Can Martin Luther King III Save the Dream?

At a press conference in November announcing his selection as the new head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Martin Luther King III gave almost no indication of where he planned to take the floundering group. But one thing is certain: He will face a far different America than did his father.

Forty years earlier as head of the fledgling SCLC, Martin Luther King Jr. promised that blacks “would struggle and sacrifice until the walls of segregation have been fully crushed by the battering rams of justice.” This simple but eloquent plea for justice firmly staked out the moral high ground for the civil rights movement. It was classic good versus evil.

Many white Americans were sickened by gory news scenes of baton-wielding racist Southern sheriffs, fire hoses, police dogs and Klan violence unleashed against peaceful black protesters. Racial segregation was considered by most Americans to be immoral and indefensible, and civil rights activists were hailed as martyrs and heroes in the fight for justice. In the next few years the torrent of demonstrations, sit-ins, marches and civil rights legislation obliterated the legal barriers of segregation.

But as America unraveled in the 1960s in the anarchy of urban riots, campus takeovers and antiwar street battles, the civil rights movement came apart. It fell victim to its own success. When it broke down the racially restricted doors of corporations, government agencies and universities, middle-class blacks, not the black poor, were the ones who scrambled through them.

As King veered toward leftist radicalism and embraced the rhetoric of the militant anti-war movement, he became a political pariah shunned by the White House, liberals and mainstream black leaders. In the months before his murder, King was in danger of being reduced to a tragic symbol of a leader bypassed by the times.

His death was the turning point for race relations in America. The self-destruction from within black organizations and political sabotage from without left the movement organizationally fragmented and politically adrift. The black poor, lacking competitive technical skills and professional training, became expendable jail and street fodder and were pushed even further to the outer frontier of society. Many turned to gangs, guns and drugs to survive.

At the same time, many whites, appalled at black lawlessness, bloated Great Society spending and liberal permissiveness, no longer cheered for civil rights. The seeds of the conservative revolt that budded during the Reagan years exploded full blown in the 1990s with the assault on affirmative action and social programs, and the demand for more prisons, police and tougher laws.

King did not see this backward political turn. His son has. He will have to grapple with the alienation of the black poor and the crime, violence and the drug crisis that has sledgehammered many black communities. He will have to confront the hostility and indifference of many whites to social programs. He will have to deal with the reality that Latinos and Asians have become major players in the battle for political and economic empowerment. And he will have to figure out ways to juggle the competing and contradictory needs of other groups and fashion them into a workable coalition with blacks.

He will also have to deal with a volatile issue that his father didn’t have to: the battle over affirmative action. At his November press conference, King called on the nation to recommit itself to the dream of a colorblind society. His father repeatedly called for the same during his life. To Martin Luther King Jr., in the context of Jim Crow America of the 1950s and early 1960s, that meant equal opportunity and an end to racial discrimination. Since affirmative action, reverse discrimination and racial preferences had not yet intruded into the nation’s political vocabulary, let alone become a point of public debate at the time, supporters and opponents of affirmative action have each claimed King for their side. His son has left no room for distortion when he advocates a colorblind society. He and SCLC will vigorously fight against the attacks on affirmative action.

It would be grossly unfair to expect Martin Luther King III to be the charismatic, aggressive champion and martyr for civil rights that his father was. The times have changed too much for that. Racial battles are no longer fought in the streets, but in the courts, legislatures, Congress, universities and corporate boardrooms. The most we can or should expect of him is to fight in his own way to move America closer toward fully realizing his father’s enduring dream of justice and equality.