Fighting for the Good Life
The use of non-violent,
passive resistance as a
tool of the oppressed: Dr.
King's vision of the good
life. The Declaration of
Independence adopted on
July 4, 1776, boldly
states: "We hold these
truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created
equal, and are endowed by
their Creator with certain
inalienable Rights, that
among these are Life,
Liberty and the pursuit
of Happiness. And that to
secure these rights,
Governments are instituted
among Men, deriving their
just powers from the
consent of the governed."
Indeed today, we Americans
say that these words are
sacred to this nation and
dear to all our hearts.
Yet when the signers to
this declaration penned
these beautiful words they
turned a blind eye to
the fact that millions of
black men, women, and
children were held in
perpetual slavery at
that very moment in these
United Colonies that
sought to be free of
British oppression. Some
of the signers were,
themselves, owners of
those enslaved, and
purposely omitted them
in their vision of the
beloved community they
would build and the good
life that would be had by
all its citizens. All men,
and women, may be created
equal, but slavery -
America's original sin
of inequality - was left
unaddressed in
the Declaration of
Independence. By no
stretch of anyone's
imagination could it be
said that those enslaved
were living the good
life forecast in that
Declaration which said
that it was everyone's
right to life, liberty and
the pursuit of happiness.
In 1776 those enslaved
did not have any of these
rights, nor was it
believed that they should
expect them. Theirs was
a brutish life of toil,
cruelty, inhumane
treatment of every
imaginable sort meant to
last forever. Over the
years, between 1776 and
1865, those enslaved would
be stripped of any idea
of citizenship. This was
affirmed by the U.S.
Supreme Court in its Dred
Scott Decision, pronounced
on March 6, 1857. Chief
Justice Roger Taney,
writing for the majority,
ruled that people of
African descent imported
into the U.S. and held
as slaves, or their
descendants, whether
slaves or not, were not
protected by the U.S.
Constitution and could
never be citizens of the
United States. Needless to
say, this ruling dashed
the hopes of the 4 million
enslaved African Americans
and the hundreds of
thousands of free persons
of African descent then
living in this nation.
Those enslaved and those
legally free would suffer
on under the lash of the
slave and in severely
restricted circumstances
would offer those with
nominally free status for
another half decade and
beyond. Racism in the
northern states was as
entrenched as slavery in
the south, and it would
take a civil war to shake
them both. Even the man
who many would hail as the
Great Emancipator, Abraham
Lincoln, was like most
whites whether they
opposed slavery or not;
could not see African
Americans as equals or
beneficiaries of the good
life here in America. He
stated during his
senatorial campaign
conflicting things. In one
case, in July of 1858 in
Chicago, he affirmed the
idea that all men are
created equal. But in
another speech two months
later, during that
same election while in
Charleston, Illinois,
he expressed something
entirely different - a
racist view saying that he
was not in favor of
equality between the races
nor did he feel that
blacks should have the
rights of citizens.
Lincoln's double
consciousness on this
matter was similar to many
of the non-southern white
citizens. They wanted an
end to slavery for
business or professional
reasons but never did
they see 4 million freed
African Americans being
able to live as citizens
on an equal footing with
whites here in the states.
The good life in America
could not have black
citizens as equals in it.
This is why Lincoln and so
many others of his
persuasion advocated for
the colonization of freed
blacks back to Africa. The
West African country of
Liberia was created for
this purpose, as a
homeland for free blacks.
It would take a war. The
U.S. Civil War was the
last thing that Lincoln
wanted when he was elected
as the sixteenth president
of these United States in
the fall of 1860, but
seven states seceded
before he could take
office on March 4th and
they began initiating
hostilities by attacking
Fort Sumter in South
Carolina on April 12th of
that year. Lincoln fought
back, trying to repossess
the federal base which led
to four additional states
seceding, and the Civil
War was on. Lincoln was
clear that his intention
in pursuing this war was
not to free the slaves,
but rather to save the
Union. Yet circumstances
forced him to begin at
least a partial
emancipation, even if only
for military purposes.
Issuing the proclamation
in September of 1862 he
gave the South four months
to stop rebelling,
threatening to emancipate
their slaves if they did
not end their hostilities.
The proclamation would not
become law until January
1, 1863, and only freed
those slaves in states
that were in open
rebellion against the
Union. Only 22,000 slaves
out of 4 million were
freed by the proclamation. Nonetheless, it was an
important milestone in the
African American struggle
for freedom as it provided
the legal framework for
the emancipation of those
3,978,000 who were legally
still in bondage on the
day the proclamation went
into effect. At the end
of that great civil war on
April 9, 1865, the
bloodiest to be held on
the American land mass,
620,000 soldiers lay dead
and an unknown number of
civilians had been killed
or died from starvation
or disease. Ten percent of
northern males between
the ages of 25 and 45 were
dead. The south had taken
the greatest hit - thirty
percent of all southern
males between 18 and 40
were dead. Most of its
plantations and its farm
lands had been devastated
and those they died to
keep in bondage were free.
Much blood had been shed
to bring slavery to an
end. Yet the captives had
been set free and there
was rejoicing in the land.
Slowly but surely God's
children were moving
toward that promised
land articulated in the
Declaration toward the
good life that their
forbearers had wished and
prayed for since being
brought to these shores
from Africa against their
will. Yet freedom and
the good life were not in
hand. It would be a very
long time before this
would happen. It would be
almost a century later.
Getting to the good
life through non-violent
resistance. "The only
chain that a man can stand
is the chain of hand in
hand. Keep your eyes on
the prize. Hold on. Hold
on. The only thing that we
did wrong - stayed in the
wilderness a day too long.
Keep your eyes on the
prize. Hold on. Hold on.
But the one thing we
did right was the day we
started to fight. Keep
your eyes on the prize.
Hold on. Hold on." (from
the traditional freedom
song, Keep Your Eyes on
the Prize) Noted historian
and civil rights activist
Vincent Harding, wrote in
his "Eyes on the Prize
Civil Rights Reader", "The
images strike us...
Images: Men and women...
there on the screen,
standing firm, unarmed,
facing gun-wielding,
menacing police and state
troopers, standing their
ground, refusing to give
in to their fears,
discovering powerful
weapons, old and new, at
the center of their lives.
Men and women, possessed
by new power, determined
to be counted as full
citizens of this nation,
committed to transform
this grand and needy
country, in search of
"a more perfect union."
Images: Women, men,
and children, standing,
sometimes being smashed
down to the ground, paying
the price for wanting
justice, for believing in
a more perfect union.
Broken bones, bleeding
heads, but spirits
undaunted, returning from
beds and hospitals
and jails to stand and
struggle again - for
justice, for freedom, for
the right to vote, for
equal access, for a
"domestic tranquility"
that we have not yet
experienced, for a new
society for us all." These
images that Dr. Harding
describes were the people
of the civil rights
movement who decided it
was time for this country
to make good on the
promises it made at the
end of the Civil War,
promises enshrined in the
thirteenth and fourteenth
amendments to The
Constitution, promises
supposedly guaranteed by
the blood of all those
620,000 black and white
soldiers and an unknown
number of civilians who
died to save this Union,
to free the slaves and at
long last give them the
rights of citizenship
of life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness so
long denied. By the 1950s
these long-suffering people
had had enough and said
said it is time that they
too partake of the good life
of America. No more slave,
no more second class
citizen, no more, no more.
Martin Luther King, in a
speech in 1962 said, "We
are simply seeking to
bring into full
realization the American
dream - a dream yet
unfulfilled, a dream of
equality of opportunity,
of privilege and property
widely distributed; a
dream where people no
longer argue that the
color of a person's skin
determines the content
of their character; where
every person will respect
the dignity and worth of
human personality. When
this is realized the
jangling discords of our
nation will be transformed
into a beautiful symphony
of brotherhood, and people
everywhere will know that
America is truly the land
of the free." But how
could this be done given
the entrenched traditions
in the South of racial
discrimination and
segregation? It was the
African American's
religious belief and
deeply held faith that
enabled them to triumph in
the face of such
entrenched hatred. In Dr.
King's 1963  "I Have a
Dream" speech he said,
"I'm going back to the
South with faith that our
people can hew a stone of
hope from a mountain of
despair." This was the
iconic image that captures
the philosophy of the
Civil Rights Movement. It
is representative of the
faith that drove black,
southern protestors
to their extraordinary
victories in the
mid-1960s. Black people
and their leaders, King
especially, knew how
difficult was the task
that lay before them.
While despair at changing
this racist tradition was
the mountain, their
faith in God and the
righteousness of their
cause was the hope that
they would use to hew out
freedom and justice from
that mountain of despair.
Writing for   The Nation
magazine in 1965, Dr.
King reminisced about how
things had unfolded in
the movement, on the
skepticism that abounded
at the end of 1963 when
some asked "What progress
has been made?" in the
face of more than a
million blacks marching,
sitting in, and going to
jail. Yet by the close of
that next year, 1964, a
number of major victories
had been won, and nothing
conferrable had occurred
in the 100 years before.
Of course, the most
important of these
victories was the 1964
Civil Rights Act, and then
the year after that the
1965 Voting Rights Act.
These two pieces of
legislation emerge as
the critical watershed in
terms of the inclusion of
African Americans into the
collective American
identity. But still, one
has to wonder, how did
this movement happen, how
did it become the most
successful, social
movement in American
history? Dr. King
addresses that in that
1965   Nation article. He
said that the
demonstrations had a
creative effect on the
social and psychological
climate that had not
been matched by any other
efforts to win redress,
such as the lawsuits or
the legislation. Those
who had lived under the
corrosive humiliation of
daily intimidation were
imbued by demonstrations
with a sense of courage
and dignity that
strengthened their
personalities. Through
demonstrations those who
were oppressed learned
that unity and militancy
had more force than
bullets. They found that
the bruises of billy
clubs, electric cattle
prods, and fists hurt
less than the scars of
submission. And, says Dr.
King, the segregationists
also learned from these
demonstrations; that
blacks were no longer
afraid and they refused to
be subservient or
second-class citizens any
longer. And the nation
also had their eyes opened
as they watched this play
between the forces of good
and evil every night on
the national news. They
learned that inhumanity
and racist brutality wore
an official badge and
wielded the power of law
in this nation that prided
itself as being just and
fair to all. King wrote
specifically about the
non-violent aspect of our
movement, and how it had
worked over the years. He
said, "We use non-violence
in a special way. While
operating on the basis of
total community
involvement we sought to
make as many people as
possible activists in
their own communities. We
drew in people from every
aspect of the community."
People from the
industrialized areas,
the farmers, the
professionals, the young,
the old, the middle-aged,
all had a role to play.
And this was another part
of the non-violent
strategy used in this
movement. While it took
the U.S. Congress to pass
these laws, in fact, these
laws were written in the
streets by the thousands
who put their bodies on
the line, who were beaten,
who went to jail, and some
even killed, that forced
this government to do the
right thing. These
thousands in the streets
created a coalition of
conscience which awakened
a sleeping Congress to the
gross injustices against
black citizens in this
land. And as he so
beautifully wrote, "This
legislation was polished
and refined in the marble
halls of Congress, but the
vivid marks of its origins
were written in the
turmoil of mass meetings
and marches, and the vigor
and momentum of its
turbulent birth carried
past the voting and
insured substantial
compliance." Dr. King was
clear that the African
Americans' weapon of
non-violent, direct action
was their only serviceable
tool against injustice.
Non-violent, direct action
was the African Americans'
sword in their struggle
for justice. By resisting
racism and injustice
non-violently, African
Americans gave the
American people a choice:
a choice between a future
of progress with racial
justice, or stagnation
with ancient privilege.
The American people, in
overwhelming numbers,
voted for justice. Dr.
King's vision of the good
life includes all
races, all classes, all
religions, all ethnic
groups, and ultimately,
all nations. For King
the good life transcends
racial, economic, social,
political, and cultural
lines. May we all now
commit to Dr. King's dream
of the good life for all,
and work non-violently to
see its realization.