"Abernathy says that as a boy he was aware of racial segregation, but to him and other blacks in Alabama it was no big deal if the white folks wanted to have their own drinking fountains and a separate entrance at the post office. What did rankle is that white folk wouldn’t call his father “Mister.” The demand for white courtesy, and respect for the dignity that black folk knew they possessed—that was the issue in what came to be called the civil rights movement. That was the issue when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, a refusal that sparked the Montgomery bus boycott to which Abernathy recruited Martin Luther King, Jr., thus launching them both on a tumultuous course that they could neither anticipate nor control."
From RJN's remembrance of MLK on MLK day in the US. (italics mine)
What is missing too often in contemporary accounts is how this movement, for all its ecumenism, was started by those who took seriously the gospel of Jesus Christ. At the Crossroads conference I was able to talk to Mike Goheen who recounts a visit he took with Leslie Newbiggin to the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute in Alabama. He told of how Newbiggin and Marnie were walking together and a sermon of King's was being played. Newbiggin stopped and listened to the whole thing. "I never got to hear that sermon," he said. The reason he never got to hear it is that so many people showed up to the event at which he and Dr. King were preaching that they had to be split up into two seperate rooms. They only saw each other as they passed in the tunnels under the hall to go speak to the room which had just heard the other speak. They exchanged greetings, but never heard each other's sermons. The gospel was at the heart of the movement.
Mike recounts how, after touring the museum, he asked Newbiggin "how could it be that people didn't realize that this was such a fundamental injustice?" Mike then asked the audience a more challenging question: "What examples of injustice are in front of our noses today that are being overlooked and unrecognized?" (quotes are from memory).
Mike offered the global economy as one such example, and says that Newbiggin is behind him. What are the thoughts of the readers of this fine blog? I have begun to develop my thought, at some length, but will wait to hear the crowd before I tell you.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Martin Luther King Jr.
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3 comments:
I suppose I should preface my remarks in that if Mike is correct, then it would be difficult to get a firm look at this from where we sit (fish searching for the ocean, as it were).
I don't think the analogy is a good one. I think this because economics responds to and is governed by different norms than domestic political institutions, even overtly racist ones.
Second - and more importantly - it the "global economy" is not the problem. Mike has tended - in the past, not necessarily in his lecture at Crossroads - to suggest globalization is a) exclusively economic in nature, and b) a byproduct of the Enlightenment. I think this this misses too much, and confuses what's going on - particularly what's of positive value in the "global economy". I doubt we could make the same argument about the suppression of civil rights - ie: look at how it promotes flourishing identities/economies is some places.
Third - economics is not a zero sum game. We can have absolute, not just relative gains. Therefore, wealth in North America does not equal poverty in sub-Saharan Africa, necessarily.
Thoughts off the top of my head - happy for disagreement/correction.
I think you're exactly right on this Adunare. The analogy between economic disparity (which is what Mike is really concerned about) and the injustices of segregated America doesn't work and you point out at least three good reasons why.
I do think there is an issue which does map quite well though onto the civil rights movement though, politically and culturally.
Does it - perchance - have anything to do with labour?
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