You Can’t Kill the Truth:
Remembering Martin Luther King
By John W. Whitehead
“We’ve got to give
ourselves to this struggle to the end. Nothing would be more tragic
than to stop at this point. We’ve got to see it through. Be
concerned about your brother. Either we go up together, or we go
down together.” —Martin Luther King, Jr., April 3, 1968
As 1968 dawned, the
vision of peace and hope that had seemed so promising the year
before during the so-called “Summer of Love” was splintering.
On January 30, 1968,
the Viet Cong launched what is now known as the “Tet Offensive.” The
powerful North Vietnamese forces attacked more than 30 South
Vietnamese cities, including Saigon. The American military, which
had earlier reported that most of Vietnam was secure and an end to
the divisive war was in sight, was stunned.
With more and more
Americans dying in rice paddies, it seemed as if the war would last
forever. And Dwight Eisenhower’s warning of a military-industrial
complex taking over the country, delivered a few years before in his
Farewell Address to the Nation, took on greater weight.
Reports of civilian
massacres by American troops soon began to surface, and by the
summer of ’68, cynicism had set in among young people. Raised power
fists and rebellion at universities and in the streets symbolized
the moment. Many who believed that peace and understanding were
going to change things, as I did, began to question such
assumptions. Distrust and even a hatred of all in authority—the
“establishment”—emerged as a universal sentiment among the young.
“You gotta remember, establishment, it’s just another name for
evil,” Beatle John Lennon would remind us years later. “The monster
doesn’t care whether it kills all the students. It’s out of
control.”
Trying to understand
what was going on at the time was impossible, and many lost
themselves in drugs and music. But these were only temporary, false
respites from the grim reality of a world filled with violence,
chaos and hate. It seemed as if we were being lied to on all fronts,
and there were very few people we could believe—let alone believe
in.
Martin Luther King
was that clear moral voice that cut through the fog of distortion.
He spoke like a prophet and commanded that you listen. King dared to
speak truth to the establishment and called for an end to oppression
and racism. A peace warrior in a world of war, King raised his voice
against the Vietnam War and challenged the military-industrial
complex.
Little did we know
that his voice would be prematurely silenced, but King knew his days
were numbered. He was a target, not only by racists who wanted to
kill him but by his own government as well.
King was in Memphis
fighting for the rights of striking sanitation workers when he
delivered his last, and most apocalyptic, sermon on April 3, 1968,
on the eve of his assassination. Just that morning, as he was
leaving Atlanta, King’s plane had been delayed so that the airline
could check all the bags, as well as the airplane—which had been
under guard all night, to make sure they contained no bombs. Even
the airlines seemed to understand the danger he was in.
However, King did not
cower or hide away. He did not soften his message, hoping to pacify
his enemies. He knew there was a larger force at work in his life.
And that’s how he concluded his sermon—the last words he spoke in
public:
Well, I don’t know what will happen now.
We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me
now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like
anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place.
But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will.
And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over.
And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I
want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the
promised land. And I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about
anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of
the coming of the Lord.
Forty years after
King’s assassination, our nation is still plagued with wars,
government surveillance and a military-industrial complex that feeds
a national diet of warmongering. And King, once a charismatic leader
and voice of authority, has been memorialized in death to such an
extent that younger generations recognize his face but miss out on
his message. Yet he still speaks volumes to us today.
“Speaking truth in
times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act,” George Orwell
once said. Such was Martin Luther King. They may have killed the
man, but his spirit of truth lives on. We would do well to learn
from him how to speak truth to power.
Constitutional attorney and
author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford
Institute. He can be contacted at
johnw@rutherford.org.
Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at
www.rutherford.org.
