We Need to Honor MLK’s Real Legacy, Not the One That Makes White Americans Comfortable
OG History is a Teen Vogue series where we unearth history not told through a white, cis-hetero-patriarchal lens. In this installment, writer Jenn M. Jackson explores the radical nature of Martin Luther King Jr., whose legacy, she says, was whitewashed over time.
The earliest lesson I learned about Martin Luther King Jr. was that he had “a dream.” Delivered in his most well-known speech at the 1963 March on Washington, as posed to me and as I understood clearly in my adolescent mind, that dream was a colorblind one.
That manufactured perspective — often told to young children and supported by mainstream, predominantly white commentators — was focused on erasing the divisions between black and white people, not necessarily by blaming white people for their participation in systems of anti-black racism, but by moving beyond racial difference altogether.
But that was never actually King’s dream. His was much more radical than that.
In 1954, King was finishing a doctoral dissertation at Boston University. Soon he was thrust into the political limelight early on in his career as a 25-year-old pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. The political moment necessitated a radical approach to politics — he was pastoring as Brown v. Board of Education was decided, effectively ending legal segregation in the United States.
This monumental civil rights win, and the promise of freedom of public movement for black Americans, signaled an era of struggle and triumph for King and those who believed in his nonviolent cause. On the heels of Brown, King was just 26 when he helped facilitate and lead the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which started on December 5, 1955, and lasted over a year.
dededos
areudirty
janainaart
theartofmadeline
titsay
