Putting words to racial justice

Like no other leader, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. demanded a better nation, one committed to eliminating the scourge of racism through nonviolent resistance.

During his years of activism in the 1950s and 1960s, his genius was to adapt the lessons of civil disobedience to America’s core values of justice and fairness. His eloquence, combined with his unbreakable dedication to a righteous cause, helped harness peoples’ fury and turn it into action.

King did not invent nonviolent protest. He studied India’s famed nonviolent protester Mahatma Gandhi’s methods and borrowed from the teachings of Jesus. What made King a miraculous leader was that he not only understood the morality of nonviolent social change, he translated ideals into action.

He was a patriot. The Black freedom struggle, he argued while referencing the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, was a way to a stronger republic. It became hard to disagree with his message.

King kept the economic basis for the cause front and center and urged Black Americans to use their dollars to push for change. Businesses were forced to recognize the purchasing power of Black customers when they boycotted public buses and refused to buy cars or groceries or clothing from hostile retailers.

By the time King was assassinated in 1968, Wall Street was hiring its first Black bankers and President Lyndon B. Johnson had signed the Civil Rights Act. The changes King helped to set in motion are still at work and progressing today.