Rethinking social change

This opinion column was originally run in The Northern Iowan, UNI's student newspaper.

Though I regretfully could not attend his entire talk, I had the privilege of hearing Ellis Cose, journalist and author of several books, speak very briefly during lunch after the Martin Luther King Day of Service last week. He spoke about King's legacy, saying all the usual things that one would expect of someone honoring this important man, but then made a remark that struck me: that even though King is now regarded as a relatively uncontroversial figure, he was not viewed this way during his time.

This is an important point that is generally overlooked when it comes to studying King and his leadership style. While everyone recognizes him as being a non-violent, peaceful voice of the African-American civil rights movement, many fail to consider the fact that he was still a radical who broke laws, led marches, staged boycotts and wasn't afraid of stepping on toes to get his message across.

His "I have a dream" speech was no doubt inspirational, but that alone could not have created the sweeping change his leadership helped promote. What really made a difference were things such as arranging sit-ins, leading marches and helping to orchestrate a bus boycott that eventually hurt the bus system financially. And during the Birmingham Campaign, in which blacks were encouraged to break as many segregation laws as possible for the purpose of overflowing jails, King was quoted as commenting, "The purpose of ... direct action is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation."

To get back to Cose's comment, I agree that people today see him in a different light than people saw him back then. Why is this important to note? Because knowing this can help us analyze views regarding today's social movements and predict how our attitudes and actions will be seen in 50 years.

Take the gay rights movement going on now, for instance. As an avid supporter, I've heard countless people make remarks questioning why I'm so passionate about it. "Worry about more important things." "Don't talk about gay marriage; someone might get offended." "Calling people just annoys them." "Can't they just be happy with civil unions? What's the difference?"

Hypocritically, most of these same people who see current social movements as too "in-your-face" also see King as an important, inspiring figure of justice and social change. It's easy to see why this happens — we've all grown up with legal racial equality, and thus tacitly support the person who helped make it happen. We don't have to give it much of a second thought, because the ‘60s civil rights movement never inconvenienced us. Its positive effects have been there our whole lives.

By contrast, we may have to deal with being bugged by a phone call supporting economic justice, or being made uncomfortable in a conversation about immigration, or being offended by someone drawing Muhammad to protest anti-blasphemy laws.

But while our days may be made slightly easier without these inconveniences, these small inconveniences are what make social change occur. Without being "in-your-face" every once in a while, nothing happens; society becomes static. To be effective, social movements have to get on people's radars by getting them talking. For instance, while the Occupy movement's protests have been said to inconvenience some big cities, it has gotten people to take note of economic inequality in America. And like the ‘60s sit-ins that gained more attention when the police brought out fire hoses and attack dogs to use on the demonstrators, more people have sympathized with the Occupy message since the protesters have been victim to police brutality such as pepper spraying and violent arrests.

My hope in bringing this up is that the next time people are tempted to tell an activist to "live and let live," think about King's philosophy and methodology, and how our current social movements will be seen in 50 year. When your grandchildren ask you with disbelief, "Could gay people really not get married when you were young?", be proud that you argued the topic, offended some people, inconvenienced someone's day and helped create social change.