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UMAINE PROFESSOR TRACKS POLITICAL USE OF MARTIN LUTHER KING'S LEGACY
ORONO, Maine -- Ronald Reagan did it. Bill Clinton has done it. Even the opponents of affirmative action have used the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. to promote their political agenda, according to research by a University of Maine political scientist.
In a recent study, assistant professor Amy Fried showed that King's status as an American hero has been used to promote disparate views and policies -- with some significant omissions and distortions of his views.
"People want to attach themselves to him and say, `Martin Luther King would have liked this,' and, `Martin Luther King would have liked that,' " Fried says. "He's become an icon. People want him on their side."
Fried holds a doctorate from the University of Minnesota, and her research interests include public opinion. This is her first year at UMaine.
She and Davida J. Alperin of the University of Wisconsin, River Falls, presented their study, "Remaking Past and Present: Collective Memory and the Politics of Race and Ethnicity," to the annual conference of the American Political Science Association in the fall of 1997.
The study is part of a growing academic field known as collective memory, which looks at how people remember and reconstruct the past. Fried explored politically-tinged interpretations of King's legacy.
"Whatever the precise social mechanism, it is clear that King's transference into the American pantheon of heroes has created celebrations and rhetoric which frequently overlook King's views on poverty, the Vietnam War and the need for direct collective action," Fried concluded. "King's status is indeed employed to promote disparate political views and policies, with some significant omissions and distortions of his views."
Both Clinton and Reagan have used King to score political points, Fried found.
In 1986, Reagan said the country needed to increase minority entrepreneurship by cutting taxes and spending, starting enterprise zones, and creating educational vouchers. "If we continue to allow the economy to expand and continue to work for a more perfect society, the people of all colors will prosper. And isn't that what Dr. King's dream and the American dream are all about?" the study quoted Reagan as saying.
Clinton has also put words in King's mouth, the study found. In November 1993, he spoke at the Mason Temple Church of God in Memphis, where King delivered his last sermon. The president said King would be proud of the accomplishments of the black community but disappointed in much else.
The study quotes Clinton: "This is not what I lived and died for, my fellow Americans,' (King) would say. `I fought to stop white people from being so filled with hate that they would wreak violence on black people. I did not fight for the right of black people to murder other black people with abandonment.' "
Fried further documented how some opponents of affirmative action have twisted King's views to promote their agenda.
In his famous 1963 speech in Washington, D.C., King said, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
Affirmative action opponents contend that King sought a society free from policies that acknowledge race and use race as a category, Fried found. The claim was used in 1996 by proponents of the successful move to abolish affirmative action in California's state university system.
In response, King's widow, Coretta Scott King, said her husband had "unequivocally" supported the idea of affirmative action, Fried found.
"He did indeed dream of a day when his children would be judged by the content of their character, rather than the color of their skin," King's widow wrote in a 1996 New York Times column. "But he often said that programs and reforms were needed to hasten the day when his dream of genuine equality of opportunity -- reflected in reality, not just theory -- would be fulfilled."
Still, Fried says, the practice of reshaping King's views for political gain is likely to continue.
"Martin Luther King is an authentic American hero who deserves remembrance," Fried says. "As time goes on, it is probably inevitable that his specific words and accomplishments will fade into the mists of the past. As this happens, King will become even more of a symbol, used for political purposes."
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