What Would Dr. King
Think?
By Colbert I. King,
Op-Ed Columnist washingtonpost.com January 14, 2006
Washington -- On the eve of
the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, it seems fitting to ask what the Nobel Prize
winner would think of America and race in the 21st century. Of course, the
answer is unknowable. But it's not beyond reason to speculate how King
might react to a few noteworthy events in contemporary America.
Four topics come to mind: Georgia's highest court, the U.S. Supreme Court,
a fallen councilman and a suburban county coming to grips with itself.
• King's home state of Georgia. In
his book "Vernon Can Read!", high-powered Washington lawyer Vernon Jordan tells
the story of his first real case after graduation from Howard University law
school in 1960. Jordan and his boss, Atlanta lawyer Donald Hollowell, were
trying to get a stay of execution for Nathaniel Johnson, a young black man
sentenced to death for raping a white woman. The case had been badly
handled by a white attorney, and the version of the rape story received by
Jordan and Hollowell convinced them that Johnson, who had been arrested in the
middle of the night without a warrant and who had no real chance of getting a
fair trial, was being railroaded to the death chamber.
Working frantically to get a stay, the two lawyers ended up in the chambers of
W.H. Duckworth, chief justice of the Georgia Supreme Court, to make their case.
"In the middle of this literally deadly serious matter," Jordan wrote,
"Duckworth asked me, 'Son, where do you play basketball?' "
"I shook my head and said, 'I don't play basketball anywhere.' "
"We left the chambers empty-handed."
While Jordan and Hollowell had been running from office to office trying to save
Johnson's life, he was executed. Walking home that morning during a hot
Georgia summer, Jordan wrote that he was "thinking of how our client had been
killed by a poisonous combination of incompetence, hatred and indifference --
and then the tears began to flow."
"The more I cried, the weaker I got, and before I knew it I looked down and
realized that I had totally lost control. I had urinated on myself."
Over dinner a few weeks ago, Jordan spoke to some of us about a recent trip to
Atlanta, where he had the chance to meet the current chief justice of the
Georgia Supreme Court.
Her name is Leah Ward Sears, the first woman to serve on that high court and,
since last year, its first female chief justice and the first African American
woman to lead a state's highest appeals court anywhere in America.
Dr. King, I think, would call that progress.
• The Alito hearings. In paying
tribute to the NAACP's Clarence Mitchell after his death in 1984, Republican
Sen. Howard Baker Jr. said, "In those days, Clarence Mitchell was called the
101st senator but those of us who served here then knew full well that this
magnificent lion in the lobby was a great deal more influential than most of us
with seats in this chamber."
No telling what King would make of today's civil rights leadership in light of
the hearings for Supreme Court nominee Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. Confused and
dismayed might be the answer.
King would have observed that the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the
nation's oldest civil and human rights coalition, actively opposes Alito.
The conference charged that Alito is outside the judicial mainstream on civil
and voting rights issues, employment discrimination, the rights of criminal
defendants and the power of Congress to prevent and remedy discrimination.
Yet, as King would have noticed, and as The Post confirmed, the senators spent
more time quizzing Alito on abortion and presidential powers than on issues
related to race. King probably would be left wondering why, in the face of
the active opposition of the NAACP, the National Urban League and others, the
U.S. Senate in 2006 is hell-bent on confirming Sam Alito.
The whole thing would probably leave King asking if the country is drifting away
from concerns about civil rights and civil liberties. He might also
question whether Alito's success reflects the waning influence of America's
civil rights leadership. King, a product of the struggles of the 1950s and
'60s, also might have been confused by the appearance of Alito himself.
That was no Bull Connor, Lester Maddox, Orville Faubus or George Wallace sitting
in the witness chair. Nominee Alito, King would notice, said nothing to
the Judiciary Committee during hours of questioning that would confirm the
characterization of him as a judge who favors curtailing the rights of
individuals and is hostile to core constitutional and civil rights.
Dr. King, in all likelihood, would end up placing great credence in the words of
the civil rights coalition. But the fact that it is likely to lose the
Alito fight might well cause King to fear that the America he placed in gear to
advance toward full equality for all will now slip into reverse.
• The councilman. King would have
been saddened to see how far Marion Barry, an early civil rights activist and
the first chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, has fallen
from grace. King, who had the ability to refrain from overreaching, would
recognize the excessive pride, character flaws and careless behavior that have
brought about Barry's downfall.
King would also see, through Barry, the destructive and tragic impact that drugs
have had on the African American community since his assassination in 1968.
King would mourn the loss of healthy self-esteem in the many left behind -- as
exemplified by Barry -- and the erosion of gains that have occurred on the watch
of black leaders, some of whom have become prone to think too much of themselves
and not enough of the people they should be serving. King couldn't be pleased.
• A county looks at itself.
There's a good bet that Dr. King, after witnessing the retreat on Capitol Hill
and the descent of a civil rights pioneer, would probably close out the week
feeling upbeat about a fledgling movement across the District line in Montgomery
County.
On a rainy night this week, nearly 200 people, mostly blacks and Jews, gathered
under the joint sponsorship of the county NAACP and the Jewish Community
Relations Council of Greater Washington at the Bolger Center in Potomac to
remember the past, but also to build a future based on mutual cooperation, goals
and respect.
The meeting was held against a backdrop of racist graffiti painted on five of
the county's schools and churches and symbols of hate placed on Jewish school
buses. King would have been heartened by the resolve of the gathering to
continue what he and Rabbi Abraham Heschel started on Feb. 6, 1968, when they
locked arms and marched for peace at Arlington National Cemetery.
The program quoted his 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech in which he aimed to "speed
up the day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and
Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands."
King would have liked that, too.
kingc@washpost.com
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