Author: Thomas F. Jackson
File Type: pdf
Martin Luther King, Jr., is widely celebrated as an American civil rights hero. Yet Kings nonviolent opposition to racism, militarism, and economic injustice had deeper roots and more radical implications than is commonly appreciated, Thomas F. Jackson argues in this searching reinterpretation of Kings public ministry. Between the 1940s and the 1960s, King was influenced by and in turn reshaped the political cultures of the black freedom movement and democratic left. His vision of unfettered human rights drew on the diverse tenets of the African American social gospel, socialism, left-New Deal liberalism, Gandhian philosophy, and Popular Front internationalism. Kings early leadership reached beyond southern desegregation and voting rights. As the freedom movement of the 1950s and early 1960s confronted poverty and economic reprisals, King championed trade union rights, equal job opportunities, metropolitan integration, and full employment. When the civil rights and antipoverty policies of the Johnson administration failed to deliver on the movements goals of economic freedom for all, King demanded that the federal government guarantee jobs, income, and local power for poor people. When the Vietnam war stalled domestic liberalism, King called on the nation to abandon imperialism and become a global force for multiracial democracy and economic justice. Drawing widely on published and unpublished archival sources, Jackson explains the contexts and meanings of Kings increasingly open call for a radical redistribution of political and economic power in American cities, the nation, and the world. The mid-1960s ghetto uprisings were in fact revolts against unemployment, powerlessness, police violence, and institutionalized racism, King argued. His final dream, a Poor Peoples March on Washington, aimed to mobilize Americans across racial and class lines to reverse a national cycle of urban conflict, political backlash, and policy retrenchment. Kings vision of economic democracy and international human rights remains a powerful inspiration for those committed to ending racism and poverty in our time. **Review Jackson exemplifies the best offerings of intellectual history.Reviews in American History Never before have Kings social and political ideas been so thoroughly documented nor so persuasively explicated. Future generations of King scholars will owe Jackson a debt of gratitude for this monumental book of enduring value.Clayborne Carson, Director, Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute, Stanford University, Senior Editor, The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr. Jackson makes a persuasive case that King was exposed to various radical critiques at an early stage, that he laced his speeches with moral indictments of inequality and praise for Scandinavian social democracies, and that he sympathizedin private though not in public (at least before the mid-1960s)with more left-wing critiques of American society.Chicago Tribune In this impressive and original account, Jackson challenges us to confront what King and movement activists knew from lifelong experience that poverty and racism are fundamentally problems of power. . . . Equally compelling is Jacksons portrait of a radicalism grounded in the give and take of movement building and in the vast store of learning it entailed.Alice OConnor, author of Poverty Knowledge Social Science, Social Policy, and the Poor in Twentieth-Century U.S. History An important contribution to modern American historyand a painful reminder of just how far we are from the Promised Land.Kevin Boyle, author of Arc of Justice A Saga of Race, Civil Rights and Murder in the Jazz Age Jackson takes us through the progression of Kings public life, including the iconic eventsMontgomery, Albany, Birmingham, the Washington march, Selma, Memphisclosely analyzing the ideas, the people, and the conjunction of circumstances particularly influential at the time, as measured by exhaustive analysis of Kings speeches, writings, and private conversations (courtesy of the Federal Bureau of Investigation).Journal of American History More than any other historian of the movement, Jackson takes the civil rights leaders ideas seriously. . . .The book was written for academics, but it deserves a large audience. . . . it should help to reshape our collective understanding not only of King and the civil rights movement, but of the movements for peace and racial and economic justice that preceded King and continue today.Texas Observer From Civil Rights to Human Rights should reinforce Kings credentials as one, and perhaps the wisest, of the radical voices of the 1960s.Dissent [The book] is the first to produce a sustained analysis of the origins and development of Kings radical economic analysis and the politics it mandated. . . . Jacksons book rips away the false curtain of moderation and reveals the substance of a rare leader who gave his life in the pursuit of global human rights.Sociological Inquiry A more sensitive treatment of Kings legacy and its implications for advancing economic democracy does not exist.The Historian From the Publisher Never before have Kings social and political ideas been so thoroughly documented nor so persuasively explicated. Future generations of King scholars will owe Jackson a debt of gratitude for this monumental book of enduring value.--Clayborne Carson, Director, Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute, Stanford University, Senior Editor, The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr. In this impressive and original account, Jackson challenges us to confront what King and movement activists knew from lifelong experience that poverty and racism are fundamentally problems of power, requiring massive political mobilization on behalf of economic as well as civil rights. Equally compelling is Jacksons portrait of a radicalism grounded in the give and take of movement building and in the vast store of learning it entailed--from setbacks, frustrations, and unresolved dilemmas, but also from the enduring dream of political and economic democracy.--Alice OConnor, University of California, Santa Barbara, author of Poverty Knowledge Social Science, Social Policy, and the Poor in Twentieth-Century U.S. History Just two weeks after Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered, one of his closest advisors complained that Americans were making King into a plaster saint, the sharp edges of his prophetic politics smoothed over so that he might serve as a comforting symbol of racial reconciliation. With this brilliantly executed study, Thomas Jackson gives us back the real King, who dreamed of radical change peacefully secured. From Civil Rights to Human Rights is an important contribution to modern American history--and a painful reminder of the just how far we are from the Promised Land.--Kevin Boyle, Ohio State University, author of Arc of Justice A Saga of Race, Civil Rights and Murder in the Jazz Age