The Future of Non-Violence

The Future of Non-Violence

The decade of the sixties was such a period of transition, of beginnings and endings, of highs and lows--for me personally, as well as for the larger society-- that I still find it difficult to realize that my three children only know about it from written reports and other documentaries. And yet their beginnings were curiously intertwined in one way or another with the earth-shaking, world-shattering moments that occurred so frequently during that era.

This weekend as we mark the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., martyr--or so we tell the children-- to the cause of civil rights for people of color, it is time to look more closely at his all-encompassing legacy which indeed grew out of his experience of having been born black in white America.

Quoting now from PARTING THE WATERS, America in the King Years 1954-63 by Taylor Branch in reference to an early '60's session of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference: ...[Dr.] King...was reminding his audience of major SCLC events ahead... when one of the white men in the audience walked to the stage and lashed out with his right fist. The blow made a loud popping sound as it landed on King's left cheek, He staggered backward and spun half around.

The entire crowd observed in silent, addled awe. Some people thought King had been introducing the man as one of the white dignitaries so conspicuously welcome at Birmingham's first fully integrated convention. Others thought the attack might be a staged demonstration from the nonviolence workshops. But now the man was hitting King again, this time on the side of his face from behind, and twice more in the back.

Shrieks and gasps went up from the crowd. People recalled feeling physically jolted by the force of the violence--from both the attack on King and the flash of hatred through the auditorium.  The assailant slowed rather than quickened the pace of his blows, expecting, as he said later, to be torn to pieces by the crowd. But he struck powerfully. After being knocked backward by one of the last blows, King turned to face him while dropping his hands. It was the look on his face that many would not forget. Septima Clark, who nursed many private complaints about the strutting ways of the SCLC preachers and would not have been
shocked to see the unloosed rage of an exalted leader, marveled instead at King's transcendent calm. King dropped his hands "like a newborn baby," she said, and from then on she never doubted that his nonviolence was more than the heat of his oratory or the result of his slow calculation. It was the response of his quickest instincts.

This impression struck a number of others, including perhaps the assailant himself, who stared at King long enough for...others to jump between them.
"Don't touch him!" cried King. "Don't touch him. We have to pray for him." His words, signaling an end to the immediate crisis, released a flood of noise...One of [the preachers]  jumped to the microphone to hold back the crowd, saying, "We can handle this on stage." ...King kept talking quietly to the white man, saying no one was going to hurt him, and the man said very little except to mumble that he believed in white supremacy and that Sammy Davis, Jr. had married a white woman. (pp.653-4)

That happened in September 1962. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., scholarly son and grandson of southern Negro Baptist ministers, himself a Baptist minister with a theological education from an integrated seminary and a Ph. D. from Boston University, had been pressed into the leadership position of the eventually successful Montgomery Bus Boycott that consumed a year of his first pastorate in the mid-fifties. Early in 1959, as the organizer and head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference who had carried his concern over the plight of
Negroes across the country and beyond, he had visited India, meeting and talking with followers of Gandhi and, in the process, deepening his understanding of and commitment to the use of nonviolent resistance as the most powerful instrument of change available to the oppressed.

The year following the convention attack King was jailed again. This time, from his solitary confinement in the Birmingham jail, he wrote in a long letter on the margins of smuggled-in newspapers a statement of his philosophy and his commitment to active nonviolence. In and out of jail, in and out of favor with his peers and contemporaries --black and white—spied on by the FBI, now courted, now shunned by governmental leadership, the next five or so years --what proved to be his last years--were filled with marches and speeches and
protests and demonstrations as he sought the reconciliation of black and white, of oppressed and oppressor.

He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. And his concept of the
scope of the social ills resolvable by active nonviolence expanded: in April of 1967 he announced his opposition to the war in Viet Nam; as leader of the Poor People's Campaign he was in Memphis in support of the sanitation workers' strike when a sniper's bullet felled him in his thirty-ninth year.

Branch summarizes the legacy of the two murdered leaders: The reaction to Kennedy’s assassination pushed deep enough and wide enough in the high
ground of political emotion to enable the movement to institutionalize its major gains before receding. Legal segregation was doomed. Negroes no longer were invisible, nor those of normal capacity viewed as statistical freaks. In this sense, Kennedy's murder marked the arrival of the freedom surge, just as King's own death four years hence marked its demise.

New interior worlds were opened, along with a means of understanding freedom
movements all over the globe. King was swelling. Race had taught him hard lessons about the greater witness of sacrifice than truth, but there was more. Nonviolence had come over him for a purpose that far transcended segregation. It touched evils beyond color and addressed needs more human than status or possessions, Having lifted him up among rulers,  it would drive him back down to die among garbage workers in Memphis. (p. 922)

Perhaps Branch was right: the freedom surge was only four years in duration. But it did bring about the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and endowed many people of color with a new sense of self-worth while embarassed, awakened-- guilty--European Americans began to perceive a new definition of fuller humanity. But, the riots which immediately followed the King assassination, the controversy that raged on over our adventure in Viet Nam, the continuing bent toward conspiracy, intrigue and dirty tricks in high governmental circles and the the various attempts we have made through military means to mold the world at least to our leaders' liking, to say nothing of what passes for public entertainment! still bespeak a monstrously violent society.

Martin Luther King, Jr., catalyzed and initiated a movement toward freedom and dignity, reconciliation and peace. But, for the most part, since his death what remains of that movement has been owned by and restricted to African Americans, except, of course for his birthday which so cynically is used as yet another holiday to boost retail sales.

The realities of the sixties-- the beatings, the bombings, the murders, the protests, the sit-ins, the marches over the issue of racial segregation certainly did not result in the complete conversion of this nation to the just society it purports to be. In his last year or so even Dr. King began to realize that the issues of race and poverty were but specific symptoms of a larger social ill. He said:  "For years I labored with the idea of reforming the existing institutions of society, a little change here, a little change there. Now I feel quite differently. I think you've got to have a reconstruction of the entire society, a revolution of values." And, in good prophetic style, he pointed:

"The greatest irony and tragedy of all is that our nation, which initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world, is now cast in the mold of being an arch anti revolutionary."

The realities of our current decade beset us with continuing inequalities on racial and ethnic bases, with reports of child abuse and battered women, with homelessness and joblessness, escalating poverty and widening class divisions, and with a leadership that continues to see only arms and police action and prisons as solutions to social and political problems rather than placing a priority on our corporate responsibility as a nation for feeding the hungry, providing shelter and education and access to the resources that insure the welfare of all the people for all the people. These realities bespeak a society permeated by-- invested in, violence no less than the impoverished German nation that once played into the hands of a mad demagogue, whose insanity was so meagerly echoed by the near-witless American Nazi "lieutenant" who accosted Martin Luther King, Jr., that late September afternoon in 1962.

In some ways, it is a bleak and frightening world this August 25, 2000. But the potential for change, the possible direction that would build a more responsible, gentler nation that could extend its hopeful and helpful influence around the globe was revealed in the teachings and in the "transcendant calm" of the self-styled "drum major" of the march for justice and peace whose birthday anniversary we celebrate this weekend.

Not that Martin Luther King, Jr., was a god, or even a saint. He did not know certainty and success in all his ventures, nor was he able to break out of the patriarchal mold which infects religion and politics and cultural expectations as we know them. But as an exemplar of nonviolent resistance, he demonstrated that we are not inherently, genetically, inexorably doomed to be ever
characterized by violence against ourselves, each other, our planet home.

Rather in the life and career of Dr. King we may discern our own human potential for constructing a future of nonviolence. Curiously and perhaps understandably, we have no positive word for the concept of reconciliation-through-pacific-confrontation that is alluded to by the term, "nonviolent resistance" or "active nonviolence." But we have Dr. King's example as well as that of many who worked with him-- all very human individuals-- who endured violent physical and
spiritual assaults but were nonetheless capable of caring for their oppressors and able to respond without rancor even unto death.

Ever the prophet, King knew that the Promised Land of a nonviolent future was not likely to be realized quickly or soon. We still hear his resonant sermonic voice intoning: "I may not get to the promised land with you," he said on the eve of his assassination, "but ...we as a people will." His Dream continues despite the nightmare world we inhabit alongside the gentler one which resides in each of us. Our choice of which we will nourish to fruition will determine how many monuments to holocausts coming generations must raise, be they museums or Birthday holidays or graveyards for the homeless and outcast of society. Our choice will determine whether or not there will be a future of nonviolence.

INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE

INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF A SLAVE GIRL,
SEVEN YEARS CONCEALED.

Author unknown/edited Alan L. Joplin

After the alarm caused by Nat Turner's insurrection had subsided, the slaveholders came to the conclusion that it would be well to give the slaves enough of religious instruction to keep them from murdering their masters. The Episcopal clergyman offered to hold a separate service on Sundays for their benefit. His colored members were very few and also very respectable--a fact which I presume had some weight with him. The difficulty was to decide on a suitable place for them to worship.

The Methodist and Baptist churches admitted them in the afternoon; but their carpets and cushions were not as costly as those at the Episcopal Church. It was at last decided that they should meet at the house of a free colored man, who was a member.

I was invited to attend, because I could read. Sunday evening came, and, trusting to the cover of night, I ventured out. I rarely ventured out by daylight, for I always went with fear, expecting at every turn to encounter Dr. Flint, who was sure to turn me back, or order me to his office to inquire where I got my bonnet, or some other article of dress. When the Rev. Mr. Pike came, there were some twenty persons present. The reverend gentleman knelt in prayer, then seated himself, and requested all present, who could read, to open their books, while he gave out the portions he wished them to repeat or respond to.

His text was, "Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ." Mr. Pike brushed up his hair till it stood upright, and, in deep, solemn tones, began: "Hearken, ye servants! Give strict heed unto my words. You are rebellious sinners. Your hearts are filled with all manner of evil. 'Tis the devil who tempts you. God is angry with you, and will surely punish you, if you don't forsake your wicked ways. You that live in town are eye-servants behind your master's back. Instead of serving your masters faithfully, which is pleasing in the sight of your heavenly Master, you are idle, and shirk your work.

God sees you. You tell lies. God hears you. Instead of being engaged in worshipping him, you are hidden away somewhere, feasting on your master's substance; tossing coffee-grounds with some wicked fortuneteller, or cutting cards with another old hag. Your masters may not find you out, but God sees you, and will punish you. O, the depravity of your hearts! When your master's work is done, are you quietly together, thinking of the goodness of God to such sinful creatures? No; you are quarrelling, and tying up little bags of roots to bury under the door-steps to poison each other with. God sees you. You men steal away to every grog shop to sell your master's corn that you may buy rum to drink.

God sees you. You sneak into the back streets, or among the bushes, to pitch coppers. Although your masters may not find you out, God sees you; and he will punish you. You must forsake your sinful ways, and be faithful servants. Obey your old master and your young master--your old mistress and your young mistress. If you disobey your earthly master, you offend your heavenly Master. You must obey God's commandments. When you go from here, don't stop at the corners of the streets to talk, but go directly home, and let your master and mistress see that you have come."

The benediction was pronounced. We went home, highly amused at brother Pike's gospel teaching, and we determined to hear him again. I went the next Sabbath evening, and heard pretty much a repetition of the last discourse. At the close of the meeting, Mr. Pike informed us that he found it very inconvenient to meet at the friend's house, and he should be glad to see us, every Sunday evening, at his own kitchen.

I went home with the feeling that I had heard the Reverend Mr. Pike for the last time. Some of his members repaired to his house, and found that the kitchen sported two tallow candles; the first time, I am sure, since its present occupant owned it, for the servants never had any thing but pine knots. It was so long before the reverend gentleman descended from his comfortable parlor that the slaves left, and went to enjoy a Methodist shout. They never seem as happy as when shouting and singing at religious meetings. Many of them are sincere, and nearer to the gate of heaven than sanctimonious Mr. Pike, and other long-faced Christians, who see wounded Samaritans, and pass by on the other side.

The slaves generally compose their own songs and hymns; and they do not trouble their heads much about the measure. They often sing the following verses:

Old Satan is one busy ole man;
..He rolls dem blocks all in my way;
But Jesus is my bosom friend;
..He rolls dem blocks away.

If I had died when I was young,
..Den how my stam'ring tongue would have sung;
But I am ole, and now I stand
..A narrow chance for to tread dat heavenly land.

I well remember one occasion when I attended a Methodist class meeting. I went with a burdened spirit, and happened to sit next a poor, bereaved mother, whose hearts was still heavier than mine. The class leader was the town constable--a man who bought and sold slaves, who whipped his brethren and sisters of the church at the public whipping post, in jail or out of jail. He was ready to perform that Christian office any where for fifty cents. This white-faced, black-hearted brother came near us, and said to the stricken woman, "Sister, can't you tell us how the Lord deals with your soul? Do you love him as you did formerly?"

She rose to her feet, and said, in piteous tones, "My Lord and Master, help me! My load is more than I can bear. God has hid himself from me, and I am left in darkness and misery." Then, striking her breast, she continued, "'I can't tell you what is in here! They've got all my children. Last week they took the last one. God only knows where they've sold her. They let me have her sixteen years, and then-- O! O! Pray for her brothers and sisters! I've got nothing to live for now. God make my time short!"

She sat down, quivering in every limb. I saw that constable class leader become crimson in the face with suppressed laughter, while he held up his handkerchief, that those who were weeping for the poor woman's calamity might not see his merriment. Then, with assumed gravity, he said to the bereaved mother, "Sister, pray to the Lord that every dispensation of his divine will may be sanctified to the good of your poor needy soul!”

The congregation struck up a hymn, and sung as though they were as free as the birds that warbled round us,

Ole Satan thought he had a mighty aim;
He missed my soul, and caught my sins.
Cry Amen, cry Amen, cry Amen to God!

He took my sins upon his back;
Went muttering and grumbling down to hell.
Cry Amen, cry Amen, cry Amen to God!

Ole Satan's church is here below.
Up to God's Free Church I hope to go.
Cry Amen, cry Amen, cry Amen to God!

Precious are such moments to the poor slaves. If you were to hear them at such times, you might think they were happy. But can that hour of singing and shouting sustain them through the dreary week, toiling without wages, under constant dread of the lash?

The Episcopal clergyman, who, ever since my earliest recollection, had been a sort of god among the slaveholders, concluded, as his family was large, that he must go where money was more abundant. A very different clergyman took his place. The change was very agreeable to the colored people, who said, "God has sent us a good man this time."

They loved him, and their children followed him for a smile or a kind word. Even the slaveholders felt his influence. He brought to the rectory five slaves. His wife taught them to read and write, and to be useful to her and themselves. As soon as he was settled, he turned his attention to the needy slaves around him. He urged upon his parishioners the duty of having a meeting expressly for them every Sunday, with a sermon adapted to their comprehension. After much argument and importunity, it was finally agreed that they might occupy the gallery of the church on Sunday evenings. Many colored people, hitherto unaccustomed to attend church, now gladly went to hear the gospel preached.

The sermons were simple, and they understood them. Moreover, it was the first time they had ever been addressed as human beings. It was not long before his white parishioners began to be dissatisfied. He was accused of preaching better sermons to the Negroes than he did to them. He honestly confessed that he bestowed more pains upon those sermons than upon any others; for the slaves were reared in such ignorance that it was a difficult task to adapt himself to their comprehension.

Dissensions arose in the parish. Some wanted he should preach to them in the evening and to the slaves in the afternoon. In the midst of these disputing his wife died, after
A very short illness. Her slaves gathered round her dying bed in great sorrow. She said, "I have tried to do you good and promote your happiness; and if I have failed, it has not been for want of interest in your welfare. Do not weep for me; but prepare for the new duties that lie before you. I leave you all free. May we meet in a better world? "Her liberated slaves were sent away, with funds to establish them comfortably. The colored people will long bless the memory of that truly Christian woman. Soon after her death her husband preached his farewell sermon, and many tears were shed at his departure.

Several years after, he passed through our town and preached to his former congregation. In his afternoon sermon he addressed the colored people. "My friends," said he, "it affords me great happiness to have an opportunity of speaking to you again. For two years I have been striving to do something for the colored people of my own parish; but nothing is yet accomplished. I have not even preached a sermon to them. Try to live according to the word of God, my friends.

Your skin is darker than mine; but God judges men by their hearts, not by the color of their skins." This was strange doctrine from a southern pulpit. It was very offensive to slaveholders. They said he and his wife had made fools of their slaves, and that he preached like a fool to the Negroes.

I knew an old black man, whose piety and childlike trust in God were beautiful to witness. At fifty-three years old he joined the Baptist church. He had a most earnest desire to learn to read. He thought he should know how to serve God better if he could only read the Bible. He came to me, and begged me to teach him. He said he could not pay me, for he had no money; but he would bring me nice fruit when the season for it came. I asked him if he didn't know it was contrary to law; and that slaves were whipped and imprisoned for teaching each other to read. This brought the tears into his eyes.

"Don't be troubled, Uncle Fred," said I. "I have no thoughts of refusing to teach you. I only told you of the law, that you might know the danger, and be on your guard. "He thought he could plan to come three times a week without its being suspected. I selected a quiet nook, where no intruder was likely to penetrate, and there I taught him his A, B, C. Considering his age, his progress was astonishing. As soon as he could spell in two syllables he wanted to spell out words in the Bible.

The happy smile that illuminated his face put joy into my heart. After spelling out a few words, he paused, and said, "Honey, it 'pears when I can read dis good book I shall be nearer to God. White man is got all de sense. He can larn easy. It ain't easy for ole black man like me. I only wants to read dis book, dat I may know how to live; den I hab no fear 'bout dying." I tried to encourage him by speaking of the rapid progress he had made. "Hab patience, child," he replied. "I larns slow."

I had no need of patience. His gratitude, and the happiness I imparted, were more than a
Recompense for all my trouble. At the end of six months he had read through the New Testament, and could find any text in it. One day, when he had recited unusually well, I said, "Uncle Fred, how do you manage to get your lessons so well?"  "Lord bress you, chile," he replied. "You nebber gibs me a lesson dat I don't pray to God to help me to understan' what I spells and what I reads. And he does help me, chile. Bress his holy name!"

There are thousands, who, like good Uncle Fred, are thirsting for the water of life; but the law forbids it, and the churches withhold it. They send the Bible to heathen abroad, and neglect the heathen at home. I am glad that missionaries go out to the dark corners of the earth; but I ask them not to overlook the dark corners at home. Talk to American slaveholders as you talk to savages in Africa. Tell them it was wrong to traffic in men. Tell them it is sinful to sell their own children, and atrocious to violate their own daughters. Tell them that all men are brethren, and that man has no right to shut out the light of knowledge from his brother. Tell them they are answerable to God for sealing up the Fountain of Life from souls that are thirsting for it.

There are men who would gladly undertake such missionary work as this; but, alas! their number is small. They are hated by the south, and would be driven from its soil, or dragged to prison to die, as others have been before them. The field is ripe for the harvest, and awaits the reapers. Perhaps the great grandchildren of Uncle Fred may have freely imparted to them the divine treasures, which he sought by stealth, at the risk of the prison and the scourge.

Are doctors of divinity blind, or are they hypocrites? I suppose some are the one, and some the other; but I think if they felt the interest in the poor and the lowly, that they ought to feel, they would not be so easily blinded. A clergyman, who goes to the south, for the first time, has usually some feeling, however vague, that slavery is wrong. The slaveholder suspects this, and plays his game accordingly. He makes himself as agreeable as possible; talks on theology, and other kindred topics. The reverend gentleman is asked to invoke a blessing on a table loaded with luxuries.

After dinner he walks round the premises, and sees the beautiful groves and flowering vines, and the comfortable huts of favored household slaves. The southerner invites him to talk with those slaves. He asks them if they want to be free, and they say, "O, no, massa." This is a sufficient to satisfy him. He comes home to publish a "South Side View of Slavery," and to complain of the exaggerations of abolitionists. He assures people that he has been to the south, and seen slavery for himself, that it is a beautiful "patriarchal institution;" that the slaves don’t want their freedom; that they have hallelujah meetings, and other religious privileges.

What does he know of the half-starved wretches toiling from dawn till dark on the plantations? Of mothers shrieking for their children, torn from their arms by slave traders? Of young girls dragged down into moral filth? Of pools of blood around the whipping post? Of hounds trained to tear human flesh? Of men screwed into cotton gins to die? The slaveholder showed him none of these things, and the slaves dared not tell of them if he had asked them.

There is a great difference between Christianity and religion at the south. If a man goes to the communion table, and pays money into the treasury of the church, no matter if it be the price of blood, he is called religious. If a pastor has offspring by a woman not his wife, the church dismisses him, if she is a white woman; but if she is colored, it does not hinder his continuing to be their good shepherd.

When I was told that Dr. Flint had joined the Episcopal Church, I was much surprised. I supposed that religion had a purifying effect on the character of men; but the worst persecutions I endured from him were after he was a communicant. The conversation of the doctor, the day after he had been confirmed, certainly gave me no indication that he had "renounced the devil and all his works.” In answer to some of his usual talk, I  
"Yes, Linda," said he. "It was proper for me to do so. I am getting in years, and my position in society requires it, and it puts an end to all the damned slang. You would do well to join the church, too, Linda."  "There are sinners enough in it already," rejoined I. "If I could be allowed to live like a Christian, I should be glad." "You can do what I require; and if you are faithful to me, you will be as virtuous as my wife," he replied.

I answered that the Bible didn't say so. His voice became hoarse with rage. "How dare you preach to me about your infernal Bible!" he exclaimed. "What rights have you, who are my Negro, to talk to me about what you would like and what you wouldn't like? I am your master, and you shall obey me."

No wonder the slaves sing, Ole Satan's church is here below; Up to God's Free Church I hope to go.