The Last Years of the Rev. King

[Moses]

The last years of the Rev. King

Branch offers the final installment in his monumental study of the civil rights leader


01:00 AM EST on Sunday, January 15, 2006

BY RAY RICKMAN
Special to The Journal


AT CANAAN'S EDGE: America in the King Years 1965-68, by Taylor Branch. Simon & Schuster. 1,039 pages. $35.

Robert Penn Warren wrote, "Historical sense and poetic sense should not, in the end, be contradictory, for if poetry is the little myth we make, history is the big myth we live, and in our living, constantly remake." It is as if he had in mind Taylor Branch and his poetic and, I daresay, historic three-part biography of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

At Canaan's Edge completes what was begun with Parting the Waters (which covered the years 1954-63 and won the Pulitzer Prize in History) and extended with Pillar of Fire, which brought the story to 1965. It is at once a celebratory, elegiac, profoundly inspired, and at the very end troublingly flawed triptych which in the fullness of time will be compared fairly and favorably to Carl Sandburg's meditations on Abraham Lincoln.

Dr. King understood, about himself as well as others that "We are not makers of history. We are made by history." And what Branch has made of his subject is a nation within a man, bordered by unfathomably deep oceans of faith and mystery, identified by the shared needs of friends and the violent agendas of enemies, inspired and conflicted by a thousand inner voices, defined by spiritual values manifested, physically destroyed by forces mortally threatened by such transformations.

Query: Must one exhibit courage to write convincingly of it? From the very first page of At Canaan's Edge, Branch courageously names the names of Klansmen and their supporters whose homespun robes and general store-bought racism might easily have become, absent the gifts and crucifixions of Abraham, Martin and John, the approved evening wear and Sunday school curricula of another America.

Just as boldly, Branch reminds us that, by 1968, secular saint Ronald Reagan was seizing political advantage by opposing the Civil Rights Act while "discovering a talent to communicate both martial fervor for Vietnam and revolt against the liberal era within a sensibility of freedom." Later: "While disputing King's prescription for the body politic, [Reagan] consoled the fearful and guilty with anesthesia potent enough to numb whole decades of adaptation to the broadening thrust of equal rights."

Branch does not hesitate to remind us of the costs we pay to this day for our collective, greedy inhalations. "On the Middle East, King proposed a 'Marshall Plan' to relieve desperate poverty among the mass of Arab citizens and refugees. 'So long as they find themselves on the outskirts of hope,' he said, 'they are going to keep the war psychosis alive.' " This in 1967, before Munich and Sabra and Shatila, before the sweet conceptions and violated childhoods and blazing exits of millions of the banished.

Query: Must one exhibit commanding literary eloquence to write convincingly of it? Of the author of "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" and "I Have a Dream," Branch tells us, "King himself upheld nonviolence until he was nearly alone among colleagues weary of sacrifice. To the end, he resisted incitements to violence, cynicism and tribal retreat. He grasped freedom seen and unseen, rooted in ecumenical faith, sustaining a movement to brighten the heritage of his country for all people. Those treasures can abide from America in the King years."

And there is this, agonizing and dreadful in its simple certainty: "Time on the balcony had turned lethal, which left hanging the last words fixed on a gospel song of refuge. King stood still for once, and his sojourn on earth went blank."

I add my voice to the thousands sure to be raised in celebration of Branch's monumental achievement. And yet, Dr. King taught us that, "Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance." Branch has earned the benefit of my doubt, so I choose to account for his cavalier, misleading dismissal of what I regard as the well-established, criminally conspiratorial circumstances of his subject's death as the conclusion of an otherwise brilliant and honorable man who remains sincerely ignorant of the facts relating to the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

That said, only Dr. King's own words bring me more powerfully into his presence than do the words of Taylor Branch.

Ray Rickman hosts Bestsellers on R.I. Public Television.

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Online at: www.projo.com/books/content/projo_20060115_kbook15x.2c09912.html

[Moses]

Alito Threatens Dr. King's Dream
    By Marjorie Cohn
   

    Monday 16 January 2006

Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.
-Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from a Birmingham Jail

    During his confirmation hearing for the Supreme Court, Samuel Alito Jr. pledged allegiance to the principle of one man-one vote and denied he was a bigot. It is astonishing that these issues even entered our national discourse in 2006. But it is Alito's record, both as a member of the Reagan administration and as a judge on the Court of Appeals, that raises allegations of racism. And it is that same record that betrays Dr. King's values and threatens the future of civil rights in this country if Alito is confirmed to the high court.

    In his 1985 application for a job in the Reagan Justice Department, Alito noted that he became interested in constitutional law "in large part by disagreement with Warren Court decisions, particularly in the areas of criminal procedure, the Establishment Clause, and reapportionment." The reapportionment cases that upset him were the landmark decisions that affirmed the bedrock principle of our democracy: one person-one vote.

    Fred Gray, the veteran civil rights lawyer who represented Dr. King and Rosa Parks, testified at Alito's hearing. "As one who has been in the trenches and still is in the trenches," Gray told the senators, "I appear today to attest to the tremendous importance of the reapportionment cases - those cases decided by the Warren Court, one of which I actually litigated and was my brainchild, Gomillion versus Lightfoot ... The cases illuminate the inequities of mal-apportionment which deprived African Americans of voting strength across the nation. In my view, there is no more important body of law than that generated in the field of voter registration and in civil and human rights." Gray testified, "I am troubled, extremely troubled, by Judge Alito's comments made in his application, notwithstanding his testimony before this committee ... A nominee to the Supreme Court who has a judicial philosophy that's set against the Warren Court and against the reapportionment cases is in effect saying that he would turn the clock back." [And what were his impulses to object to the Warren court? Racism.]

    Indeed, when Alito became a judge, he ruled against minority voters who claimed a school board voting plan illegally diluted their voting strength. If he is confirmed, Alito will vote on a series of cases alleging minority vote dilution now pending before the Supreme Court.

    Moreover, certain important provisions of the Voting Rights Act that have enhanced the opportunities for African Americans and other minority groups to vote effectively are set to expire next year, unless Congress renews them. These special provisions allow for significant federal oversight of state and local voting functions for jurisdictions deemed to have the worst and most persistent histories of voting discrimination against their minority populations. This heightened oversight is intended to identify and prevent proposed voting changes that worsen the position of minority voters, or to deter covered jurisdictions from proposing such voting changes.

    For example, section 5 of the act requires certain covered states and political subdivisions to obtain federal or judicial preapproval or "preclearance" of any voting law changes or practices before they can legally take effect. This oversight has resulted in the detection and prohibition of several harmful voting laws and practices. Appeals of district court decisions on these preclearance provisions go directly to the Supreme Court.

    Alito will have the opportunity to rule on section 5 preclearance issues, and may also review the 2007 congressional renewal of the act's special provisions.

    Besides his astounding statement opposing reapportionment, Alito also proudly touted his membership in the Concerned Alumni of Princeton in the same job application. CAP was formed to maintain Princeton as a white male college. It complained that increased numbers of "women and minorities will largely vitiate the alumni body of the future."

    In spite of his avowed pride in being a CAP member, Alito denied any memory of the group after he was nominated for the Supreme Court. His amnesia is particularly surprising in light of his vast recall of the details of the myriad cases on his court's docket.

    Alito's judicial record in civil rights cases corroborates his bias. In all split decisions in cases alleging race and sex discrimination, Alito voted against the claimants. His dismal record led the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Hispanic Caucus Civil Rights Task Force, and the National Bar Association to oppose Alito's confirmation.

    The mainstream media has fixated on Martha Alito's tearful exit from the hearing after Republican Senator Lindsey Graham's defensive rhetorical question about whether her husband was a "closet bigot." Unfortunately, that dramatic film clip obscured the merits of the issue.

    Samuel Alito's record on and off the bench shows a consistent pattern of bigotry - a pattern that promises to continue once he becomes a justice of the Supreme Court. Senators from both parties who truly seek to realize the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. have a solemn obligation to filibuster and defeat Alito's nomination.