Dear Editor,
I recently was waiting for a friend’s class to be dismissed, when I sat down in a chair and saw a copy of The Reflector sitting on an adjacent chair. I had a few minutes to spare, not enough to set up my laptop and get any work done, but too much to spend on my phone since I elect to stay off of social media. So, I leaned over and picked up the paper.
I have recently become a very active political observer, so I decided I would check out the opinions section. I flipped through and the article at the bottom of the page caught my attention: ‘People need to stop undermining the beliefs of MLK.’ “OK,” I thought, “this could go a few ways,” but I would not have guessed the article would do such a disservice to the important teachings of peaceful protest by Martin Luther King Jr.
I, in fact, had to read the article several times to make sure I was not misunderstanding the argument. I will admit I am willing to give the author the benefit of the doubt that the mis-characterization was not intentional. I am hopeful that this is the case.
The article used a quote from an interview with King conducted by CBS reporter Mike Wallace in September of 1966. The author claimed King “defended the Black Panthers and the riots that broke out during the Civil Rights Movement.”
He used the following quote by King as evidence for that claim: “Black power is, at bottom, a reaction to the reluctance of white power to make the kind of changes necessary to make justice a reality for the (African Americans)… I think that we’ve got to see that a riot is the language of the unheard.”
The author appears to be using the quote by King to justify violent protest methods used by modern movements and organizations like Black Lives Matter and the Anti-Fascists (a.k.a ANTIFA), and is using the quote out of context and without the proper analysis needed to reveal the true intention of King’s words.
So, what was the full context of King’s words? First off, it is worth noting this interview predates the founding of the Black Panthers, who were founded in October of 1966 one month after the interview. So, it is impossible that King intended to defend the organization with these words considering they did not yet exist.
Secondly, the author credited the report to Lily Rothman of Time, the original report was actually done by Mike Wallace of CBS as I have already said. There is an article by Rothman titled ‘What Martin Luther King Jr Really Thought About Riots,’ which contains the quotation in question that I can only assume our author is referring to.
Later in the article by Rothman, she writes, “King’s point, though subtle, is clear. He does not support violent tactics, including riots.” This contradicts the claim the author is trying to make that King was defending violent protest with these words.
Lastly, the context of the interview was that King had recently given a speech. In that speech King said, “Now what I’m saying is this: I would like for all of us to believe in non-violence, but I’m here to say tonight that if every Negro in the United States turns against non-violence, I’m going to stand up as a lone voice and say, ‘This is the wrong way!” And then in the interview, moments before making his statement on the ‘language of the unheard’ King said, “for the Negro to turn to violence would be both impractical and immoral.”
King was then asked about the minority of African Americans who believe violent protest is the better method of protest, which King responded to with the “language of the unheard” comment.
It is a far cry to suggest King was defending violent protest with this comment given the context of the many years of his life’s work prior to this statement, and the context of the two years following this statement, where he continued to teach this method until he was tragically shot and killed by a violent and hate-filled man.
It is far more likely that what King meant by the comment was that messages behind riots are not heard, because all people see when they see riots is violent people assailing innocent people and their property, and not a justified and righteously angry mob, which is how the mob likes to see themselves. King realized people react more positively to people participating in large peaceful protest, an idea he learned from Gandhi, which he then taught to us, and which is now immortalized in his legacy.
Again, I would like to give the author the benefit of the doubt that this mischaracterization was the result of a misunderstanding of the quote, and not intentional. That being said, the mistake made was a grave one that could cause damage to the legacy of a revered American Civil Rights activist.