Blue Moon Blog

I did this magazine cover in 1990 when I was reading up on and learning a lot about the civil rights movement. What appeals to me most about this great (but flawed) man is his incredible stoicism and patient strength. Jackie Robinson had similar qualities. How they (and so many others) could endure what they endured I’ll never know.  But it was an integral ingredient for non-violent protest, which King adopted as the main strategy for the civil rights movement. He knew it could work within a moral (though tainted) society which followed a rule of law, as Ghandi did with the British government in seeking independence for India. The method doesn’t and can’t work otherwise, as much worse will happen to you than being thrown in jail. He worked within the system, using it against it self, for the betterment of us all.

MLK Day is a good idea and well deserved, but kids today are taught in school about King every year, for long periods, sometimes to the detriment of other important figures in the history of America. It seems we’ve over-corrected a bit in trying to right a wrong, so have to work to make sure the founders (great men, also flawed) still get their due, too. Our kids deserve a balanced and more complete sense of how the U.S. was founded, has endured and has grown to be more perfect along the way.

Sometimes I think an important part of King’s message is lost or at least obscured. In his most famous speech, he said:

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

We’re not there yet, as his message has been co-opted at times by lesser leaders since. But perhaps tomorrow is another step in erasing the racial lines.

U2’s song in tribute to King, Pride (In the Name of Love), has gotten a lot of attention since they introduced it almost twenty-five years ago. They played it to a huge crowd on the Mall yesterday. But I always loved another from the same album, their MLK.