After Rosa Parks’s historic refusal to get up from her bus seat on December 1, 1955, the black activists of Montgomery decided to call for a city-wide boycott of buses four days later, on December 5. E.D. Nixon, a past president of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP), called another black leader Ralph D. Abernathy, who called his friend, the 26-year-old pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, who looked “more like a boy than a man”—Martin Luther King Jr. The leaders gathered at King’s church, and the meeting was presided by Reverend L. Roy Bennett. Unfortunately, Bennett was no speaker, and he rambled on for 30 minutes, prompting many people to lose interest and leave. The leaders knew something had to be done fast. After the first day of boycott, which was a resounding success, they called for another meeting at Bennett’s Mt. Zion AME Church. Privately, they knew that the only way to oust Bennett without hurting his ego was to form another organisation to take forward the movement. The Montgomery Improvement Association was thus formed.
Now the question was, who was to lead it? Abernathy suggested Nixon’s name, while King wanted it to be Rufus Lewis, another black activist. Surprisingly, when Bennett called for nominations for office, Lewis put forward King’s name for president. King was asked whether he would accept the position. King then had a new-born daughter and heavy responsibilities in his church, and Abernathy, seated beside him, was fully persuaded that he would decline, writes David J. Garrow in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Bearing The Cross.
Instead, King said quietly, “Well, if you think I can render some service, I will.” Thus was born one of the greatest leaders America has ever produced. He did not wrest power from anyone, nor was he hungry for it. In fact, some might say that it was thrust upon him. Right from the beginning, King was convinced that the only way to bring about change was through love and not hate.
“First and foremost we are American citizens,” he said in his first speech to a church packed with 1,000 people inside and more than 4,000 gathered outside for at least a block in every direction. “We are not here advocating violence. We have overcome that…. The only weapon we have… is the weapon of protest.”
Of course, his moment of glory would come eight years later at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., where he gave his “I Have a Dream” speech on August 28, 1963. “So even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream,” he said. “It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.” King’s dream was for a land of justice and equality, where all Americans, black or white, would be able to “sit down together at the table of brotherhood”. For a land where his four children would be judged for their character and not for the colour of their skin.
Today, that dream is far from reality. In fact, the tenor of the American dream itself has changed, so that when another American leader invoked it more than six decades later, it was no longer about morality, but about materialism. “I will restore peace in the world and I will rescue the American dream,” said the President-elect Donald Trump in his final message to voters before Election Day in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. “Together, we will begin the four greatest years in the history of our country, and we will launch the most extraordinary economic boom the world has ever seen.” Trump’s American dream consisted of stopping “the invasion of criminals coming across our border”, ending inflation, and strengthening the military after Biden’s administration gave a “big chunk of it to Afghanistan”. The American dream’s focus had changed from society to the self, from patriotism to polarisation, from equality to power, from giving to hoarding, from unity to division, and from rights to rhetoric.
In fact, this conflict between democratic values and economic heft might lie at the heart of Trump’s victory on November 5. In a recent poll by The New York Times and Siena College, 45 per cent of voters said that the nation’s democracy does not do a good job representing ordinary people, for whom the economy and rising prices of groceries and housing remained the most critical issues. This time, Trump was even able to increase his appeal among black and Latino men because he understood that class was more important for them than identity, a key point that his opponent Kamala Harris failed to recognise. Trump exploited this working-class angst to further polarise the electorate, blaming the elitists, the feminists and the immigrants for the predicament of his supporters. He promised he would take care of them, and with his strong-arm tactics, hyper-masculinity, and authoritarianism, they believed him.
Whether he keeps his word or not, one thing is for sure: that Trump can be depended upon more for his showmanship than his sincerity. One instance of this was during his $250 million civil fraud trial in New York, when Trump and his lawyers resorted to what Rolling Stone referred to as “Fyre Festival strategies”—“kick up as much dirt as possible, enrage the judge, trash some of the witnesses, and turn the process into a media circus”. Instead of trying to win the case, they turned it into a PR stunt, delaying the proceedings by asking long-winded questions on each document submitted by New York Attorney General Letitia James. “Trump, who keeps delivering angry speeches outside the courtroom and maintains a scowl inside the courtroom, has essentially resorted to theatrics to draw public attention to himself,” stated The Daily Beast.
Decades ago, in 1958, King also faced charges, albeit trumped-up ones. When his friend Abernathy was accused of being involved in an illicit relationship, King accompanied Abernathy to court, writes Garrow. Two white policemen attempted to prevent them from entering the courtroom. When King tried to summon someone from inside, the policemen grabbed him, twisted his arm, and kicked him into a cell. After a night of “meditation and soul-searching”, King decided he would not pay a fine if convicted, but would instead serve the equivalent jail sentence. He was found guilty and asked to pay a penalty of $14 or spend 14 days in jail. Without hesitation, King chose jail. He reiterated that he was not doing this out of “a desire to be a martyr”. This was an expression of protest rather than some “histrionic gesture or publicity stunt, for moral convictions never stem from the selfish urge for publicity”. Of course, this would only hold true for those who have moral convictions.
Today, King’s gospel of tolerance, non-violence and love seems hopelessly idealistic, even comical. If someone were to tell a Trump supporter to love the immigrant who is “stealing his job”, they better do so in protective armour. The battle lines are too clearly drawn. In fact, what writer Arundhati Roy would call the “love laws” themselves are being re-written. January 6, 2021, for example, when Trump’s supporters attacked the Capitol, killing at least seven people and injuring 150 more, is being recast as “a day of love”. Looking at love as idealism is understandable, even if untrue. But looking at love as violence is dangerous, overturning the very foundations of the American dream that King and his ilk tried so hard to uphold.
