He Brought Civil Rights to Afro-Americans?

But... So Afro-Americans can be thankful to King for establishing their rights. Maybe we all can. But the 20th century was the century of equality. Even the blacks in South Africa achieved civil rights. It is difficult for me to imagine that the Afro-Americans would not have achieved civil and voting rights, somehow, sooner or later.

Two Generals

The difference is in how they achieved independence. Ho Chi Minh achieved independence through traditional warfare -- first he fought the French, then he fought the USA. Gandhi invented a new kind of fighting, satyagraha. He achieved independence from Great Britain about 20 years before Ho Chi Minh finally defeated the USA. And the people of India accomplished their goal with a minimum of violence.

So who got the better deal, India or Vietnam? Obviously, India.

Losers? Now comes the key question of this whole essay. Who got the better deal -- Great Britain, or France and the United States?

You know the answer, but let's talk about it anyway. France had to send an army to Vietnam. That costs money, and French lives. The Americans fought in Vietnam. That cost a lot of money, it cost a lot of lives, and it ripped our country in half.

The British, in contrast, said "okay."

And nowadays? As far as I can tell, India is a proud member of the British Commonwealth and, more or less, Britain would expect India to be an ally. Thirty-five years later, still neither the French nor the Americans would expect Vietnam to be an ally.

So I am not sure who should be more thankful to Gandhi, India or Great Britain. They both benefited from his actions.

The America that Never Happened

King was an unusual man, with unusual ideas. He happened to be at the right place at the right time; he had an early success, and he became the leader of the civil rights movement.

But let's imagine a Kingless world. Let's imagine a world where the Afro-Americans fought for their civil rights with the traditional methods of fighting. Imagine, say, that the Black Panthers led the civil rights movement.

There would have been violence, a lot of it. That would have earned the suspicion, distrust, and even hatred of White-Americans. That would have postponed civil rights by many years -- it is one thing to give civil rights to nonviolent, loving Afro-Americans, quite another to give civil rights to a violent collection of people who hate you. I said that the Vietnam war ripped the USA in half. But the war between Blacks and Whites would have made the Vietnam war seem trivial.

Thank You Martin Luther King

Now return to the world with King. The Afro-Americans fought peaceably for their rights. They gained the sympathy of White America, and in many cases White Americans fought with King. Two even died for the cause. The civil rights laws were passed by an all-white legislative body and supported and signed by a white southerner (Lyndon Baines Johnson). In essence, the governing powers of the USA said an enthusiastic "okay."

And that's why the everyone in the entire USA should be exceedingly thankful to Martin Luther King. He achieved civil rights for the Afro-Americans without ripping our country in half.