TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/caps/86/86capmil.1

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                └j~                                                          January 27, 1986

NATION

Honoring Justice's Drum Major


On Martin Luther King's birthday, remembrance and renewal


He never commanded an army, never held political office, never
made a fortune nor ruled a corporate empire. He had no use for
the trappings of worldly power; his clout came from the urgency
of his message and his unwavering moral courage. Of this
century's heroes, the man he most closely resembled was his
model, India's Mohandas K. Gandhi. Combining Christian idealism
with Gandhi's principle of nonviolent resistance, the Rev. Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. awakened the conscience of the U.S. and
the world to the plight of America's blacks. More than any
other single person, King was responsible for the endowment with
legal equality of a people who have been enslaved for two
centuries, then denied many of their country's basic civil
rights for another hundred years. In 1968, at the age of 39,
this Southern Baptist preacher, winner of the 1964 Nobel Peace
Prize, was cut down by an assassin's bullet. On that day the
charismatic leader became the transcendent martyr.

Last week for the first time, the U.S. began celebrating King's
birthday as a national holiday. When Congress in 1983
established the third Monday in January as a federal observance,
it bestowed upon King an honor granted to only one other U.S.
citizen, George Washington.*  While an estimated 5 million
civilian and military personnel were given this Monday off, the
tributes to King began on Jan. 15, his actual birthday, and in
some cases before that. From Alaska to Florida, candlelight
vigils, religious services, concerts, photo exhibits, readings
and teach-ins were held in commemoration. "There is a heightened
awareness of him, that was not present before the holiday," said
King's widow Coretta. "I think it has made greater believers
of many more people."

The ceremonies became occasions to recall one of the most
painful and dramatic eras of American history. Segregated
schools, lunch counters and bathrooms. Freedom Riders.
Churches bombed and civil rights workers murdered. Helmeted
police wading into demonstrators with attack dogs, tear gas,
hoses, guns and bayonets. Then the fight to win passage of the
1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Setting the stage for those landmark bills was the 1963 March
on Washington. From a platform in front of the Lincoln Memorial
came King's voice, an instrument of astounding resonance,
mingling the powerful cadences of black spirituals with majestic
Whitmanesque imagery in one of the best-known speeches in
American oratory:  "I Have a Dream."

In Washington last week, 1,000 guests filled the Capitol Rotunda
to witness the unveiling of a cast bronze bust of King, marking
the first time a black American has been so honored in the
Capitol. On this week's official holiday, concerts were
scheduled at Washington's Kennedy Center, New York's Radio City
Music Hall and Atlanta's Civic Center, featuring such performers
as Stevie Wonder, Bill Cosby, Bob Dylan and Harry Belafonte.
The highlights were to be aired on national TV and the profits
from the shows donated to Atlanta's King Center for Non-violent
Social Change.

Atlanta, King's hometown, was the scene of a ten-day
celebration. Tourists flocked to view King's boyhood home, the
Ebenezer Baptist Church where he served as pastor with his
father, and the crypt that holds his body. The list of
prominent visitors was to include South Africa's Bishop Desmond
Tutu, Senator Edward Kennedy and Vice President George Bush.
"I wish Dr. King were here," gushed nine- year-old Akelia Cobb,
excited by all the commotion. "Boy, I'd get his autograph
twice!"

Underscoring the contradictions of the American South, Alabama,
the civil rights movement's most volatile battleground, will
observe the third Monday in January as a dual holiday honoring
the birthdays of King and Confederate General Robert E. Lee.
In Selma, the city council voted over the protest of Mayor Joe
Smitherman to approve a candlelight walk to the Edmund Pettus
Bridge, site of a bloody 1965 clash between black marchers and
police. In Birmingham, near the Sixteenth Avenue Baptist
Church, where a bomb killed four little girls in 1963, a
7-ft.-tall bronze likeness of King was scheduled to be unveiled
Monday.

Amid the ceremony, King's friends and former colleagues urged
that the civil rights leader's birthday become an occasion  not
simply for dreamy nostalgia but for an honest inquiry into the
meaning of King's life and its impact on the nation. Former
King Aide Dr. Wyatt Tee Walker worried about "the risk of
getting over-sentimental and romanticizing the man to the point
that he becomes unreal. The way to honor him is to understand
what his work was and commit yourself to doing something."

Other former colleagues spoke last week of a King rarely seen
by the public. In a discussion at Atlanta's Morehouse College,
King's alma mater, Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young recounted how his
mentor used to joke with his lieutenants about the violence they
faced on the road, launching into mock eulogies of his aides,
embellishing his speeches with ridiculous details about "the
deceased."  Remembered the mayor: "He had us rolling on the
floor. He made us laugh so much at the possibility of dying
that we weren't afraid to die."

Another King protege, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, offered a sterner
message in a sermon at the Ebenezer Baptist Church. King was
not merely a non-threatening dreamer, said Jackson. "Dr. King
was not assassinated for dreaming but for acting and challenging
the government."  He went on to lambaste President Reagan for
failing to support any of King's efforts during his lifetime.

The President did in fact oppose much of the civil rights
legislation of the 1960s. He also resisted creating a national
holiday for King, on grounds that the Government could not
afford to grant its employees another day off. When North
Carolina Republican Senator Jesse Helms accused King of being
influenced by "elements of the Communist Party U.S.A." and
called for the release of an FBI investigation of the minister
that is to remain sealed until 2027, Reagan was asked whether
he agreed that King had Communist sympathies. "We'll know in
about 35 years, won't we?" said the President. He apologized
to Coretta Scott King two days later and subsequently resigned
himself to approving the King birthday bill. When it won
overwhelming support in both the Senate and the House, the
President said, rather grudgingly, "Since they seem bent on
making it a national holiday...I'll sign that legislation when
it reaches my desk."

Last week, however, Reagan made several more gracious gestures
to honor the slain leader and his cause. He warmly received
Mrs. King at the White House. In an address to students at
Washington's predominantly black Martin Luther King Jr.
Elementary School, he paraphrased one of the minister's speeches
in which King said he wanted to be remembered as "a drum major
for justice."  Reagan also awarded the Congressional Gold Medal
to the widow of former N.A.A.C.P. Director Roy Wilkins and met
with a group of 20 black businessmen and economists.

Attorney General Edwin Meese, however, did much to undercut the
President's efforts during an awkward news conference last
week. Defending his efforts to rescind a 1965 Executive Order
requiring federal contractors to hire minorities, Meese argued
that his position is "very consistent with what Dr. King had in
mind" when he spoke of a color-blind society. The Executive
Order, which does not demand specific quotas, has a good many
supporters in the Reagan Administration. It is also precisely
the sort of provision for which King fought.

King's true legacy may be found not in this month's nearly
universal chorus of acclamation, but in the distance the U.S.
has traveled toward an integrated society. Black students are
in attendance at all of the nation's best universities. More
blacks have joined the legal and medical professions and are
making their way in American corporations. Five of America's
biggest cities--Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit and
Atlanta--have black mayors.

Nevertheless, one-third of black Americans live below the
poverty line, and the unemployment rate of black teenagers is
41.6%, compared with 6.9% for the general population. While
whites may work and study with blacks, housing patterns in most
communities remain segregated. At the same time, many Americans
seem to react to the subject of civil rights with apathy or
cynicism.

It is almost startling to realize that were he alive today,
Martin Luther King Jr. would be but 57 years old, still in the
prime of life. Surely, he would know that his work was far from
complete.


* Because of Southern resistance, Abraham Lincoln's birthday
has never been declared a federal holiday. Nevertheless, the
third Monday in February is generally referred to as Presidents'
Day.

--By Jacob V. Lamar Jr.  Reported by Don Winbush/Atlanta, with
other bureaus