Best Way to Honor the Memory of Dr. King : Mrs. King’s anti-violence plea should resonate in the cities

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. preached nonviolence in the face of terrible violence. Confronted with bullets, fire hoses and police dogs, he and his followers practiced peaceful resistance. As today’s national holiday marks the slain civil rights leader’s birthday, his widow is calling for a modern day of nonviolence worldwide, in the face of wars and other dangers.

Coretta Scott King pleads with “adversaries who are engaged in personal as well as political conflicts” to honor the legacy of her late husband “by reaching out to each other to make some effort to start a constructive dialogue, to use this day to plant the seeds for a peaceful resolution of the conflict that divides them.” Her message should resonate everywhere, both abroad and in the United States, especially in the black communities for which Dr. King fought so hard.

As President Clinton asked in November in a speech in Memphis, where Dr. King was killed in 1968, if the rights leader “were to reappear by my side today and give us a report card on the last 25 years, what would he say?” Clinton acknowledged black political gains, economic gains for the black middle class and other strides against racism. But he didn’t hold back in pointing to the problems found in many poor black communities, where violent crime takes its heaviest toll.

Dr. King, Clinton declared, would say: “I did not live and die to see the American family destroyed . . . to see 13-year-old boys get automatic weapons and gun down 9-year-olds just for the kick of it . . . to see young people destroy their own lives with drugs and then build fortunes destroying the lives of others.

“I fought for freedom . . . but not for the freedom of people to kill each other with reckless abandon; not for the freedom of children to have children and the fathers of the children to . . . abandon them as if they don’t amount to anything. I fought for people to have the right to work, but not to have whole communities and people abandoned.”

Clinton was on the mark in that speech. He is also on the mark with the comprehensive crime bill he is pushing in Washington.

The Senate passed its version in November. Legislators found $22 billion, despite the huge federal deficit, to pay for major new initiatives including 100,000 new police officers, more prisons, jail-like boot camps, tougher sentences and an expanded death penalty. We don’t like the death penalty idea--expanded or not--but the rest of it is worth rallying around.

However, the bill is in trouble in the House, largely because many members of the Congressional Black Caucus note that the legislation pays too much attention to the consequences of crime and not enough to the causes. Tougher penalties and more prisons aren’t all that’s needed. The caucus rightly insists that Washington also fight crime by attacking the unemployment and poverty that punish so many communities. Still, the lawmakers shouldn’t sacrifice the entire crime bill. They should cut a reasonable deal.

Any reduction of violence in cities, suburbs or rural areas would provide an appropriate tribute to Dr. King today, and every day.