During his short life, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stepped on all kinds of powerful toes in his fight for civil rights. King, assassinated at 39, was a courageous and determined leader who refused to let prison or violence sway his end mission. He also never lost sight of the fact that civil rights — addressing racial and economic injustice — were inextricable from peace.
As the leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), King led a nonviolent movement to abolish the triple evils crippling American society: racism, poverty, and militarism. Associates said he believed those forces were contrary to God’s will for humanity and that they could only be opposed by a religious vision of nonviolent social change.
In April of 1967, King spoke publicly against the war in Vietnam. Today, as the nation observes a federal holiday in King’s name, civil rights activists, including those who knew the slain leader, offered their thoughts on what his position might be on conflicts in the Middle East and Russia, and the state of the U.S. today.
Legendary civil rights leader the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Sr. said the conflict between Israel and Palestine and Russia and Ukraine would have stirred King to declare that there was little difference from the demand for civil rights and the cry for peace.
“[Israel’s Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu is on the wrong side of history,” Jackson told The Informer. “What led up to Oct. 7 (when Hamas attacked Israel) is the issue, not what happened on Oct. 7.”
Jackson decried the mass killings taking place in the Middle East and the war strategy occurring in Ukraine — adding King would have felt similarly.
“Those captured,” Jackson demanded, “should be allowed to go home under the supervision of the United Nations and anyone tried should be done so in the World Court.”
The Rev. Mark Thompson, a civil rights leader who recently joined the National Newspaper Publishers Association as the organization’s global digital transformation director, noted King’s strong stance against war and racism.
“There’s no question King would oppose the war in Ukraine and seek diplomatic solutions,” Thompson said. “I believe he would also call for a ceasefire in Gaza.”
Thompson added the reason for King’s cancellation of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1967 – one year before his assassination – suggests King had an evolving posture on the Israel-Palestine question.
“In canceling the pilgrimage during the Six-Day War, King said, ‘I just think that if I go, the Arab world and, of course, African and Asia, for that matter, would interpret this as endorsing everything that Israel has done, and I do have questions of doubt,’” Thompson explained.
NNPA President and CEO Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., an alum of the SCLC alum, concurred.
“Dr. King was a nonviolent freedom fighter who believed that we all are members of one humanity. His concept of the ‘beloved community’ was all-inclusive and not discriminatory to anyone,” Chavis insisted. “Today’s world realities of racism, antisemitism, Islamophobia, oppression, war, hatred, and bigotry are void of love for one another. We need Dr. King’s wisdom, inclusive theology, leadership, and courage today more than ever before.”
How King Would Address Today’s Political Landscape, Trump
The Rev. Peter Johnson, who began civil rights work with the Congress of Racial Equality in Plaquemine, Louisiana, remembered King’s stance on Alabama’s governor during his famous “I Have a Dream,” speech.
“At the March on Washington in 1964, Dr. King talked about Alabama Gov. George Wallace having his lips dripping with interposition and nullification,” said Johnson, before considering the twice-impeached 45th U.S. president. “What’s the difference between George Wallace and Donald Trump? You’re not going to hear Trump publicly say the n-word, that’s the only difference.”
Johnson, who was later recruited by Andrew Young to work for King in the SCLC in Atlanta, considered how the late civil rights leader would have approached Trump.
“King would easily have seen that Trump is a bigot in the true sense of the word, who actually believes he is superior to people of color,” Johnson explained.
Thompson also weighed in on how King might view today’s leadership.
“I believe his posture on Congress’ dysfunction would be consistent with the words he used to describe segregationist intransigence in his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech – ‘interposition’ and ‘nullification,’” Thompson declared.
Jackson noted that King spoke of a deeper malady in American society. His view was that presidential administrations have been embroiling themselves in conflicts across the globe for the wrong reasons.
Johnson emphasized there’s little doubt where King would stand on today’s issues because the icon never wavered.
“I don’t think he would have changed his position fundamentally.”