MLK Day

I was on the way home today from Mankato, and tuned the radio onto KFAN, the sports radio station in the twin cities. Dan Barreiro was on, the former Star Tribune writer. Much to my surprise he was interviewing Taylor Branch, the author of a three-volume biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. The final volume, At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, is just out. It was a good interview.

I was particularly struck by Branch's answer to a question by Barreiro about what was the most important lesson of the King legacy that is still relevant. Branch said that the most important lesson of the King legacy, one that he said was largely dismissed after his death, was the power of non-violence to spread democracy. Non-violent protest in the civil rights movement led to a great expansion of democracy in the country as blacks gained the franchise, and, interestingly enough he pointed out, in many southern states women gained them, too. Branch contrasted that with Vietnam, where we were spreading democracy through military action. The use of violence to spread democracy was a colossal failure; the use of non-violence was not.

We still haven't learned that lesson.