OPINION: Dr. King knew the American soul had to change

Five years before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Paine published “The Rights of Man,” in which he stated that a “‘unity of man’ stems from the natural rights of all human beings” and “Out of these natural rights are derived civil rights … People enter into society in order to ensure enjoyment of civil rights.”

By definition, these are rights created and guaranteed by governments. In 1776 all American citizens were granted that “all men are created equal that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” As a country, we are well into over 240 years of this vision quest.

In 1908 Israel Zangwill coined the term “melting pot” to create what we now know as a culturally homogeneous society. On paper, in academia, the concept seemed ideal. The reality was very different as assimilation and cultural identity conflicted. It took another 51 years for historian Carl Degler to create a more descriptive metaphor – “salad bowl.” Notice this cultural concept was developed in 1959, just as the civil rights movement was reaching a tsunami of cataclysmic events.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had been pastor for six years when he published his little-known essay, “The World House,” in which he describes “the great new problem of mankind.” Mankind has inherited a large house, “a great world house in which we have to live together … with each other in peace.”

Dr. King states that “a great nation is a compassionate nation” and great nations have “no deficit in human resources; the deficit is in human will.” Civil rights may be created by governments but it is the citizens who must embrace the concept that all life is interrelated and eligible for the equal opportunity to contribute to society and to pursue individual happiness. In this world house we must find “an alternative to war and human destruction.”

Dr. King ends his essay with “We still have a choice today; nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation.” He spoke for all people. He never once mentioned race in the essay.

As a concept, the quest for civil rights by a specific organization historically recognizes the National Association of the Deaf as America’s first, founded in 1880. Race was not a factor in their mission statement of “preserving, protecting, and promoting the civil, human and linguistic rights of all deaf and hard of hearing people in the U.S.”

The year 1909 was the year that a civil rights group was formed specifically for the purpose of serving a single ethnicity, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. One of its main goals is to afford African Americans their civil rights as defined for all under the U.S. Constitution. How discriminatory were the laws of the land and to what extent was prejudice ingrained in the hearts and minds of Americans?

John Howard Griffin took the phrase “walking in someone else’s shoes” to the extreme when, as a Caucasian social scientist, he medically darkened his skin, shaved his head, and assumed the life of an African American and journeyed into the Deep South in 1959 to experience the cultural reality of being Black in America. The cultural experiment was reported in Sepia magazine, but it wasn’t until Griffin published “Black Like Me” that he received extraordinarily negative feedback, including physical assault. The prejudice revealed in his book verified the absolute worst conditions experienced by Americans of color living in the South at that time and Griffin eventually moved with his family to another country for their safety.

But I’d be remiss to imply that Black Americans are the only citizens on the receiving end of discriminatory practices. Civil rights activists permeate the American salad bowl culture. Some have been virtually invisible in their fight for other’s rights... Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was America’s most famous activist for civil rights, not just for Black Americans, but for all Americans.

As evidenced by the first sentences of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech presented in Washington on Aug. 28, 1963, the oratory was to focus on the plight of the American Negro. But Dr. King referenced the Constitution and all Americans when he stated that, “When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir … a promise that all men … would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

The 17-minute presentation is now considered one of the finest oratories in American history and as such, enabled cultural change that resulted in a civil rights bill granting equality to all American citizens in 1964.

Dr. King has been immortalized for his monumental work to achieve American citizen equality but he also knew more was required. “I have a dream that one day … the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.”

He knew that the American soul must change.

Galen Farrington is a resident of Alto.