[In honor of Martin
Luther King Jr. Day, a week’s series on histories and stories salient to
understanding and engaging with the life and legacy of one of our greatest
Americans. Please add your responses and other MLK connections for a
crowd-sourced weekend post!]
On the significance
of two post-King generations and leaders.
There’s a
direct, and almost contemporaneous, through-line that links Martin Luther King,
Jr. to Jesse Jackson and then to Al Sharpton. Fiery 24 year old Jackson had
come to King’s attention after the 1965 Selma marches, and by 1967 had become
the national
director of Operation Breadbasket, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
(SCLC)’s economic organization. He was close enough to King to be with him at
Memphis at the time of his assassination, and continued to run Operation
Breadbasket after that tragic event. And a year later, in 1969, Jackson
appointed a charismatic and ambitious 14 year old, Al Sharpton, as the youth
director of Operation Breadbasket’s New York City branch. Even if you’re
not willing to link Jackson and Sharpton in the negative,
Fox News kind of way—and it should go without saying that I’m not—the two
men are indeed inextricably linked by that organizational connection, and
through it to King and his legacy.
When it comes to
how they have carried that legacy forward, however, I would have to separate
the two. Two of Jackson’s most prominent endeavors, his early 1970s founding of
the new political and social organization People
United to Save Humanity (PUSH; the S was later change to Serve) and his
1984 creation of the
Rainbow Coalition and subsequent
presidential candidacy, represented what I could call important next steps
for a post-1960s Civil Rights Movement, bringing similar perspectives and
activisms to bear on evolving and new concerns and issues. Sharpton has helped
create his own such organizations, from 1971’s National Youth Movement to 1991’s
National Action Network, and I
don’t want to downplay the significance of those efforts. But Sharpton’s most
consistent role has been as a media presence and voice, culminating in his
current work as both
a radio and television host.
The size and scope of media have of course grown substantially since King’s
era, however, so this too could be seen as a next step in the legacy of his
activism and movement.
Each man has in any
case followed his own personal and career path, and there’s no way to know with
any certainty whether and how King would have connected to these next steps
(although Coretta
Scott King apparently declined to endorse Jackson’s presidential candidacy,
arguing that her husband would never have run for president). But while I will
admit to preferring many of Jackson’s choices to Sharpton’s (I’m not sure that
being a syndicated radio and TV host is conducive to activism, to put it bluntly),
it seems to me that the ideal way to view all three men is additive, rather
than as alternatives or opposed. That is, the history and story of the Civil
Rights Movement over the last sixty years cannot be told without all three, and
more importantly without the broader factors and issues that they collectively
help us remember. One of the great tragedies of American history is that King
did not live to contribute to all those subsequent efforts, and no one can
replace him; but Jackson and Sharpton have offered their own meaningful contributions,
and have become an important part of King’s legacy in the process.
Crowd-sourced
post this weekend,
Ben
PS. So one more
time: what do you think? Responses or other connections you’d share for that
weekend post?
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