MLK Day 2022
If you’re wondering how civil rights activist Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. became the poster boy for rightwing political rhetoric, you’re not alone.
January 17, 2022 was Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
And as was to be expected on the remembrance of such an iconic and vital figure in American history, the tributes rolled in on social media in droves. People engaged with the life and history of Martin Luther King Jr. more on this day than they probably had in the entirety of their schooling: there was discussion of his political positions and sharing of his quotes and speeches, with there existing a general effort to memorialize the contributions of this great man. What did come as a surprise, however, was who some of these tributes were coming from: Senator Lindsay Graham, a prominent member of the Republican Party and avid supporter of the Trump administration, tweeting about the importance of Dr. King’s work all these years later was perhaps the most perplexing one of the day. And it was so surprising for the mere fact that if Dr. King were alive, I doubt he and Senator Graham would see eye to eye on a great many things.
As humans, we have an interesting relationship with the past. We are prone to looking back on events and even entire movements with rose-tinted glasses, romanticizing history. Figures like Dr. King are seemingly revered in the mainstream today but were deeply polarising during their own lifetimes. It was Dr. King’s unbridled loyalty and uncompromising dedication to the Black freedom struggle that led to a life filled with trial and tribulation. There were several attempts made not only on his life but on his family’s, the most infamous being the bombing of their Montgomery home in 1956.
If you want to know what America truly thought of the civil rights leader, just remember he was shot in the face as he stood on a hotel balcony in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4, 1968. Around the time of his assassination, a Gallup poll found that two-thirds of all Americans had an unfavorable opinion of Dr. King, making him amongst the most hated figures in contemporary American history. He was called “the most dangerous man in America” by the FBI, his radical agenda for racial and fiscal equality — consequences and white fragility be damned — making him a man in exile by the end of his life.
“the most dangerous man in America...”
Martin Luther King Jr. was a thorn in the side of white America, and the voices and forces of dissent to his mission when he was alive looked a lot like Senator Graham. The Senator is a man who has referred back (almost wistfully) to “the good old days of segregation”; been photographed with the leader of white nationalist group, the Proud Boys; and said that Black people are safe in his state only if they are “conservative, not liberal”. Whether it be through his questionable alliances or concerning comments, Senator Graham is a figure who has time and again proved himself to be an obstacle to the very struggle for racial equality Dr. King died for.
“As humans, we have an interesting relationship with the past.”
You memorialize and pay tribute to someone who inspires you, whose life and work you believe to be important and necessary. In the case of Dr. King, his goal was to drive the needle forward for Black people, and it is a goal that is at odds with the agenda of those on the political right. So do not quote him on the day of his remembrance as if you would have valued his contributions and work were he alive; you would not have. You would have scapegoated his supporters, vilified his character, and hated his unbridled honesty — we know this because you have done the same to the activists to whom Dr. King passed the metaphorical baton weaponized against racial inequality.
This is why the tribute made by the Senator online should be critiqued as the blatant attempt to whitewash the life and mission of a man who stood for everything the Senator despises that it is: an attempt to affiliate himself with a figure of civil rights in an attempt to excuse his own appalling positions.
Unlucky for him, this hypocrisy will not be that easily forgotten.
credits
words — ayan artan
design — sâde popoola