A Visionary With More Than a Dream

The four words, “I have a dream,” seared into the nation’s consciousness by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. almost 34 years ago, have been both a blessing and a curse. To many, they are a beacon still calling to the country. To others, they have indelibly tagged King as a hopeless utopian with lofty visions of ending war, racism and poverty, but with no concrete program to achieve these aims. No wonder the man we celebrate today has practically been turned into a harmless, badly outdated icon.

But he isn’t. In a work largely ignored when it was published 30 years ago and all but unknown today, “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?,” King turned from dreamer to problem solver. But before we look at those ideas, there are two huge caveats.

First, recasting the words of a historic figure to fit present situations must be avoided. This type of dangerous ideological revisionism was shamefully evident in the contentious debate over Proposition 209 in California. Both sides exploited and deliberately distorted the few stray remarks that King uttered on what is known today as affirmative action, a concept just beginning to take shape in the 1960s.

The second caveat is that King can’t be fitted into a neat ideological box. There is enough paradox and ambivalence in King’s positions for liberals and conservatives to praise and damn. At various times, he railed against and embraced black militants. He applauded violent anti-colonial and national liberation movements and championed nonviolent change. Paradox and ambivalence also marked his private life. As a man of God, his moral lashing of America was wildly at odds with his questionable sexual conduct. Not surprisingly, King’s solutions to many of the big-ticket racial and class problems that plagued America were a mix of idealism and pragmatism, which people faulted for lacking a clear direction. King can’t be blamed for that. Three decades after his death, America is still no closer to solving these problems.

* The black family crisis. King branded the black family “fragile, deprived and often psychopathic.” While he could have been criticized for giving weight to negative myths and stereotypes about black families, King was correct in targeting father absenteeism in the black home as a major ill. He made the standard liberal call for more government-funded job, education and skills training programs. But he also recognized the importance of values like training, discipline, hard work and the reduction of family violence.

* Educational neglect. King did not believe that more funds, smaller classrooms and better textbooks alone would solve the crisis of the classroom. He called on teachers and administrators to rededicate themselves to the ideal of quality education, and for parents to get more involved in their children’s education. King’s proposal for “educational parks,” a kind of multifaceted complex for teaching basic skills as well as advanced studies, anticipated the idea of magnet schools.

* Political apathy. Exercising the right to vote and electing blacks were not enough for King. He challenged black officeholders to be “independent and assertive” in fighting for legislation to improve the plight of the black poor and for black organizations to build political alliances with labor and other ethnic groups based on the needs and interests they have in common.

* Corporate racism. The campaign against discrimination in hiring and promotions that followed the Texaco scandal closely followed a four-step plan outlined by King. It included more jobs and promotions, selected buying campaigns, boycotts and organized protests, negotiations and the monitoring of any agreement.

* Economic empowerment. King often quipped that it was futile to integrate a lunch counter if blacks couldn’t afford to buy a meal. He demanded huge increases in federal funding for job and skills training programs. But he also recognized that government couldn’t or shouldn’t be expected to do it all. He called for “black dollar days” in which blacks purchased goods and services from black businesses and deposited their savings in black-owned banks. In turn, King expected black entrepreneurs to recycle those dollars into education, recreation and social programs for the black poor.

* Crime and violence. King understood that the destructive cycle of drugs, crime and violence destabilized black communities. While his first priority was, as always, more government-funded job and education programs, he also stressed family values, personal responsibility and discipline. He urged black professionals to give more of their time and money to employment, educational and recreational programs aimed at “saving” at-risk black youth.

* Welfare. King agreed that reliance on welfare could breed dependency and discourage personal initiative. He proposed that the government provide direct tax subsidies and tax incentives to corporations to hire and train unskilled workers. This idea was a forerunner of today’s federally backed enterprise and empowerment zones. He also called for the creation of “second chance universities” to train welfare recipients and the unemployed to compete in the technological job market.

By today’s standards, King’s agenda may seem piecemeal and patchwork. Almost all of his ideas have been either implemented, tried and discarded or discredited. But so what? King didn’t just dream of a new world, he died fighting for it. And in an era when politicians and community leaders believe that grabbing a photo-op or popping a sound-bite is leadership, King’s vision and program still looks and sounds better than anything they offer.