Like John Lewis, avowed socialist Martin Luther King would have seen Donald Trump as an illegitimate president

Pundits on both sides of the aisle frequently paint a sanitised kumbaya picture of Dr King. But it's worth remembering who King really was: not a centrist, but a socialist and an anti-imperialist

(BBC)

I’ll never forget the sensation I felt standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Looking at the spot where Dr Martin Luther King, Jr was gunned down by a white supremacist, the weight of history and responsibility to carry on his work filled my heart. Ten years later, I still feel both humbled to have made that pilgrimage and emboldened by the legacy of Dr King.

Today America celebrates his legacy, one so often whitewashed and sanitised. Pundits on both sides of the aisle frequently paint a kumbaya picture of racial harmony and peaceful protest. While Dr King was committed to the principles of nonviolent resistance, he was no centrist but an avowed socialist and anti-imperialist. As America prepares to inaugurate a racist plutocrat, it is more important than ever that Dr King’s true legacy is remembered and celebrated.

From his earliest days, Dr King espoused democratic socialist views. In a 1952 letter to his future wife, Coretta Scott, King stated in no uncertain terms: “I am much more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic.”

King saw capitalism as something that had become the very disease it was meant to cure: “One-tenth of one per cent of the population of this nation controls almost 50 per cent of the wealth, and I don’t mind saying that there’s something wrong with that,” he said in a 1962 sermon. It was obvious, he told Coretta, that “capitalism has outlived its usefulness. It has brought about a system that takes necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes.”

Necessities like healthcare. The Republican Congress has already taken the first steps to dismantle and repeal the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”), which will strip 20 million of the most vulnerable Americans of their health insurance. Meanwhile, Trump’s cabinet is full of ex-Goldman Sachs executives, Paul Ryan has his eyes on gutting Medicaid, and the GOP is looking to slash taxes for the wealthy, prevent increases to the minimum wage, and roll back or curtail the social safety net.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump spent the weekend in a Twitter spat with King acolyte John Lewis, a veritable icon of the Civil Rights Movement who was one of the original Freedom Riders and was beaten by police on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. Lewis said he views Trump as an illegitimate president, which led Trump to tweet a series of dog-whistle tweets suggesting Lewis’ Atlanta district is “in horrible shape and falling apart” (he represents some of the poshest parts of the city) and urging him to “focus on the burning and crime-infested inner cities.”

Leaving aside that Trump only speaks of urban issues as a) black issues and b) when taking pot shots at Democratic politicians and Civil Rights leaders, Trump’s solution to “inner city” (read: black) problems is hyper-policing. That’s the very thing Black Lives Matter activists are currently campaigning against. It’s horrifying to think Trump wants Congressman Lewis, an American hero who was nearly killed by the police fighting for civil rights, to join him in sending more police into black communities.

It’s all enough to make the good Reverend spin in his grave. From racial equality to voting rights to economic justice, the work of the Civil Rights Movement continues. I’ve been fortunate enough to stand on hallowed ground throughout the south, and I’ve learned the lessons of history.

“Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will,” King wrote in his famed Letter from Birmingham Jail. “Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”

Dr King is no longer with us, so it’s up to a new generation to pick up where he left off. In Trump’s America, that means taking to the streets and fighting for the things Dr King truly believed in – and not allowing his memory to be misappropriated and used against us.

For, as Dr King said, direct action is preferable to an “obnoxious, negative peace.” We cannot afford to sit idly by and hope for the best when the worst of America is once again in ascendance. Dr King wouldn’t have sat still, nor would he have attempted to find common ground with bigots. He would have fought, and so must we.

Skylar Baker-Jordan is a Chicago based journalist and essayist. He hopes to move to London in the next year. Follow him on Twitter @skylarjordan