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lie MLK/The Charlotte Post Thursday, January 11,1996 A biography of Martin Luther King Jr. I Happy Birthday MLK Jr. Phillip Osborne Continued From IOC Montgomery bus boy cott of 1955 and 1956, King’s leadership gradually shifted from the religious to the pohtical realm, but his worldview remained constant. Although family connections contributed to his rapid emergence as a national spokesperson for the civil rights movement, he chal lenged educated and affluent blacks to revive the African American prophetic tradition. Publicly crit icizing Cold War liber alism and capitalist materialism while also rejecting communism, King admitted in “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story” (1958) that reading the works of Karl Marx had reinforced his long held concern “about the gulf between superfluous wealth and abject poverty.” He charged that capitalist materialism was “always in danger of inspiring men to be more concerned about making a living than making a hfe.” King’s evolving eclectic radi calism mixed his Christian and Gandhian non-violent civil disobedience with the socialist tradition and with anti-colonial currents flowing out of the successful inde pendence movements in west Africa. King’s growing influ ence resulted not from his intellectual origi nality bat from his political and moral leadership. Yet his public role was always undergirded by his thinking, just as his incomparable oratory drew its power not only from his training as an elocutionist preacher, but from his study of history and ideas theology and phi losophy. His key legacy for Christian ethics and for American polit ical thought was his reassertion, in the face of mid-century Nieburian skepticism about ideals such as pacifism, of the doc trine of non-violent resistance. Drawing on the African-American social gospel precepts instilled in him as a child, as well as the ideas of Gandhi, Jesus, and on the early Niebuhr of “Moral Man and Immoral Society” (1932), King argued that unwar ranted suffering was redemptive—and, in the particular case of Americans, the only politically effective strategy in the strug gle for rights. King was restating the long standing liberal Protestant tenet that the law of love should rule in all spheres of life, private and public. But he gave that doc trine new saliency by demonstrating insist ing that the preaching of love had to be joined to the practice of love combined with mili tant, non-violent resis tance to social evil. A community grew in solidarity as it embraced that suffer ing joined in struggle. And that travail became redemptive when the members of that community eschewed bitterness, when they forgave the enemies against whom they struggle. What Niebuhr had called “the spiritual disci pline against resent ment” because an essential feature of King’s militant resis tance to injustice. It permitted a minority community to deepen its inner life while invoking God’s judge ment upon the failure of the wider commimi- ty to live up to its own avowed moral stan dards. Embarking on the path of^ suffering laid the seeds for a rec onciliation that couldX deep ri- \SNC( follow the period of cri sis of conflict. Trying to moderate President of the Southern Chrislicji Leadership'^ Conference (SCLC) after its establishment in 1957, King experi enced difficulty main taining a middle course between older national civil rights leaders, who generally stressed litigation and lobbying efforts to achieve civil rights reform, and the grass roots leaders who moved toward mass militancy early in the 1960s. Many ef the black college students who launched a series of desegregation sit- ins in 1960 initially looked to him for inspi ration but not for tacti cal direction. In partic ular, young organizers afflliated with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee were increasingly influ enced by the emergent ideas of their own local movements, especially those in Mississippi and elsewhere in the South. Most SNCC activists agreed CLASSIC AND ANTIQUE CAR RESTORATION Business (704) 333-7921 3307 Statesville Ave. Charlotte, N.C. 28206 M6-T SERIES SPECIALIST with King’s broad con ception of the objec tives of the southern struggle, and they drew upon the same ideological sources that had influenced King, but SNCC’s organizing efforts emphasized the devel opment of sustained See BIOGRAPHY Page 12C THE ALEXANDER FAMILY OF SERVICES Proudly remembers Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as we work to make his dream of peace for all men a reality! Alexander... • Over 80 Years ■ Caring For Charlotte In Time Of Bereavement... Offering Professional Funeral Services and Insurance Assistance. Spacious Chapels Available. Full Burial Or Cremation Services Available. Avoid last minute worries. Call Today! • LIMOUSINE SERVICE AVAILABLE (for All Occasions) • UNITED FAMILY INSURANCE & FORETHOUGHTS INSURANCE Available as it relates to pre-need arrangements (704)333-1170 112 N. Irwin Ave (Between 5th & Trade St.) & Your Dear Friend, Al Rousso Charlotte’s Mayor Pro Term Acknowledge A Great American Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 1929 -1968 "Say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. That I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter." REMEMBERING the life of... Dr. Mcaiin Luther King, Jr. JANUARY CLEARANCE ...In Honor Of The Holiday Up To (Selected Items) Shirts, Jackets, Suits, Pants, Suits & Accessories New Location 5430N.TiyonSt Near Big Lots 597-8153 to domMaU 391-9435
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