MLK: On Achieving Consensus

2024-10-14 · Ho Chanh Nghia

Originally published on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/mlk-achieving-consensus-khanh-pham-bjluc/

MLK: On Achieving Consensus

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On March 9, 1965, people who were not from Selma, Ala., were angry.

They’d come from all over the country after hearing about the violent attack on Bloody Sunday. They were going to march from Selma to Montgomery again. But when organizers obeyed a court injunction and turned the crowd around, many of the predominately white crowd questioned the courage of the march’s high-profile leader. “We were mad; we were all ready to get our ass kicked that afternoon,” recalled Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Field Secretary Hardy Frye. “It was not only SNCC people. There were ministers, some Catholic priests, they were mad because they thought they were going to be martyrs for the cause that morning.”

On March 9, 1965, people who were not from Selma, Ala., were angry.

They’d come from all over the country after hearing about the violent attack on Bloody Sunday. They were going to march from Selma to Montgomery again. But when organizers obeyed a court injunction and turned the crowd around, many of the predominately white crowd questioned the courage of the march’s high-profile leader. “We were mad; we were all ready to get our ass kicked that afternoon,” recalled Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Field Secretary Hardy Frye. “It was not only SNCC people. There were ministers, some Catholic priests, they were mad because they thought they were going to be martyrs for the cause that morning.”

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Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.

On March 9, 1965, people who were not from Selma, Ala., were angry.

They’d come from all over the country after hearing about the violent attack on Bloody Sunday. They were going to march from Selma to Montgomery again. But when organizers obeyed a court injunction and turned the crowd around, many of the predominately white crowd questioned the courage of the march’s high-profile leader. “We were mad; we were all ready to get our ass kicked that afternoon,” recalled Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Field Secretary Hardy Frye. “It was not only SNCC people. There were ministers, some Catholic priests, they were mad because they thought they were going to be martyrs for the cause that morning.”

It wasn’t just white ministers who were disappointed. The 700 students from Tuskegee were “mad as hell” that the leaders were backing down from racist Alabama Gov. George Wallace’s stormtroopers. The young members of the SNCC, who had traveled from as far away as New York and Mississippi, felt “disgust and fury.” Outspoken organizer James Forman directed his ire at President Lyndon Johnson, declaring: “If we can’t sit at the table of democracy, we’ll knock the f*cking legs off!” But almost everyone blamed the march’s celebrity cowardly co-captain for stopping the protest.

They were not wrong.

Still, the popular co-captain didn’t care. It was not the first time he had been criticized for being too moderate. After he declined an offer to join the Freedom Rides a few years earlier, members of the multiracial Congress of Racial Equality accused him of being a pawn of white politicians. Birmingham’s legendary civil rights soldier threatened to tell the world he was a coward when the famous activist pressed pause on segregation protests and negotiated with white civic leaders. “When I see it on TV, that you have called it off, I will get up out of this, my sickbed, with what little ounce of strength I have, and lead them back into the street,” wrote the fearless Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, who was recovering from a violent beating. “And your name’ll be Mud.”

Six months after “Turnaround Tuesday,” that celebrity march captain stood in the Oval Office as President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. That same “politically ambitious” activist also convinced the Kennedy administration to protect the Freedom Riders and issue rules banning segregation on interstate transportation. Less than six days after suspending the Birmingham protests, “the most segregated place in America” struck a deal to integrate lunch counters, eliminate whites-only restrooms and start a “Negro employment” program. As it turns out, he was not a coward. His name was not “Mud.”

His name was Martin Luther King Jr.

In hindsight, it is easy to criticize; but what if he did not compromised. What if he had kicked the legs out of the table of democracy that did not have a spot for black people at the table?

What if MLK had been more like Putin of Russia, and really does kick the legs out of the table that Russian was not allowed to sit at?