Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff, Lauren boge obam here. Martin Luther King
Speaker 1: Junior's birthday is a national holiday here in the United States.
Speaker 1: His leadership in the struggle for civil rights and his
Speaker 1: promotion of non violent tactics have made him an international
Speaker 1: icon of social justice. But that wasn't always the case.
Speaker 1: King was assassinated on April fourth, ninety eight, but historians
Speaker 1: tell us that it wasn't King's work while he was alive,
Speaker 1: nor even his murder that changed his reputation in the
Speaker 1: minds of most Americans. In writing the article that this
Speaker 1: episode is based on, back in ten, we spoke with
Speaker 1: Jean Theo Harris, who teaches political science at Brooklyn College
Speaker 1: and is the author, most recently of A More Beautiful
Speaker 1: and Terrible History, The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History.
Speaker 1: Her book is an attempt to get beyond the myths
Speaker 1: that have arisen about the civil rights movement and look
Speaker 1: at how it was really seen then and what it
Speaker 1: means for us now. Many Northerners, for example, believe if
Speaker 1: the King was always a beloved figure, and that his
Speaker 1: crusade against the Jim Crow South was widely celebrated in
Speaker 1: the North, but the o'harris points to a New York
Speaker 1: Times pole from nineteen sixty four, the same year that
Speaker 1: the Civil Rights Act was passed, that shows a majority
Speaker 1: of white New Yorkers thought the civil rights movement had
Speaker 1: gone too far, and a national pole in nineteen sixty six,
Speaker 1: just two years before King's death, found that only twenty
Speaker 1: eight percent of white Americans had a favorable opinion of King.
Speaker 1: A separate nineteen sixty six poll found that seventy eight
Speaker 1: percent of black Americans approved of King's work in the
Speaker 1: fight for civil rights. The o' harris said, the general
Speaker 1: public does not support the civil rights movement when it's happening.
Speaker 1: The same criticisms made against Colin Kaepernick and the Black
Speaker 1: Lives Matter movement today in were trotted out against Martin
Speaker 1: Luther King, and Rosa Parks sixty years ago. They were disruptive,
Speaker 1: they were called extremists. They were accused of moving too fast,
Speaker 1: going too far. All these things we see today have
Speaker 1: parallels in the civil rights movement. Even King's famous I
Speaker 1: Have a Dream speech at the nineteenth three March for
Speaker 1: Jobs and Freedom in Washington, d C. View today is
Speaker 1: the high water mark of the movement, and King's short,
Speaker 1: yet impactful career was delivered under a cloud of fear
Speaker 1: and tention. THEO. Harris said, we think of the March
Speaker 1: on Washington as the most American event ever at the time,
Speaker 1: it wasn't seen like that local and federal law enforcement
Speaker 1: prepared for it, like it was an invasion. Many Americans
Speaker 1: also believed that King's work ended with the passage of
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixty four Civil Rights Act and the nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty five Voting Rights Act. We also spoke back in
Speaker 1: tween the Claiborne Carson, history professor at Stanford University and
Speaker 1: founding director of the Martin Luther King Junior Research and
Speaker 1: Education Institute. He pointed out that King didn't retire after
Speaker 1: the passage of the Voting Rights Act. Carson said, he
Speaker 1: was in Chicago the next year dealing with problems more
Speaker 1: national in scope that are still with us today. He
Speaker 1: was dealing with the question of war, and now we're
Speaker 1: living in an era of perpetual war. He was dealing
Speaker 1: with the issue of poverty on the day that he died.
Speaker 1: If Martin Luther King were alive today, he would say
Speaker 1: that the landmark legislation was a tremendous victory, but it's
Speaker 1: made us very complacent about his goal of global human
Speaker 1: rights and social justice. That was his big picture. So
Speaker 1: if King was distrusted and maligned by mainstream America during
Speaker 1: his life, was it his martyrdom at age thirty nine
Speaker 1: that changed public opinion and transformed him into an almost
Speaker 1: saintly American hero. Not immediately, says THEA. Harris, explaining that
Speaker 1: it took fifteen years of lobbying by civil rights leaders
Speaker 1: and sympathetic legislators to finally convince Congress to commemorate Martin
Speaker 1: Luther King Day. President Ronald Reagan, who was against the
Speaker 1: holiday during his first term in office because he agreed
Speaker 1: with former FBI Director J Edgar Hoover the King was
Speaker 1: a Communist, changed his tune when he was running for
Speaker 1: re election and needed to close a sensitivity gap with
Speaker 1: minorities and women. By signing the bill in three that
Speaker 1: made King's birthday in national holiday. Reagan's skillfully laid out
Speaker 1: the elements that would become the national fable, Reagan said
Speaker 1: in a statement at the time. Now our nation has
Speaker 1: decid to honor Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. By setting
Speaker 1: aside a day each year to remember him and the
Speaker 1: just cause he stood for. We've made historic strides since
Speaker 1: Rosa Parks refused to go to the back of the bus.
Speaker 1: As a democratic people, we can take pride in the
Speaker 1: knowledge that we Americans recognized a grave injustice and took
Speaker 1: action to correct it. And we should remember that in
Speaker 1: far too many countries, people like doctor King never have
Speaker 1: the opportunity to speak out at all. THEO. Harris says
Speaker 1: that Reagan's genius was to frame King's story as another
Speaker 1: example of American exceptionalism. Quote, we had an injustice and
Speaker 1: we corrected it. It's all about the power of individuals
Speaker 1: and the power of American democracy. These will be key
Speaker 1: elements in terms of how the civil rights movement comes
Speaker 1: to be memorialized in our national culture. By nineteen eighty seven,
Speaker 1: four years after the creation of m L. K Day
Speaker 1: and nearly twenty years after King's murder on a hotel
Speaker 1: balcony in Memphis, Tennessee, a full seventy six percent of
Speaker 1: Americans had a favorable opinion of King, and those numbers
Speaker 1: only continued to grow. By nine nine, King came in
Speaker 1: second on a gallop survey of twentieth century individuals that
Speaker 1: Americans admired most, behind Mother Teresa. Political scientist Sheldon Appleton
Speaker 1: wrote in that younger, college educated white Americans tended to
Speaker 1: support King, and both of these demographics were larger in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty seven than in nineteen sixty six. He also
Speaker 1: noted that the widespread lack of knowledge about King and
Speaker 1: the civil rights movement in general might have also influenced
Speaker 1: earlier perceptions. Appleton wrote, perhaps recent media treatment of King
Speaker 1: has helped to induce selective memory by some middle aged
Speaker 1: and older Americans. Of course, Americans have every reason to
Speaker 1: venerate Martin Luther King and to celebrate his accomplishments. He
Speaker 1: didn't do it alone, and he had his flaws like
Speaker 1: any other human. But as Carton explains, he also had
Speaker 1: an undeniable gift for challenging Americans then and now to
Speaker 1: make good on the promise of our founding principles. Carson
Speaker 1: said he had that ability to link the goals of
Speaker 1: the civil rights struggle to ideals that most Americans believe
Speaker 1: that they have. That that's what he was doing in
Speaker 1: the I Have a Dream speech in Washington. We as
Speaker 1: a nation justified our independence with a human rights statement
Speaker 1: called the Declaration of Independence. The question is can we
Speaker 1: live up to that? Today's episode was written by Dave
Speaker 1: Ruse and produced by Tyler Clang. For more on this
Speaker 1: and lots of other topics, visit has Stuff works dot com.
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