Commentary: Think Dr. King Could’ve Ever Imagined That He’d Become a Worldwide Icon for Non-Violence?

By: Deborah Mathis, BlackAmericaWeb.com

Martin Luther King might have looked over and seen the Promised Land; and he may have dreamed of a day when people would be judged by their own behaviors and aptitudes and not pre-judged on the rigged scales of racial assumptions.

But I wonder if he ever imagined himself the worldwide, cross-over icon he has become.

It would have been as far-fetched a vision as any other, considering how reviled he was in his day -- not only by the frothing racists who bombed his home, threatened his life and denounced him as “Martin Luther Coon,” but by some of the same black Americans for whom he endured all of those slings and arrows.

Those of us of a certain age will recall that, unlike now, a good number of black people back in the day wished that King would shut up and sit down.

I remember distinctly the fall day in 1967 when a few of us gathered in the morning sunshine at a little joint across the street from Little Rock’s now-defunct West Side Junior High School. This being before the high-minded, conscientious days of good nutrition, we were scarfing down donuts and swigging chocolate milk.

“I heard Martin Luther King got arrested again last night,” said my friend, Clai.

I know now that this was the time Dr. King was jailed for four days in Birmingham because the U.S. Supreme Court had upheld a contempt-of-court conviction for King and seven other leaders of the Birmingham marches in May, 1963 -- the march that shook the country because it was then that Bull Connor turned the fire hoses and police dogs on demonstrators, including small children.

A girl I’ll call “B” shot back. “Good,” she said. “My daddy says he’s just making it harder for all the other Negroes.” A mini-debate broke out among us mini-philosophers, and then the first bell rang.

Like B’s father, a good many black people resented Dr. King for calling attention to black grievances, which raised suspicions among whites that they, too, might harbor such complaints and be prone to rebellion. In some cases, the presumption that a black man or woman was sympathetic to King -- and, therefore, full of “uppity” intentions -- could cost that man or woman a job, a mortgage or safe passage. No one knows where black opinion stood at the time -- we weren’t on the pollsters’ radars back then -- but it is safe to say that B’s father was not the Lone Ranger.

Tragically, Dr. King’s laurels did not arrive until some time after his assassination. On the whole, white Americans did not come to appreciate him until much later -- after the majesty and truth of his many admonitions on racial and economic justice and peace-making had been revealed.

All of which makes you wonder who might be speaking an unwelcome truth today. Who is being denounced by the very people at the vanguard of the effort. Who is being “hated on” now, only to be revered in retrospect.

“A prophet is not without honor, save in his own country,” said Jesus.

And in his or her own time.