Alternative Title
Don't call King a civil rights leader: SMU Maguire Public Scholar Lecture
Publication Date
Spring 4-10-2018
Abstract
Remembering Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.—primarily as a domestic “civil rights” leader—is inadequate, and sometimes harmful. The term “civil rights” fails to embrace King’s abolitionist movements toward the global abolition of poverty and war. Moreover, King was a Baptist preacher called by God. He advanced an optimistic realism (including a “realistic pacifism”) that improves upon pessimistic-cynical versions of political realism. And King went beyond advancing “civil rights” to advancing economic justice, economic rights, and human rights. He prescribed adding a social and economic bill of rights to the US Constitution, plus full-employment supplemented by “guaranteed income,” and US-supported international efforts to achieve the total “abolition of poverty” and war throughout “the world house” (King 1967).
Document Type
Article
Disciplines
African American Studies | American Studies | Applied Ethics | Christianity | Comparative Philosophy | Digital Humanities | Ethics and Political Philosophy | Ethics in Religion | History | Intellectual History | Philosophy | Political History | Religion | Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion | United States History
Recommended Citation
Walker, Theodore, "Don't Call King a 'Civil Rights' Leader: Toward abolishing poverty and war by correcting our fatally inadequate remembering of MLK Jr." (2018). Perkins Faculty Research and Special Events. 11.
https://scholar.smu.edu/theology_research/11
Included in
African American Studies Commons, American Studies Commons, Applied Ethics Commons, Christianity Commons, Comparative Philosophy Commons, Digital Humanities Commons, Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons, Ethics in Religion Commons, Intellectual History Commons, Political History Commons, Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons, United States History Commons
