The recent
invasion of Charlottesville, Virginia, by Neo-Nazis, KKK members, and other
white supremacists, and the various response tactics by counter-protesters,
have been the subject of intense examination in the days following. This conversation is difficult and
necessary. Especially for those who
espouse non-violence as the only moral response to hatred and injustice,
serious questions have been raised and must at least be examined, if not
answered.
My first
thought was of the similarities between the current debate over tactics and the
tensions of the Civil Rights era, exemplified by the competing views of Martin
Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. Both
were sons of Baptist ministers, but their life paths took very different
directions. King was relatively
sheltered from the worst abuses of racial segregation. He had opportunity for education and became a
minister himself. Malcolm’s father moved
the family from Nebraska to Michigan because of threats from the KKK, but their
new home was burned and his father brutally murdered by whites. During a stint in jail Malcolm was converted
to Islam and became a leader in the Black Muslim faith, then later turned to
traditional Sunni Islam.
