A Dream Still Denied : An Equality Irony: Reagan Becomes Chief Celebrant of King’s Birthday

On the first celebration of the holiday marking the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday, the chief celebrant, apart from his widow, Coretta Scott King, appears to be President Reagan. On Monday, he met with a group of conservative blacks who are interested in economic development. On Wednesday, King’s birthday, he visited the Martin Luther King Jr. elementary school in Washington and gave the predominantly black student body a moving homily on the meaning of King’s life. On Thursday, he presented a Congressional gold medal to Alminda B. Wilkins, widow of Roy Wilkins, another civil-rights leader of the 1950s and ‘60s. He also met with Mrs. King.

These sessions have provided excellent photo opportunities, the principal themes of which are the President’s abiding concerns about blacks and the issues that formed the core of King’s career. Some people are objecting to this series of events, as they did to the establishment of events in the first place, on the grounds that all this is merely symbolism.

But symbols are important. When King was a child, the most important national symbols of black life in America were “Amos n’ Andy” and Jack Benny’s Rochester on radio and actors like Steppin’ Fetchit or Butterfly McQueen in movies. In those days even the radically moderate prize fighter, Joe Louis, was pictured in sports pages as succeeding because he had jungle-like abilities that gave him advantages over civilized white opponents. Parents, both black and white, who tried to teach their children that blacks were real human beings possessing the entire range of qualities, including dignity and intelligence, had a hard time overcoming the obstacles placed in their path by our culture.

So, the prominent participation of the President in the celebration of a black man’s life and the struggles of his times would normally be welcomed; but the ironies contained in the juxtaposition of King’s and Reagan’s views confound even the most accepting spirits. Two American men who lived in the same century could hardly have agreed on less.

Take the Civil Rights Act of 1964. King risked his life in Birmingham and in other campaigns to create the political consensus that made passage of the legislation possible. Reagan opposed it with all of his oratorical skills. Or, take the Voting Rights Act of 1965. King had again put himself at risk in Selma and on the road to Montgomery. Then, when the act came up for renewal early in Reagan’s first term, the Administration first took no position. But when the legislative momentum made it clear that an extension would pass, the Administration fought to weaken it. Only after powerful congressional Republicans told the President that he would surely loose if he continued to press the issue did Reagan accept an extension that was in accordance with the spirit of King’s work.

Even this holiday itself, the one the President is now celebrating with such energy, was an event he originally contemplated with singular lack of enthusiasm. He first opposed it on the grounds that the establishment of a new national holiday would be too expensive. Then, responding to a news-conference question about what secret FBI tapes might reveal about King’s connections with communism, Reagan said, “We’ll know in about 35 years won’t we,” referring to the time when FBI records would be unsealed. This proved so offensive that he later called Mrs. King to apologize.

King’s vision, set forth powerfully in his “I Have a Dream” speech at the 1963 March on Washington, included a relentless, all-encompassing pursuit of racial justice. In instance after instance--the attempt to provide tax exemptions for segregated schools, opposition to using all court-approved means to desegregate schools, opposition to affirmative action even in cases where the Justice Department had already agreed to it, the weakening of civil-rights enforcement and monitoring mechanisms in the U.S. government--the Administration attempted to narrow the vision and constrict the pursuit of the dream.

Toward the end of his life King’s attention expanded from the plight of blacks segregated in the South to all of America’s poor. In his last presidential address to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, King called for a “restructuring of American society,” to alleviate the plight of the 40 million black, white, Native American and brown Americans who were poor. King’s profound concern for the poor and the powerless is matched by Reagan’s concern--as indicated by his tax, domestic and budgetary policies--for the wealthy and the powerful.

The most critical difference between Reagan and King lies in their respective visions of the post-1965 era and the implication of those visions for the future. King remarked after the last of the major civil-rights laws passed: “We have now gotten the Negro the right to sit at the lunch counter. We must now get him the wherewithal to buy a hamburger.” He understood that the drive for equal justice was entering the far more complex and difficult terrain of economics and class, where the path to justice would still be obscured by the myths of racism. The most difficult obstacle to mounting any new departure in the drive for justice is the powerful tendency in racism to deny its own reality--a variance of the old children’s program, “Let’s Pretend.” During slavery--even in some Christian pulpits--the cry was: “Let’s pretend that slavery is good and civilizing for the heathens.” After the decision in Plessy vs. Ferguson, it was: “Let’s pretend that separate but equal can truly be equal.” Before civil-rights laws it was: “Let’s pretend that blacks are really happy with segregation.”

These pretenses, transmuting themselves to fit the conditions of the times, were close to the core of racist ideology, believed by many people and, therefore, enormous obstacles to solving the problems of the victims of oppression.

King understood that pretense had to be destroyed and underlying reality exposed before a liberating political consensus could be developed. That is exactly what his “demonstrations” in Montgomery, Bimingham and other Southern cities about the evils of segregation did. Now, as the nation faces the horrific reality of a black underclass--more than 50% of black children under six live in poverty and the numbers are increasing--the Reagan Administration itself has become the fountainhead of the new pretense.

This pretense, every bit as pernicious as those it has replaced--is that America has become a “color-blind society.” Trumpeted across the land by William Bradford Reynolds, Reagan’s civil-rights chief in the Justice Department, this pretense has become the touchstone for policies that not only seek to limit the gains made in King’s time, but also to throttle all new experiments designed to get the impoverished in this nation the hamburger that King knew was necessary for true freedom.

The pretense has enormous power because it comes from the pinnacle of America’s political structure. It is particularly galling because it comes from Reynolds, whom Reagan tried to reward for his anti-civil rights program and who claims he is acting in the spirit of the work of King and others civil-rights leaders of the ‘60s.

Everything in King’s history suggests otherwise.

Were he alive, King would surely see that America is by no means color-blind today and that claiming otherwise simply serves to justify opposition to the aspirations of America’s poor, particularly poor blacks--to justify neglect of their needs. He would undoubtedly be expending every effort to demonstrate that the heavy legacy of slavery and segregation still breaks the spirits and cripples the lives of millions of Americans, that concerted national action for justice is still required if the American dream is to be made whole.

Nor are the disagreements between the two men confined to these shores. In breaking silence on Vietnam, King said:

“Now it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concerns for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America’s soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read Vietnam. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over. So it is that those of us . . . are led down the path of protest and dissent, working for the health of our land.”

Those protesting Reagan’s position on South Africa, Nicaragua or Angola could adopt those words as a rallying cry. King knew that America wasn’t strong enough or wise enough to treat small countries as little children who must be spanked as needed. He knew that such policies were bad for human beings the world over and bad for America. Reagan has yet to learn those lessons.

So, those of us who are black are watching the President’s celebrations with, at best, mixed feelings. He will be lauding one of our champions but he will also be pretending to adhere to ideals which his policies clearly indicate he opposes. We will feel, in short, that we are having our pockets picked--with our knowledge--without the slightest power to prevent the crime.