How King’s political vision became politically irrelevant
Niebuhr’s political realism won, but it’s King’s radical politics that we need in this neoliberal, neofascist era.
When President Barack Obama delivered his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, he had to carefully negotiate Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy in light of being the first black president of the United States and its Commander-in-Chief in a War on Terror while receiving the same award conferred on King. Obama said:
We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth: We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations—acting individually or in concert—will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.
I make this statement mindful of what Martin Luther King Jr. said in this same ceremony years ago: "Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones.” As someone who stands here as a direct consequence of Dr. King's life work, I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence. I know there's nothing weak—nothing passive –nothing naïve—in the creed and lives of Gandhi and King.
