"You cannot hear the name Martin Luther King Jr. and not think of death. For as famous as he may have been in life, it is death that ultimately defined him.“ So begins an essay written by Michael Eric Dyson on the 40th anniversary of King’s death in April 4, 1968 ("The Burdens of Martyrdom: Death distorted the true legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. – Why the turbulence of his life is what matters today“, Time Magazine, 07 Apr 08). The author connects a figure who is famous for having a Dream is inextricably to Death.
The threat of physical death was a nightmare that King had to live with and a daily basis. "To be sure, King was courageous in the face of death. But the unrelenting threat of bombs exploding and snipers shooting took its toll.“ Not surprisingly, "King suffered desperate stretches of depression that sometimes alarmed his closest aides and friends.“ The waking nightmare ialso mpinged upon his nights. "The sleeping pills he got from a physician friend stopped working.“ The nightmare of death was everywhere: "And the somber tones of his voice evoked the nightmares that stalked him.“
King‘s struggle with this gargantuanwaking nightmare was titanic. "It is nearly miraculous that King managed to keep death in a philosophical headlock as often as he did.“ Sadly, this battle was waged in isolation. "King was increasingly marginalized in his own pain; a close aide says there were very few people to whom he could confide the depths of his obsession, and he suffered huge grief of soul and heart, largely alone.“
Marginalization is a form of death. In addition to contending with the all-too-real possibility of physical death, "King’s depression was also fed by the fallout from butting heads with the soft, safe image manufactured for him. The more he protested poverty, denounced the Vietnam War and lamented the unconscious racism of many whites, the more he lost favor and footing in white America.“ In speaking his truths, his palatability for white Americans was dying. "For the first time in almost a decade, in January 1967 King’s name was left off the Gallup-poll list of the 10 most admired Americans. Financial support for his organization nearly dried up. Mainstream publications turned on him for diving into foreign policy matters supposedly far beyond his depth. Universities withdrew lecture invitations. And no American publisher was eager to publish a book by the leader.“
These facts are not commonly known. "In many ways King was socially and politically dead before he was killed.“ Dyson asserts: "Martyrdom saved him from becoming a pariah to the white mainstream.“
In the passage of years after his assassination, the nightmare has transformed. What is now dangerous is how the fierceness of King’s message has been drained of much of its life. "Martyrdom also forced onto King’s dead body the face of a toothless tiger. His threat has been domesticated, his danger sweetened. His depressions and wounds have been turned into waves and smiles. There is little suffering recalled, only light and glory.“ We have drained the dark aspect, the pain and suffering he experienced, out of much of King’s striving. "King’s more challenging rhetoric has gone unemployed, left homeless in front of the Lincoln Memorial, blanketed in dream metaphors, feasting on leftovers of hope lite.“
White Americans were often the actors in the nightmare King was living and hoping to transform. "White Americans have long since forgotten just how much heat and hate the thought of King could whip up. They have absolved themselves of blame for producing, or failing to fight, the murderous passions that finally tracked King down in Memphis, Tenn. If one man held the gun, millions more propped him up and made it seem a good, even valiant idea. In exchange for collective guilt, whites have given King lesser victories, including a national holiday.“ Rather than honestly examine their role in the bleak nightmare in which King heroically fought, white Americans have transformed the nightmare into a shallow, accommodating disneyesque dream.
This post mortem Disneyfying does not stop with whites. "Blacks have not been innocent in the posthumous manipulations of King’s legacy.“ This prettifying and making more palatable has followed a different course. "If many whites have undercut King by praising him to death, many blacks have hollowed his individuality through worship. But the wish to worship him into perfection is misled: the desire to deify him is tragically misplaced.“ The magnitude of King’s Dream in the face of gargantuan nightmares is lessened. "The scars of his humanity are what make his glorious achievements all the more remarkable.“ The unbearable truth of how how dark was the nightmarish aspect of King’s life makes the constancy of his great Dream all the more remarkable.
"Many whites want him clawless; many blacks want him flawless. But we must keep him fully human, warts and all.“ If we examine King’s life dreamfully, it offers us amazing opportunities for change. "There is a lot to be learned in how King feared and faced death, and fought it too. What we make of his death may determine what we make of his legacy and our future.“ As with all dreams and nightmares, their value lies in how we can take their message and incorporate it into our own lives. The living legacy of Martin Luther King is not his history or iconization. Rather it lies in how it can inspire each of us to live our day-to-day lives differently.