smash-pacifism-zine

II. Martin Luther King and Civil Rights (1955-68)
Martin Luther King was born January 15, 1929, in Atlanta,
Georgia, to a middle-class family. His father and
grandfather were both preachers in the
Baptist church, and King was raised to
follow in their footsteps. In 1947, he was
licensed to preach by his father, whom he
worked for as an assistant. He attended
college, and then a theological school in
1948.
It was while attending the
theological college that King first studied
Gandhi, and in 1959 would travel to India
to better understand Gandhi's methods.
Some of his early advisers in the civil
rights movement were members of a
pacifist group (the Friends of
Reconciliation) that promoted Gandhi's
methods in the US.
In 1953, King married Coretta
Scott. The next year, he was made pastor of
a church in Montgomery, Alabama. He did not know at the
time that he would be involved in the emerging civil rights
movement and become one of its national leaders.
King has been described as the “Gandhi of
America.” He helped popularize Gandhi's nonviolent
philosophy, and to introduce its methods throughout the US
during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and '60s.
King, far more articulate and logical than Gandhi, was able
to explain this doctrine without the confusing spirituality of
Gandhi, although he maintained its overall religious spirit
and practise. Aside from promoting a modernized,
Americanized version of Gandhian pacifism, the myth of
King and the civil rights movement is also much more
widely available and accessible than information on the
Indian independence struggle.
The Civil Rights Movement, in turn, had an
enormous influence on other social movements that
emerged in the 1960s (including the anti-war, women,
Indigenous, etc.). The middle-class reformists of these
movements have continued to influence social struggles of
today in many G7 nations, and perhaps most so in N.
America. They also gain influence through state sanction,
legitimization, and access to resources (including state and
corporate funding).
The Civil Rights Movements is a good case study
because this is where the modern strategy of co-optation
using funding and state sanction of reformists was really
developed.
According to pacifists, King's nonviolent campaign
swept aside the racist segregation laws of the US South and
ushered in racial equality and civil rights for Blacks. This
mass movement, we are told, mobilized Blacks under the
banner of nonviolent civil disobedience to achieve its goals,
using boycotts, sit-ins, and peaceful
protests. They faced violent
repression from police and other
racist whites, but maintained their
disciplined commitment to
nonviolence, thereby achieving both
a moral as well as political victory.
In reality, many Blacks
did not subscribe to King's message
of Christian nonviolence. By 1962,
there was growing militancy among
Blacks in the South. Many Blacks,
including even members of the main
pacifist civil rights groups, were
armed. This growing militancy
erupted in May 1963, with the
Birmingham riots. The rioting and
protests spread to other cities and
states, and the US government moved to quickly enact
greater constitutional reforms. Even as the civil rights
campaign achieved its greatest victory in 1964, with the
passing of the Civil Rights Act, the level of Black militancy
and rebellion only increased until it was repressed by a dual
counter-insurgency strategy of co-optation and deadly
force.
Gandhi's portrait watching over King.
The Civil Rights Movement
The origin of the Civil Rights Movement are traced
to the 1954 court case Brown v. Board of Education, in
which the US supreme court rejected segregated schools as
unconstitutional. Frustrated by the unwillingness of state
governments to abide by the federal court decision, Black
civil rights campaigns emerged, replacing litigation with
mass civil disobedience yet firmly entrenched in legal
constitutional means.
The background to this new movement are found
in the changing socio-economic conditions for Blacks after
World War 2. Many returning Black soldiers refused to
accept their second-class status, and there were increasing
incidents of fights over segregated public spaces, including
buses. Blacks in the South were also making some gains
politically and economically, despite the severe restrictions
placed on them through racist segregation laws.
On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give
up her seat to a white passenger on a segregated bus in
Montgomery, Alabama, and was arrested. This began a
year-long bus boycott which resulted in victory when the
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