In the organizing meetings over the last two months leading up to and at yesterday’s positive March of Resistance in Newark, NJ, endorsed by 308 organizations, African American leaders of this multi-racial, multi-issue effort have spoken often about the importance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s last book: Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?
The demonstration in Newark yesterday was one of over 300 local actions around the country interconnected by the Women’s March/People’s March. Many tens of thousands of people altogether, possibly 100,000 or more, made it very clear that there is a grassroots based, multi-issue, popular movement of resistance coming out of the blocks ready to fight in an organized way against the Trump/MAGA efforts to take this country back decades. We Won’t Go Back!
60 years after Dr. King wrote this book, we are truly faced with the same question: chaos or community?
This is a piece of work that has a great deal to say to those of us who want a world where justice, peaceful settling of conflicts, and protection of and connection with the natural environment are foundational principles.
I have gone through this book, for the third time over the last couple of years, and pulled out what I consider to be some, by no means all, of Dr. King’s words that seem most appropriate to our reality today. In the order that they come up in the book, here they are:
“The hard cold facts today indicate that the hope of the people of color in the world may well rest on the American Negro and his ability to reform the structure of racist imperialism from within and thereby turn the technology and wealth of the West to the task of liberating the world from want.” page 59
“We will be greatly misled if we feel that the problem will work itself out. Structures of evil do not crumble by passive waiting. If history teaches anything, it is that evil is recalcitrant and determined, and never voluntarily relinquishes its hold short of an almost fanatical resistance. Evil must be attacked by a counteracting persistence, by the day-to-day assault of the battering rams of justice.” page 136
“The only answer to the delay, double-dealing, tokenism and racism that we still confront is through mass nonviolent action and the ballot. Our course of action must lie neither in passively relying on persuasion nor in actively succumbing to violent rebellion, but in a higher synthesis that reconciles the truths of these two opposites.” page 137
“These must be supplemented by a continuing job of organization. To produce change, people must be organized to work together in units of power. . . [We must] engage in the task of organizing people into permanent groups to protect their own interests and produce change in their behalf.” page 139
“The future of the deep structural changes we seek will not be found in the decaying political machines. It lies in new alliances of Negroes, Puerto Ricans, labor, liberals, certain church and middle-class elements. . . A true alliance is based upon some self-interest of each component group and a common interest into which they merge. Each of them must have a goal from which it benefits and none must have an outlook in basic conflict with the others.” page 159
“We need organizations that are permeated with mutual trust, incorruptibility and militancy. Without this spirit we may have the numbers but they will add up to zero. We need organizations that are responsible, efficient and alert.” page 169
“We must rapidly begin the shift from a ‘thing’-oriented society to a ‘person’-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered. . . Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal opposition to poverty, racism and militarism.” pages 196, 197, 200 and 201
On his 96th birthday, long live the spirit and wisdom of this truly great human being and revolutionary, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Ted Glick has been a progressive activist and organizer since 1968. He is the author of the recently published books, Burglar for Peace and 21st Century Revolution, both available at https://pmpress.org . More info can be found at https://tedglick.com.
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