King and Nonviolence

Martin Luther King Jr.'s notion that we shouldn't have massive state-sponsored racial discrimination is sufficiently uncontroversial at this point that I doubt I need to say anything particularly profound about it. A less-discussed point is his influence as a leader of social movements and a tactician. His letter from the Birmingham jail is famous, but in many ways addresses itself to the wrong tactical question. These days, people will find it easy to understand why King and his followers weren't going to far. The pressing question is why didn't they go further. The apartheid system in the old south, after all, was backed up by a massive coercive apparatus that was not shy about using force -- either at the hands of the official security services or else by any number of white supremacist militias and paramilitaries -- to maintain its hold on power.

The only previous episode in American history when the legal condition of African-Americans had improved substantially involved, of course, the liberal application of force. Indeed, the Civil War was -- by far -- the single most violent episode in American history, leaving hundreds of thousands dead and vast portions of Confederate infrastructure in ruins. Those gains had been partially reversed by a post-war white supremacist countermobilization that, again, was unafraid to deploy violence. Under the circumstances, it would have been natural to conclude that the only thing the white south understands is force, that the use of force was eminently justified, and the time had come to launch a massive campaign of violent resistance.

King and other leaders of the civil rights movement apparently took their Christianity more seriously than a lot of people do, however, and, following in part in the political example of Gandhi, set out on a different path. A path that, seemingly, actually generates much more success than do strategies of violent insurgency. Nevertheless, you tend to see all around the world on both sides of various issues, a tendency to massively overstate the utility of force.

Comments

The more I learn about MLK Jr., the more I am convinced that he just may be the greatest American who ever lived. I have trouble coming up with worthy alternatives.

Posted by right | January 15, 2007 12:56 PM

Amen.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | January 15, 2007 12:58 PM

A path that, seemingly, actually generates much more success than do strategies of violent insurgency.

Hmmmm. I'm not sure I have enough information to make that evaluation. Are King and Ghandi the only two times in the history of the world that nonviolence has been tried? Are there times when that strategy has been tried but it has failed?

Posted by Al | January 15, 2007 1:03 PM

King had his personal problems and failings, but the Letter from a Birmingham Jail should be part of the Christian Bible. I think the Church Fathers shut the door on documents later than the generation who had known Christ. That's a mistake, I think.

The power of the letter comes not merely from the exhortations to non-violence, but in its frank, mature, measured town to ministers who were condoning racial injustice by their timidity and failures of sympathy. The non-violence portion of the document, I think, falls into obiter dicta.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | January 15, 2007 1:03 PM

This is one of the toughest nuts to crack.... I'm so conflicted. Yes, Gandhi's movement was very successful, and I do believe that his movement should be the model for emancipation struggles around the world (and I hope that someday it's a model that could be followed by a Muslim reform and resistance movement). It's certainly an ideal to shoot for.

On the other hand, nonviolence isn't always possible, it doesn't always work, and we have to be careful about the ways in which we judge people who feel that the nonviolent alternatives aren't working for them. Not that I advocate violence against civilians or that I prefer violent force; but we need to not allow our desire for nonviolence to become a way to help enforce the status quo.

I'm certainly not going to defend the Black Panthers on a wholesale level and there were a lot of problems with the organization, both ideologically and operationally. But some of their actions helped black people where nonviolence wouldn't. When they escorted black voters to the polls, they provided physical protection from physical violence. Could that have been provided by strict nonviolence? I don't know.

"The problem with nonviolence is, if you don't defend yourself, they'll kill you."- Meyer Alewitz

Posted by Freddie | January 15, 2007 1:18 PM

gah I screwed up the italics again

Posted by Freddie | January 15, 2007 1:19 PM

Was King successful? Absolutely. And morally unimpeachable to boot.

But...

The deification of King has, I think, sucked a lot of the historical oxygen out of the civil rights struggle, much of which happened before King's involvement, and involved many participants who outright hated King. (King basically saw no role for women in his movement.)

More relevant to this post is that "non-violence" as King practiced it was not the only element in the civil rights struggle, nor was it the most representative of black America. Rather, it was the element of the struggle which Kennedy and Johnson liberals could bring themselves to support.

Or, to put it another way, King's non-violence was essentially a means of coercing the American state (with all of it's inherent violence) in to action by proxy. King might not have personally gotten his hands dirty, but the success of the civil rights struggle depended on the US govt, eventually, bringing violent means to bear in the south.

On another note, to say that civil disobedience generates much larger success than militant resistance seems to totally ignore the point that these strategies aren't mutually compatible. No civil disobedience, for example, is ever going to get African-Americans their own state encompassing, say, California to Texas. Civil disobedience is only useful if your demands can be legitimately granted by the state. If they cannot, if your demands aren't compatible with law or elite sentiment, civil disobedience gets you a trip to, well, a Birmingham Jail, for a time.

For relevant examples, see the struggles surrounding Irish Home Rule in the late 1800s and how those defeats paved the way for the Rebellion.

Posted by John | January 15, 2007 1:20 PM

i've studied the civil rights movement in some depth, and one thing that is extremely difficult for contemporary observers to grasp is the extent to which the threat of violence aimed at any black perceived in any way to be "uppity" was ingrained in the social fabric of the Dixie states. In that sense, King was not only acting on moral principles but on practical ones.

John, i agree with your side note: the civil rights movement was much more than martin luther king, jr., although he didn't come to his prominent position in the history books by random chance, either....

Posted by howard | January 15, 2007 1:24 PM

On the basis of what I have read about what has happened in Iraq and elsewhere, I give the mid-20th Century British this much credit: if Bushistas were the colonial masters of the Raj, Gandhi, Nehru, and Patel would have rotten in a prison on the Andaman islands.

Posted by gregor | January 15, 2007 1:33 PM

state-sponsored racial discrimination is sufficiently uncontroversial at this point that I doubt I need to say anything particularly profound about it.

Uhh yeah. No controversy about that question anymore . . .

You can't be serious?

Posted by Mark Adams | January 15, 2007 1:33 PM

Al, ever heard of a guy named Nelson Mandela?

While Saint Ronald tends to get most of the credit in this country, the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union was primarily due to internal non-violent resistance. Some of it was highly organized, as in Poland. Much of it was spontaneous. But it very clearly reflected the lessons of Gandhi and King-- non-violent resistance lent an air of moral superiority to the opposition, and the fear of the state was diminished when the resistance made initial gains. The revolution snowballed as, one by one, the people within the institutions of repression turned against the regime and sided with the opposition.

Even when such tactics have failed in the short-term (e.g. Tianamen Square 1989) they arguably lay the groundwork for future successes.

However, generally speaking, the success of civil disobedience often requires the existence of a credible threat of violent revolution, making the nonviolent resistance into a favorable party for negotiation and compromise.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | January 15, 2007 1:34 PM

Now the other thing we'll have to do is this: Always anchor our external direct action with the power of economic withdrawal. Now, we are poor people. Individually, we are poor when you compare us with white society in America. We are poor. Never stop and forget that collectively -- that means all of us together -- collectively we are richer than all the nations in the world, with the exception of nine. Did you ever think about that? After you leave the United States, Soviet Russia, Great Britain, West Germany, France, and I could name the others, the American Negro collectively is richer than most nations of the world. We have an annual income of more than thirty billion dollars a year, which is more than all of the exports of the United States, and more than the national budget of Canada. Did you know that? That's power right there, if we know how to pool it.

We don't have to argue with anybody. We don't have to curse and go around acting bad with our words. We don't need any bricks and bottles. We don't need any Molotov cocktails. We just need to go around to these stores, and to these massive industries in our country, and say, "God sent us by here, to say to you that you're not treating his children right. And we've come by here to ask you to make the first item on your agenda fair treatment, where God's children are concerned. Now, if you are not prepared to do that, we do have an agenda that we must follow. And our agenda calls for withdrawing economic support from you."

Posted by Steve | January 15, 2007 1:47 PM

Under the circumstances, it would have been natural to conclude that the only thing the white south understands is force, that the use of force was eminently justified, and the time had come to launch a massive campaign of violent resistance.

Don't pick violent fights you can't win. The tactical point of nonviolent opposition is to win over undecideds attracted to morally superior positions.

Suppose the southern whites had waged a non-violent campaign to support racial discrimination, would history have turned out the same (I think it probably would have) but you get the idea.

Posted by chad okere | January 15, 2007 2:02 PM

Al, ever heard of a guy named Nelson Mandela?

Yeah, actually, Mandela is a very good example of the OPPOSITE of Matthew's point. He was initially committed to non-violence, but concluded that it didn't work and then turned to violence, which worked.

Posted by Al | January 15, 2007 2:07 PM

I concur with Howard's response, but I want to add that the whole pattern of lynching and other state-sanctioned forms of white terrorism was premised on the idea that it was a reasonable (and even mild) strategy for controling an allegedly savage, willfully criminal African-American population. If African-Americans had ever taken up guns en masse (with ammunition supplied by whom?) and attempted violent organized resistance to segregation, it is not unlikely that the North would have believed the white South was fully justified in responding with a policy of violent state-inflicted (rather than merely -sanctioned) repression.

Posted by Patience | January 15, 2007 2:12 PM

The commenter above who referred to King as "morally unimpeachable", without any hint of irony (I think), needs to go read up on his various personal failings. Anyone who purports to base his public leadership on "satyagraha" should back that up in all facets of his life.

That said, King was great, but not perfect.

Posted by next big thing | January 15, 2007 2:35 PM

Anyone who purports to base his public leadership on "satyagraha" should back that up in all facets of his life.

That seems like asking an awful lot. I mean, we all have failings. Should we wait until we perfect ourselves, Buddha-like, until we tackle the problems of the world? Leadership is nothing more than taking charge. . .again, and again, and again, until people look to you to do so. King had his problems and I encourage people to read up deeply on his biography--if nothing else to realize that even the most imperfect people can make a huge difference.

Posted by Sahei | January 15, 2007 2:48 PM

The conservatives love to dwell on the personal moral failings of leaders who have fought against the conservative colonial and imerial enterprise.

During the movie Gandhi's success in the eighties, William Buckley had a symposium on the Mahtma's personal quirks and failings.

Posted by gregor | January 15, 2007 3:05 PM

"He [Mandela] was initially committed to non-violence, but concluded that it didn't work and then turned to violence, which worked."

This statement is not really correct, which is not surprising from Al. Mandela started out non-violent, then turned to violence, which did not work and got him put in jail. He then returned to non-violence, which worked.

Also: King was a pragmatist who had specific reasons for believing non-violence would work in the Southern U.S. context. He did understand the occasional necessity for the state to use violent means. But he also has much to teach us about the hidden power of non-violence. As LaFollette Progressive above comments, non-violent means have shown remarkable success in lots of different contexts, including against dictatorships at times.

Posted by MQ | January 15, 2007 3:19 PM

Last year I read a book called Unconquerable World by Jonathan Schell that addresses this point -- that nonviolent resistance is actually pretty unbeatable in the long term -- comprehensively and powerfully. I've been meaning to go back and re-read it, because I'm pretty sure I didn't get it all the first time through. Highly, highly recommended.

Posted by Robin | January 15, 2007 3:36 PM

but we need to not allow our desire for nonviolence to become a way to help enforce the status quo.

The way to do that is to stop reifying 'nonviolence' and use the term and concept that King, Gandhi, and other effective practioners have consistently used:

Nonviolent resistance.

Read, and re-read, the letter from the Birmingham Jail, and King's April 1967 speech against the Viet Nam war.

Justice is the result that brings peace; nonviolent resistance, not simple passivity in the face of repression, is the path to justice.

I've supported armed resistance in the past, but again and again I've seen what it does to those who are part of organizations and movements committed to it. Armed struggle demands clandestinity and ruthlessness, and helps justify hideous counter-repression from the powers being fought. It encourages lies and factionalism; it empowers the hardest, least democratic leadership against those who have the qualities needed for effective, just government.

The Deacons of Defense had a role to play in the southern struggle of the 1950s and 1960s; thankfully, it wasn't the role of leadership.

Posted by Nell | January 15, 2007 3:38 PM

Hey, seems like a good time to mention that Deacons for Defense is a pretty OK movie.

Posted by Sewing machine & umbrella | January 15, 2007 3:41 PM

@Freddie: I'm not aware of Black Panthers devoting any significant effort to protecting black voters where such a need actually existed, though I'd welcome any examples you might cite.

The Panthers were very different things in different places, but they didn't even come into existence until after the legal battle for voting rights had been won.

Posted by Nell | January 15, 2007 3:50 PM

This statement is not really correct, which is not surprising from Al. Mandela started out non-violent, then turned to violence, which did not work and got him put in jail. He then returned to non-violence, which worked.

No, I don't think that's right. Mandela turned to violence, which got him thrown in jail. When he was in jail, Botha said he would release Mandela if Mandela renounced violence. Mandela rejected the deal. Later, Mandela was freed from jail. After his release, he STILL did not renounce violence, but agreed (as part of a peace treaty) to suspend use of violence. But agreeing as part of a peace treaty to suspend use of violence is certainly not the same thing as "return[ing] to non-violence".

Posted by Al | January 15, 2007 3:57 PM

No disrespect to King, but part of his strategy was to force the federal government to use violence (the nationalized Guard and the military) on his behalf.

Even Gandi wanted the British army to defend India from the Japanese, although he wanted the French, Czechs and Jews to show their courage and "love" by not resisting the Nazis.

We're all pragmatists in the end.

Posted by aleks | January 15, 2007 4:11 PM

Von Clausewitz said war is just a continuation of politics by other means. He was right. And I think it's important to note that in America there was a low-level race war going on, really, from the nation's inception. The lynchings, the terrorism of the KKK, widespread rape of African American women and girls--whites had created a violent political climate, and used violence very effectively to further their political goal of keeping blacks powerless and ripe for exploitation.

To agree with what you're saying, if you look at it this way, it's clear that MLK wasn't just a political genius, he was a military genius. MLK saw the strategic realities of this war--whites outnumbered blacks, they controlled the paramilitary organizations (KKK), they had the guns, and they controlled all the local institutions that could legitimately use force (police, courts, etc). So, MLK, who actually understood von Clausewitz, reasoned that just as war is politics by other means, so too is politics war by other means. He saw that the only way that Blacks could win this war was not to escalate the violence, but to use politics to take extralegal & local violence off the table. With that as his strategy, he then used brilliant and very aggressive political tactics--boycotts, marches, sit-ins, speeches, religious appeals--and achieved amazing successes. Winning was what mattered to MLK, and he was smart enough to see what it would take to win and disciplined enough to make it happen.

Let's be clear, I don't think MLK underestimated the political utility of force. I think he understood it at a very deep and very utilitarian level. In fact, he was willing to use force. He wanted the National Guard called out, and took action to create situations where not only would extralegal violence be condemned, but also where legitimate uses of force--like the national guard--would be employed by the State to ensure that people's legal rights were protected. He was using brilliant tactics of nonviolence to change the political utility of violence. He was making extralegal and illegal violence LESS politically useful to the white Southerners who were using it to oppress blacks, while legitimizing for the first time in the South in nearly 100 years, the use of force by legal entities to enforce the rights of Southern Blacks the same way they enforced the rights of Southern Whites.

That said, I agree that we overestimate the utility of force, and I think this is tied to our overestimate of the effectiveness of immoral actions more generally.

Especially among conservatives, there's this strangely popular view that the way one wins wars is through one's willingness to do "whatever it takes." The argument is basically that if you do morally awful things, it helps you win. This is why stupid people like Michelle Malkin defend the internment of the Japanese, in spite of the fact that it served no practical purpose and was probably counterproductive. Malkin's argument is basically that internment was good because it demonstrated a willingness to break our own laws during wartime. She actually seems to think that there is some sort of mystical quid pro quo where, if one does morally wrong things, one is more likely to win a war than if one does not do morally wrong things.

Of course, this is horseshit. What wins wars isn't symbolic showsof one's willingness to do "whatever it takes"; what wins wars is your leaders' ability to see what it actually will take to win, and then to do it. Sometimes "whatever it takes" is morally bad (Hiroshima), sometimes it's morally laudable (marching on Selma).

Furthermore, this has always struck me as an exceptionally stupid argument, because if "willing to do whatever it takes" was all it took to win a war, then anybody could do it. Most successful politicians are ruthless pragmatists. Most of them have, in their climb to power, been more than willing to do "whatever it takes" on many occasions. Really, the willingness to let the ends justify the means isn't all that rare in politicians.

What is far more rare is the ability to actually see what it takes, and to lead people to do what it actually DOES take. Conservatives love to point out that Lincoln suspended habeas corpus to win the war, suggesting that it was his willingness to do a "morally wrong" thing explains why we won. But they always fail to point out the flip side of that coin--that Lincoln did the morally right thing and freed the slaves to win the Civil War (it kept France & England from supporting the Confederacy & created a manpower shortage in the South). The moral of this story is that your willingness to be very, very good or your willingness to be very, very bad isn't what wins wars. You don't win wars through symbolic displays of goodness or badness, you win them by figuring out what it takes to win and then being able to do it.

MLK, like most other political leaders, was willing to do "whatever it takes." But what made him great was that he understood what it would take, and he had the courage and leadership to take violence off the table by inspiring thousands of people to publicly martyr themselves. MLK was able to counter the vicious political attacks of people on his own side who told him violence was the only way, he was willing to die, and he was even willing to send others to die--and he had the leadership to inspire them to willingly sacrifice themselves.

Of course, there's an associated long-term benefit to MLK's form of political action--it's that when he wins, he does not only achieve his ends of making life better for Black people, but he also creates a political environment in which all kinds of progress is more likely. Once people win through nonviolence, they become a political organization with a vested interest in preserving a status quo of nonviolence.

And, of course, the same is true of the other side--the IRA didn't follow Gandhi's example even though he'd proven the best way to kick out the Brits (nonviolent protest), because the IRA got its power through violence and they had a greater vested interest in preserving their own power than in creating liberating the Irish. For the IRA to change its tactics, they would have had to sacrifice their power. Sadly, their leaders were unwilling to do that.

All Americans owe MLK a debt of gratitude, not only because he allowed us to productively harness the resources of an oppressed population, but because he has also helped set up a very healthy dynamic in our society. There is a large group of politically experienced people in the US who have a vested interest in nonviolent protest to redress wrongs, because this is the political environment where their tactics work. They know how to use nonviolent tactics to achieve success and get power. Furthermore, he's a model for future activists to emulate, because he demonstrated that his approach gets results. This is a VERY good thing to have in a society, because solving internal political problems through violence is just about the most destructive activity a society can engage in (see Somalia, Balkans, Congo, etc.). The fewer players you have with a vested interest in violence, the more likely you are to become a rich & happy society.

And that, in the end, is the biggest reason we should, all other things being equal, privilege nonviolent solutions over violent ones, and "right" actions over "wrong" ones. The conservatives are wrong--you get no magic karma "bonus points" by engaging in symbolic actions that are morally wrong.

Every action has actual costs and benefits both short-term and long-term. Assuming the suspension of habeas corpus & freeing of the slaves both had equal benefit in the short term, they had vastly different long-term costs. To this day, people use Lincoln's suspension to justify the denial of fundamental rights without which our society cannot function. On the other hand, freeing the slaves has had enormously positive long-term results. This is why we have to stop over-valuing violence and under-valuing nonviolence. The out-year costs of violent conflict are extremely high, which is why it really SHOULD only be used as a last resort.

Posted by anonymous | January 15, 2007 4:15 PM

gregor at 3:05 calls me a "conservative" because I mentioned King's moral failings. I do take umbrage at such a suggestion!!

OK, sorry for wasting electrons.

Posted by next big thing | January 15, 2007 4:41 PM

You're too kind to Al, MQ. What he wrote is not best described as "not entirely true." It's best described as absolute and utter bullshit.

Mandela refused to renounce violence entirely for the reasons I pointed out earlier-- to succeed, nonviolent resistance often requires a real or implied threat of violence if nonviolence fails. The ANC had weapons and committed some acts of violence over the years. Nonetheless, Mandela and other key leaders emphasized nonviolent resistance as the primary method of struggle, and this is why they were able to use worldwide political pressure to bring down the Apartheid regime.

To describe this as "choosing violence," as Al did, is a vicious slander.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | January 15, 2007 5:21 PM

Steven Shames's book details the groups work in voter protection, and Bobby Seale wrote about it in his history of the group. While it's true that the Black Panthers were a post-Voting Rights act party, I think it's important to point out the difference between the legal right to protection of voting rights (by federal law rather than state or local juristictions) and the actual enforcement of that right, which was spotty for quite awhile after 1965 (which is described in The Unfinished Agenda).

Posted by Freddie | January 15, 2007 5:24 PM

To describe this as "choosing violence," as Al did, is a vicious slander.

This is just wrong. Mandella trained in Algeria as a guerrilla with the FLN. He was in command of the ANC and with his explicit permission targetted with violence the security apparatus and symbols of the state. His stance was “between the hammer of armed struggle and the anvil of united mass action, the enemy will be crushed.”

I'd disagree that it was "viscious" in any case. Civil disobedience was just another tool in the chest.

You can bring that full circle back to MLK. He was starting to drift over to Malcolm X's views (and vice versa) before they were assassinated. Both of them played a role in forwarding their goals through very different methods.

Posted by Ed Marshall | January 15, 2007 7:14 PM

Another choice quote:

The government has interpreted the peacefulness of the movement as weakness. The people's non-violent policies have been taken as a green light for government violence. Refusal to resort to force has been interpreted by the government as an invitation to use armed force against the people without any fear of reprisals. The methods of Umkhonto we Sizwe mark a break with that past.

We are striking out along a new road for the liberation of the people of this country. The government policy of force, repression and violence will no longer be met with non-violent resistance only! The choice is not ours; it has been made by the Nationalist government, which has rejected every peaceable demand by the people for rights and freedom and answered every such demand with force and yet more force!

Posted by Ed Marshall | January 15, 2007 7:19 PM

"Especially among conservatives, there's this strangely popular view that the way one wins wars is through one's willingness to do "whatever it takes." The argument is basically that if you do morally awful things, it helps you win...there is some sort of mystical quid pro quo where, if one does morally wrong things, one is more likely to win a war than if one does not do morally wrong things.

Of course, this is horseshit. What wins wars isn't symbolic showsof one's willingness to do "whatever it takes"; what wins wars is your leaders' ability to see what it actually will take to win, and then to do it."

From the post by Anonymous above, this strikes me as dead on. There is this dark element emerging in the culture that actually celebrates the willingness to torture, to kill civilians, to cause pain as symbolic of the toughness supposedly necessary for survival. This must be profoundly connected to the hidden anxieties of men who have never fought in wars, deskbound bureaucrats and intellectuals who have evaded any sort of risk in their lives, yet who make an career out of calling for others to make sacrifices and show courage. They condemn pacifists as naive, but they themselves are naive in their attachement to brutality even when it is impractical and counterproductive. In any case, we need every example we can get of courageous and productive pacifism in order to fight against this strain in the culture. King is especially important in times like this.

Posted by MQ | January 16, 2007 4:04 AM

Ed Marshall- I think that's a serious misunderstanding of the relative importance of violence and nonviolence in the resolution of South African Apartheid.

There is no question that Mandela made a conscious decision to mix violence with nonviolence. But Umkhonto we Sizwe was founded in 1961. It never committed any acts of terrorism against civilian targets until long after Mandela was imprisoned. It never even remotely approached a size and strength to pose a military threat to the Apartheid regime. The violent responses by the army and police to the student-led nonviolent protests and the subsequent divestment campaigns were, without question, the primary instruments that ended minority rule.

It was Mandela's call for peaceful reconciliation, along with the understanding that the alternative was further impoverishment and violence, that finally led the white minority to seek a compromise.

This is what I believe to be the crucial point that tends to be missed in discussions of King and nonviolence. Nonviolent resistance isn't passivity in the face of aggression, and it isn't a sign of weakness as folks like Al would have it. It is a tactic of confrontation that can be used within the context of a broader resistance that may also include the threat of force (as embodied by Malcolm X or the Black Panthers.) And it is often a very, very successful tactic because it forces the enemy to either negotiate or respond in very non-telegenic ways that deprive them of any sense of legitimacy and also risk losing the support of the security establishment.

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