A radical democrat: King’s Last Campaign

The task of this paper is two-fold first, this paper will trace and explain the phylogeny of Martin Luther King, youngers belief that war, racism and economic injustice argon all intertwined and crowd out be dealt with the restructuring of societys priorities and addressed the necessity of a transformation of apprizes second, this paper will also explain how he carried out his beliefs in the Memphis select and the Poor Peoples Campaign in 1968 what the compose and University of Washington professor, Michael K. Honey called Martin Luther Kings Last Campaign.At the onset of this paper, it is important to note that Kings background which includes his race, habituation, education and devotion among many others is crucial in his struggle against racial discrimination, violence and economic injustice as experienced by blacks in the United States of America. The son of a minister, he was habituated in the teachings of Christianity and was able to attend and complete his formal educa tion with degrees in sociology, theology and divinity. King was a pastor himself at Dexter highroad Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama in the year 1953 prior to finishing his doctoral degree in systematic theology from Boston University on 1955.What prompted the Memphis Strike? Memphis in 1968 was ruled by a paternalistic plantation mentality embodied in its good-old-boy mayor, Henry Loeb. Wretched conditions, abusive white supervisors, poor education, and impoverished wages locked some black workers into poverty (Honey, 2007). This characterization of the political, economic and societal conditions of the blacks in Memphis in 1968 by Honey may be cited as reasons of construct and institutionalized oppression.By manufactured and institutionalized oppression, I mean oppression which involves the mechanisms of law and power relations the basis of which is against the natural law. congenital law theorists, following the thoughts of St. Augustine that an unjust law is not a l aw at all and Aquinas notion of law as an ordinance of sympathy, view morality as essentially tied up with the very essence of law.How does King figure in all of this? How can we explain the evolution of Kings ideological perspective? The point is clear Oppression and un true(p) treatment of individuals is not morally valid nor is it morally permissible most especially if the basis of such is the individuals ethnicity or race. As the Kantians believed, each person has a capacity for rational deliberation and choice and as such, an autonomous being with dignity and therefore, ought to be respected by virtue of being military man persons.The evolution of Kings ideological perspective may therefore be construed in such way that it is a product, both of his experiences as a black living in a white-dominated society and his philosophic and political development and this may be inferred from Faircloughs book, Martin Luther King, Jr., 1995. Kings speeches very clearly communicate his vi ews I believe that unarmed uprightness and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have tether meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits (as cited by Carson, 1998).Three important points about King and his political thrusts, philosophical orientation and as to why he may be called a radical democrat may be inferred from the aforementioned quotation. First, as a leading figure in elegant rights movement King believed in the tenets of democracy and liberalism in the sense that he believed that both white and black Americans must have fair treatment in the realm of the law, for the purpose of law itself is the administration of social justice.Second, he believed in the non-necessity of violence. Influenced by Mahatma Gandhis civil disobedience, he believed that there are peaceful ways in and by dint of which the problem of politic al and economic injustice may be resolved. It may further be inferred that for him, political, economic and social change can best be achieved not through violence and that the government should not keep itself busy from going to war, as in the case of the Vietnam War nor by transforming a portion or a sector of society but what is needed is a restructuring of the society as a whole. King believed that a revolution of values is a matter of strict necessity. Kings views may be identified as radical in this sense.He emphatic the need to restructure even how we think about black Americans or African Americans. It may be inferred that racism, the feeling of being superior over other race or ethnic group or nationality is grounded on the wrong premises wrong modes of thinking and reasoning. It is by transforming our psyche and by appealing through reason and conscience that society as a whole may chart its rightful path towards genuine social change.Third, he believed and fought not e ntirely for civil rights but also for economic changes especially labor rights and lobbied for law reforms to be enacted to protect Negroes from exploitation and oppressive schemes adopted by employers. These include fair treatment and equal work opportunity, just compensation, etc. This is how he carried out his beliefs in the Memphis Strike and the Poor Peoples Campaign. King served as a voice crying for the emancipation not only of black Americans but also of other human beings from the chains of oppression.Based on the above discussion, we can see why King believed that the problems and conflicts brought about by war, racism and economic injustice are all intertwined. What we can infer from his views is the interweaving and interconnecting patterns brought about by racism itself. But racism is not in itself the root of the problem it is merely an effect of a traceable cause.This cause, this root of racism, is none other than a perverted value system, a wrong frame of mind resul ting to feelings of superiority and even contempt and hate which further results to taking an unfair advantage of other human beings, plus a very materialistic market essentially driven by capital.The fault is, at bottom, deeply embedded with the minds of persons and a wrong value system, a wrong sense of pride and nationality, for it fails, in the Kantian sense, to respect persons for the sake of being human persons, not as mere means and tools that another(prenominal) person or race may use but as ends-in-themselves, possessing the capacity for rational thought, capable of making rational choices and thereby, beings that are autonomous and dignified and for the aforementioned reasons, deserve to be respected.ReferencesCarson, C. A Call to Conscience The Landmark Speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Warner Books Reprint edition (January 1, 2002).Fairclough, A. Martin Luther King, Jr. University of Georgia Press, c. 1995.Honey, M. Going Down Jericho track The Memphis Strike, Ma rtin Luther Kings Last Campaign W. W. Norton (January 15, 2007).