It takes a very spiritual person to continue to practice active nonviolence, because such practice always leads to significant resistance, if not outright violence towards oneself. In Parts I and II of this three-part series, we looked at how active non-violence is dangerous as it works within a framework that respects and obeys the law, unless the law is believed to be unjust. Finally, active nonviolence is spiritual, which gives it its staying power, in spite of constant resistance.
On this Martin Luther King, Jr, national holiday, I watched a movie about the last two years of King’s life: King in the Wilderness. These were the most difficult years of his life as he and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference had decided to broaden their focus beyond racism to war and poverty. As King himself put in 1967--following Muhammad Ali, who the year before had refused to go to war in Vietnam--how could he speak out against the violence directed at blacks in the US and not say a word about the violence being directed at the poor, brown people of Vietnam.
When King reluctantly became the nonviolent leader of the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955, he met much resistance and criticism, but by the time the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts were passed in 1964 and 1965--and he had received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964--he had become a hero to many people of all races and nationalities. However, once he went north to Chicago to protest the racism and poverty inherent in northern cities, and then, in 1967, spoke out against the Vietnam War, all that changed.
All of this wore heavily on King, and he became depressed and afraid, worrying that the movement he had worked tirelessly to build would be destroyed. He also had received enough death threats over the years to know his own life was at stake.
He went through a very dark period, but then a revelation came to him: you are not truly free until you are no longer afraid of death. And now he had come full circle, realizing that the spirituality that had driven him into a life of nonviolent change would also be the spirituality that carried him through his darkest moments, including the possibility of death.
Dexter Ave. Baptist Church, Montgomery, Alabama
That spirituality was true from the beginning of ministry. In his first call, at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, in a 1956 sermon he stated: “I still believe that standing up for the truth of God is the greatest thing in the world. This is the end of life. The end of life is not to be happy. The end of life is not to achieve pleasure and avoid pain. The end of life is to do the will of God, come what may.”
Two years later, in a sermon at Purdue University, King again described the way his spirituality directed his life and decision-making: “So I say to you, seek God and discover him and make him a power in your life. Without him all of our efforts turn to ashes and our sunrises into darkest nights. Without him, life is a meaningless drama with the decisive scenes missing. But with him we are able to rise from the fatigue of despair to the buoyancy of hope. With him we are able to rise from the midnight of desperation to the daybreak of joy. St. Augustine was right—we were made for God and we will be restless until we find rest in him.” [“Measure of a Man”]
This spirituality would continue to guide him over the ensuing years, and it would find its deepest meaning near the end of his life when many, including some of his friends, would turn on him because they felt he had gone too far in criticizing the Vietnam War.
Martin Luther King. Jr., Riverside Church, NYC, April 4, 1967
His primary speech against the war took place at Riverside Church in New York on April 4,1967. Then, four months later, in the midst of his depression and despair, he speaks to his fellow civil rights leaders, stressing the importance of faith and spirituality in creating a meaningful life, calling on all of us to align ourselves with the “creative force” of God in the universe: “When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.” (Speech to SCLC, August 16, 1967.)
In the last months of King’s life, the deep struggles continued, but he stayed committed to the nonviolent struggle, even as many in the black community were chastising him, saying nothing important would change without violence. But through the darkness of conflict and criticism, King came to realize that he likely would not live a long life, and he made peace with that, finding freedom in no longer fighting the possibility of death as he focused on what he had believed in and spent his life working on. Exactly one year after his sermon at Riverside Church, on April 4, 1968, he was assassinated in Memphis. The evening before, in a speech to the Memphis sanitation workers, whose protest he had joined, he ended his reflection with these words:
Martin Luther King, Jr., Memphis, April 3, 1968
“Well, I don't know what will happen now; we've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I have been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land! And so I am happy
"Out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope." from "I Have a Dream." MLK Memorial Washington DC
