact could be leveraged to bring about needed social reform.

Fourth, King was shaped by Hegel's dialectic. He learned from Hegel about the possiblities for growth through conflict and struggle.

Birmingham

Looking back over thirty years of history, many may find it difficult to believe that not everyone accepted Martin Luther King's leadership as a given. In 1961, the Progressive Baptist Convention went on record as opposing King and his strategy as being too confrontational. Many African-Americans were fearful that he threatened to upset the delicate equilibrium between the races that existed in the South. (In reality, there was nothing delicate about it, as we shall soon see.)

It was in this setting that King elected to target Birmingham in 1963, and force the integration of that city. The year before, the City of Birmingham had closed all public parks, and other public facilities to keep from them from being integrated. Many of leaders of local African-American community had been arrested in a series of protests, and T. Eugene "Bull" Connor, the chief of police, had no qualms about using fire-hoses on demonstrators or German shepherds. It was not the most auspicious place to employ a strategy of non-violence.

It did not take long before Martin Luther King, Jr. had an opportunity to put his strategy of non-violence to the test. The occasion of King's arrest was a sit-in at a stand-up lunch counter in a local discount store. When he and five others sought service they were told that the counter was closed. When they refused to leave, they were arrested. In the demonstrations that resulted from their arrest, police dogs used against those objecting to segregated lunch facilities. King and his fellow protestors were refused visitors, and the setting of bail was delayed. The local papers reported that the demonstrators were from Ohio in an effort to assure people that these problems were simply the result of outside agitators.

Despite the non-violent nature of these protests, white church leaders in Birmingham responded with a statement calling the demonstrations "unwise and untimely." Among those signing this statement were "C.C.J. Carpenter, Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Alabama; the Rev. Joseph A. Durick auxiliary bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Mobile-Birmingham, and Rabbi Milton L. Grafman of Temple Emanu-el." In addition, they urged the withdrawal of support for the protests by "our own Negro community."

But the real problem in the South was not these non-violent protests. On the day that King was arrested, two boys had thrown firebombs in Clarksdale, Mississippi at the home where Congressman Charles C. Diggs of Michigan had been staying. When two white young men were arrested, they were quoted as saying they were "just having fun." Such was the atmosphere of the times, one these white clergy were strangely blind to.

Martin Luther King responded to these White clergy with a letter written from his cell. In this famous Letter from the Birmingham Jail, King challenged the group of 10 white ministers who wrote him to protest his efforts to desegregate Birmingham. In responding, King pointed out that universal truth has a power and force unto itself. It compels people to do things in the face of adversity because they can do nothing else. When one knows the truth, it has a power that is too great to deny. It is not something that can be compromised.

The truth--King pointedly reminded them--was a social system of racial segregation that was not only demeaning of African-Americans, but one that had lost its moral legitimacy. Who best represented the Christian faith? Those who spoke out against such a social system, or those who lamented those engaged in protest? Which side was more representative of the Christian faith? The men who were in jail or those content to offer pieties about the need to obey the law from their comfortable quarters? Can a person be Christian, King asked, if he or she doesn't do anything in the face of this monumental evil?

It was at this point that King exposed the moral failings of the white clergy of Birmingham. They were hiding behind a faith in two spheres: the public and private, the secular and the sacred, statecraft and soul-craft. While Whites accepted without challenge the idea that one can draw such distinctions, King drew on the rich resources of the Black Church which refuses to separate or compartmentalize life in this way. African-American spirituality taught that there is a unity of sacred and secular, that the entire world belongs to God, and all within it. And because of that, there can be no separation between church and state or society and the church.

As a result of King's efforts in Birmingham, the nation was galvanized to change the system of segregation and racial proscription that had reigned since the Civil War. Later in 1963, King would lead the famous march on Washington in which he announced that he had "a dream": a society in which people were not judged by the color of their skin, but the content of their character. (For audio of this famous speech, click here.) That same year, King was named Man of the Year, a fitting judgment on the character of his faith in peaceful non-violence. Five years later--in 1968--this man of peace had been assassinated.

Some Consequences

Not only did King change the direction of American history, and bring fundamental changes in the relationships of African-Americans and Whites, he also made many other, but less well known, contributions to the world around him.

For instance, King's strategy of civil disobedience and non-violence served to rescue the symbolism of Christianity from a state of deterioration. The Cross was one such symbol. For many Americans, it had lost its meaning, becoming little more than a religious logo. But King saw it as a symbol of Christian love. He felt, however, that the power of that love had been suppressed. In a world where dogs could be unleased on peaceful demonstrators, he called on those who were the victims of these attacks to transcend the hatred directed at them, and to show the same love that Jesus had shown to his enemies nearly 2,000 years earlier.

King also was almost single-handedly responsible for a major shift in American public opinion where social justice was concerned. He couched his appeal for social justice in the idiom of evangelical religion. He was so effective in this, that one could deny his appeal only by denying the faith he was proclaiming. As a result, King was able to transform religious fervor into social action, thereby creating the political leadership and the movement for social change under the umbrella of religion. In so doing, he helped to blur the line between the sacred and secular that so many Americans took for granted. By combining dexterously, the revival techniques of the black church, the essence of Old Testament religion, and a modern day philosophy and strategy, King was able to convert the religiosity of the thousands who came to hear him into a passion for justice now.