Art of Conservatism---Martin Luther King Day, 2016

Mid-January marked the 39th annual commemoration called Dr. Martin Luther King Day. In 2007, as a contributor to Crawford Broadcasting Company's “The Stand”, their editorial program, I wrote and broadcast the following. To this day, the message hasn't changed, and, for that matter, may never. But here it is.

Since I haven't heard anyone else talk about this subject, I decided to bring it up, with a question: How would things be different today if Dr. King had lived well past 1968? How would this society, both black and white, be different? Of course, one can only speculate on the answer, but based both on what I observed Dr. King trying to do during his lifetime, and from the content of his speeches, I find these questions to be fascinating ones, and I wonder how others, including you the readers, would answer those questions. We are, after all, only dealing in speculation here, so all ideas are fair game. And you, the reader, certainly have the right to respond. I'll tell you how at the end of this essay.

For one thing, I believe that, if King had continued to live to the present day, the rise of the Black middle class would have been much greater. That's because King understood that the way to success came from two things: A better self image and a greater sense of self reliance and self-discipline. More importantly, both come from education, good education. King realized that there's a difference between gaining admittance into the economic and cultural mainstream of success in America, and staying there, and I believe that he was prepared to show blacks as well as whites that the keys to success are, well, education and discipline. Not co-incidentally, these two concepts are the basis of the type of society that made this nation the power house of this planet. That kind of leadership, as displayed by King, is rare on both sides of the color line these days, and to have lost Dr. King that early on, if only for that reason, gives further meaning to the tragedy of that loss.

With such a new-found sense of discipline and purpose, the black community and other minorities as might well have enjoyed better economic prosperity than has even been the case to this point. With that would have come better sense of self esteem. Had all that happened, I suggest that there would have come a greater sense of acceptance by, and a belonging to, the community at large, and that would have created another desirable outcome, the prevention of the rise of the desirability of gang membership, and the rise of the anger-filled hip-hop culture, particularly with its attitudes toward women and drugs. King, I suspect, would have deplored, and preached against, and maybe even attacked in other ways, the triple threat to the black community, and other minorities: drugs, gangs, and anti-social rap music lyrics. As a moral compass of his time, he would have known where all three were leading, and subduing them might have been his greatest contribution to all of society---had he been allowed to live long enough to do it. And dare I say it?: I doubt that a lot of the demagoguery that is so showcased in the news media these days would be happening were King still alive today.

Another possibility that might have occurred had King lived longer, may have been to reduce the rush to the welfare state by families, both black and white. King above all, but even Jesse Jackson, for some time after King's death, understood what welfare was doing to the family structure in both white and black America, and King, given enough time, would likely have gotten fed up enough with the welfare 'status quo' and its negative effects on all whom it touched, to have stepped in and worked tirelessly to deal with it. Would he have become a conservative on that issue? Possibly. Remember, I'm merely speculating here, but I have King's accomplishments and a glimpse at his dreams here as a pretty firm basis for that speculation.

In summation, it is my point that the loss of Dr. King to that assassin's bullet in 1968 was not just a loss to the black community, but to the American society as a whole. All Americans could certainly have used the minds which never flourished in the years since 1968 to solve many of the problems of the world. Even so, a goodly number of great minds have come out of the black community to provide leadership in so many ways in these intervening years, and I believe that we have Dr. King's legacy in part to thank for that. But America could have had of even more. And there would have been many more of those great minds, in my view, if Dr. King had been allowed to live his life to its fullest extent. That would have been his greatest legacy, and ours.

Responses are happily received at radioart@sbcglobal.net

For Art of Conservatism, I'm Art Reis.