The evolution of Martin Luther King

What should it mean for legacy?

In August 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Martin Luther King set forth his vision for a country in which his young children “will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Conservatives have been quoting this language ever since, and rightly so. Race-based preferences are antithetical to the vision King described that day.

To be fair, that vision was “a dream,” and King did not expressly exclude the possibility of using race-conscious measures to help blacks during the period before that dream became reality.

Still, in his most famous address, King said nothing about a need for such measures, and he supported Civil Rights legislation (the 1964 Act) that contains anti- preference language. Thus, it’s entirely fair for conservatives to cite King’s great line when debating race-based preferences.

Unfortunately, though, the “I have a dream speech” was not King’s last word on the subject. In 1967, King wrote his final book, Where Do We Go from Here. As David Azerrad points out, this work contains pro-quota language.

For example:

[I]f a city has a 30 percent Negro population, then it is logical to assume that Negroes should have at least 30 percent of the jobs in any particular company, and jobs in all categories rather than only in menial areas, as the case almost always happens to be.

Did King mean there was an imperative that blacks have at least 30 percent of the jobs or only that a rebuttable presumption of discrimination should arise if they don’t? There’s a difference, but either way King was no longer taking a pure anti-preference line. Under the most charitable interpretation, he was saying that non-quota hiring is presumptively illegal.

Then, there was this:

It is, however, important to understand that giving a man his due may often mean giving him special treatment. I am aware of the fact that this has been a troublesome concept for many liberals, since it conflicts with their traditional ideal of equal opportunity and equal treatment of people according to their individual merits. But this is a day which demands new thinking and the reevaluation of old concepts. A society that has done something special against the Negro for hundreds of years must now do something special for him, in order to equip him to compete on a just and equal basis.

Clearly, by 1967 King favored preferential treatment for blacks.

We shouldn’t be surprised if King’s thinking evolved between 1963 and 1967. The left as a whole evolved significantly during these years, due primarily to outrage about the war in Vietnam. In addition, and of obvious importance in King’s case, there was the rise of the black power movement. It meant that King was now under serious challenge from the left by rivals like Stokely Carmichael.

In this context, it was natural for King to engage in “new thinking and the reevaluation of old concepts.” Eighteenth century white leaders aren’t the only historical figures who should be judged in the contest of their time.

Azerrad perceives the seeds of critical race theory (CRT) in MLK’s 1967 utterances at the policy level, but not at the rhetorical and aspirational level. CRT, he explains, “is a bleak worldview” which “posits that the racial problem is insoluble and that blacks must abandon all hope of ever being treated fairly in America.” King never embraced this view.

Might King’s evolution have taken him there? Maybe. Or maybe, as an older man, he would have moved back toward where he seemed to be in 1963. Unfortunately, we’ll never know.

Azerrad concludes:

In the fight against wokeness, the right really has no choice but to decanonize King. He does not belong in the pantheon of great American statesmen and should only be cited with reserve and strategically.

To the extent he’s talking about King’s body of writing, I think Azerrad’s first sentence is clearly true. Conservatives can’t embrace what King wrote in 1967.

I’m less sure that King doesn’t belong in the pantheon of great American statesmen. Among America’s greatest founders are some who played vital roles as young men, but adopted some pretty unsavory views — in some cases radical, in some reactionary — later in their careers.

Martin Luther King played the vital role as a young leader of the early-modern civil rights movement, the accomplishments of which were hugely beneficial for America. It’s unfortunate that later on he was swept up by the radical tide, to which he might always have been drawn to some degree. But I don’t think this disqualifies him from greatness.