What would King say right now?
As I reflect on the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., I can’t help but think of how fitting, albeit distressing, it is that we find ourselves debating legislation that would protect and expand the right to vote for all Americans.
And I can’t help but wonder at this moment, “What would King say?”
What would he say as American democracy hangs in the balance? What would he say to Republicans hellbent on making it harder for Black people to vote? What would King say to white moderates who seem more committed to an archaic Senate rule than they are to the promise of a multiracial democracy? What would he say to all of us who, for good reason, feel that we are fighting an uphill battle whose outcome is preordained?
Well, we don’t have to guess what King would say. He left for us powerful words that seem eerily applicable to the current crisis we face.
In 1957, six years before his speech at the March on Washington and eight years before the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, King gave another speech in Washington, D.C., commemorating the third anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown vs. Board of Education.
Standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, King remarked that “all types of conniving methods are still being used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters.” Continuing, he argued that, “The denial of this sacred right is a tragic betrayal of the highest mandates of our democratic tradition.” Before a crowd of thousands, King made a plea to those in power and said, “Our most urgent request to the president of the United States and every member of Congress is to give us the right to vote.”
Recognizing that the right to vote protects and preserves other bedrock freedoms, King led with a powerful refrain:
“Give us the ballot, and we will no longer have to worry the federal government about our basic rights.
“Give us the ballot, and we will no longer plead to the federal government for passage of an anti-lynching law; we will by the power of our vote write the law on the statute books of the South and bring an end to the dastardly acts of the hooded perpetrators of violence.
“Give us the ballot, and we will transform the salient misdeeds of bloodthirsty mobs into the calculated good deeds of orderly citizens.”
As I reflect on these words, I imagine that if King were watching the debates in Washington today over voting rights, he would call a crowd to the nation’s capital and say to it what he said nearly 65 years ago:
“In the midst of these prevailing conditions, we come to Washington today pleading with the president and members of Congress to provide a strong, moral and courageous leadership for a situation that cannot permanently be evaded. We come humbly to say to the men, and women, in the forefront of our government that the civil rights issue is not an ephemeral, evanescent domestic issue that can be kicked about by reactionary guardians of the status quo; it is rather an eternal moral issue which may well determine the destiny of our nation ... The hour is late. The clock of destiny is ticking out. We must act now before it is too late.”
I imagine he’d say about Sens. Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin what he said to white northern liberals at the time:
“What we are witnessing today ... is a sort of quasi-liberalism, which is based on the principle of looking sympathetically at all sides. It is a liberalism so bent on seeing all sides, that it fails to become committed to either side. It is a liberalism that is so objectively analytical that it is not subjectively committed. It is a liberalism which is neither hot nor cold, but lukewarm. We call for a liberalism ... which will be thoroughly committed to the ideal of racial justice and will not be deterred by the propaganda and subtle words of those who say: ‘Slow up for a while; you’re pushing too fast.’ ”
Today, as I think about King and the fight to protect the right to vote and expand American democracy, it is striking to me how familiar King might find this all. And I wonder how he handled those moments when he inevitably despaired about the slow pace of progress and the seeming intransigence and persistence of those opposed to justice.
For me, I’ve found comfort in the words of Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, who, when asked how she avoids despair at times like this, said, “I don’t know of anything in the history of Black people in this country in which I’ve read some account in which it ended with, ‘And then they gave up.’ That’s just not what we do.”
That, dear reader, is the legacy of King. That is the legacy of Black people in a country that has long failed to live up to its ideals. That is the legacy that gives me hope, even as there is much reason to despair. That is the legacy I call up today and every day, because those committed to justice cannot rest “until justice rolls down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
That is King’s challenge for us at this moment. That is what King would say to us. That is the message he would impart. The question is, will we have the courage to heed the call. For democracy’s sake, I hope we will.