What Would King say about Ferguson?

Fifty years ago today, on Dec. 10, 1964, Martin Luther King, Jr., was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He was 35 years old, and at the time was the youngest person ever to be given the Peace Prize, which was first awarded in 1901.

King gave an acceptance speech upon receiving the prodigious prize on that December day, and on the 11^th he delivered the Nobel Lecture. 

From 1960 until his death in 1968, King and his father were co-pastors of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. (That is also where one of King’s funerals was held on 4/9/68.) Last Monday (Dec. 1) Attorney-General Holder met with community leaders of Atlanta in Ebenezer BC.

That gathering was publicized under the name “The Community Speaks: A Service. A Forum. A Place to be Heard.” Prior to that meeting Ebenezer Church’s Facebook page explained,

This service is designed to provide a sacred space for interfaith prayer, solidarity, communal lament, and constructive outlets for community involvement that furthers the work of social justice locally, nationally and globally.

What would King have said last week if he had been there at Ebenezer? (If he had not been assassinated, at age 85 he might have been.)

King would, no doubt, have expressed great sadness at the shooting death of an unarmed black teen-ager. And it is most likely that he would have also expressed grave reservations about the grand jury’s refusal to indict Darren Wilson.

Doubtlessly, King would also have decried the violence that has marred the protest in Ferguson and elsewhere. As he did in the 1950s and ’60s, he would have appealed for nonviolent demonstrations.

In his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize, King declared that “nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time,” and that it is necessary for humans “to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression.”

King also declared in his Nobel lecture, “Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral.”

Further, “Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible.” And then, “Violence ends up defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers.”

If King were to have come back, Rip van Winkle style, to Ebenezer last week, he would quite likely have expressed great disappointment that the racial situation has not improved more than it has since 1964.

In his Nobel lecture, King talked about racial injustice, poverty, and war. Sadly, not very much has changed in 50 years.

In that lecture, King spoke about how we humans suffer from

a poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually. We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers [and sisters].

King’s acceptance speech was full of hope, though. To some that may have sounded then, and maybe especially now, as “liberal” or humanistic optimism. But there is a distinct difference between hope and optimism.

King was not, and most likely would not today be, optimistic about race relations in the country. But he was hopeful then, and as a man of deep Christian faith, he would be hopeful now.

That hope rests partly in people of good will truly seeking freedom and justice for all. 

The Banality of Evil

"Banality” is not a word that we often hear. The dictionary I consulted defines it as “the condition or quality of being banal, or devoid of freshness or originality.” “Triteness,” “staleness,” and “unimaginativeness” are synonyms for banality.

Hannah Arendt, a German-born Jewish woman, created quite a stir in 1963 when her book “Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil” was published.

Hannah Arendt (1906-1975)

The 2012 movie “Hannah Arendt” depicts well the life and work of this fascinating intellectual, who died in New York City on December 4, 1975.

Adolf Eichmann, a high ranking Nazi leader and the primary instigator of the Jewish Holocaust, was captured in Argentina and brought to trial in May 1960. He faced 15 criminal charges, including war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes against the Jewish people.

Found guilty on many of the charges against him, Eichmann was sentenced to death and was hanged on May 31, 1962.

In her study of that trial, Arendt concluded that Eichmann was the embodiment of the “banality of evil,” asserting that he appeared to be ordinary and sane, yet displayed neither guilt nor hatred.

In a similar vein, Simon Wiesenthal, a Jewish Austrian Holocaust survivor, said this about Eichmann: “We know that one doesn’t need to be fanatical, sadistic, or mentally ill to murder millions; that it is enough to be a loyal follower eager to do one’s duty.”

In wartime, most killing, even by those we consider enemies, is done by people who are just doing their duty rather than by people who are especially vile or evil. That is true even for the pilots who bombed Pearl Harbor on the “day of infamy” that we remember on Sunday.

There are some Americans who even to this day are prejudiced toward Japanese people because of Pearl Harbor.

But if even the deeds of a man like Eichmann can be described as an expression of the banality of evil, as I think they probably can, certainly that can be said about most of the “rank and file” members of any army or air force.

Those who plan war and order others to fight may well be evil, but individual soldiers as a rule are no more evil than anyone else.

The same can be said about other tragic situations. For example, on Nov. 24 the grand jury in St. Louis County decided not to indict policeman Darren Wilson for killing Ferguson teen-ager Michael Brown.

As you know, that touched off senseless violence and protests not only in Ferguson but across the country and even in London.

A young man was killed, and his family and many other people think it was a needless and unjust act of murder.

We certainly don’t know whether the use of lethal force against an unarmed teen-ager was justified, but surely there was some other means for Wilson to get out of harm’s way.

But also quite certainly, Wilson was/is not an evil man. Rather, this is perhaps another example of the banality of evil.

In an interview on Nov. 25, Wilson said, “I just did my job. I did what I was paid to do and that was my job. I followed my training, the training took over, the training led me to what happened.”

So, as enacted by most individuals, including soldiers and policemen, perhaps most evil is banal. The problem is with evil systems that train, and order, people to kill, in war or at other times.

In Memory of the Hutterite Martyrs of 1918

As was commemorated earlier this month, World War I, which began 100 years ago this past summer, officially ended on November 11, 1918. But it didn’t come to an end then for four Hutterite men from South Dakota.

David, Michael, and Joseph Hofer, three brothers, and Jacob Wipf, Joseph’s brother-in-law, were inducted into the U.S. Army in May 1918 and sent to Washington State.

Upon reaching Camp Lewis there, the four Hutterites, who in allegiance to the Anabaptist tradition were staunch pacifists, refused to don military uniforms or follow other orders.

Consequently, they were court-martialed, tried and convicted, and then in June sent to solitary confinement in the dungeon of Alcatraz.

Three days after the war ended in November, the four men were sent by train to Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. There on Nov. 29 Joseph Hofer died at the age of 24, and on Dec. 2 his 25-year-old brother Michael also died.

The cause of death for the two brothers was listed as pneumonia. It may have actually been the “Spanish flu,” which was so deadly in 1918-19.

But malnutrition and their weakened physical condition due to the torturous treatment they received at Alcatraz were, doubtlessly, the main reason for their untimely deaths.

David Hofer, the oldest brother, was released from prison the next day, but Jacob Wipf was held until April 13, 1919. From his hospital bed in Dec. 1918, Jacob shared the story of the shameful treatment the four Hutterites received; that disconcerting story can be read here.

The complete, sad narrative of the Hutterite martyrs is engagingly told by Duane C. S. Stoltzfus in his book “Pacifists in Chains: The Persecution of Hutterites during the Great War” (2013). (Stoltzfus, b. 1959, is a professor of communication at Goshen College, a Mennonite institution in Indiana.)

Part of the indignity of the situation is depicted by Stoltzfus on pages 173-4 of his book. After Joseph Hofer died, the guards said that family members could not see him. But Maria, Joseph’s wife persisted, and was finally granted permission to see her husband’s body. Stoltzfus writes,

With tears in her eyes, she approached the coffin, which was set on two chairs. When the lid was opened, she found Joseph in death dressed in a military uniform that he had steadfastly refused to wear in life.

As I wrote in my 5/30/12 blog article, in May 2012 June and I visited some Hutterites in South Dakota. Norman Hofer, a relative of the Hofer brothers mentioned above (but not a Hutterite), was our most gracious host/guide.

(On page xvii of his book, author Stoltzfus thanks Norman Hofer for sending him materials and for taking him on a tour of several Hutterite colonies.)

Norman told us the touching story of the Hutterite men of South Dakota whose pacifism cost them their lives. He also took us to the cemetery where we saw the grave markers pictured here.

In his opening chapter, Stoltzfus points out that for the Hutterites “there could be no just war.” They took Jesus’s words in Matthew 5 literally, so they “were obligated by their faith to refuse” military service (p. 8).

I am most grateful for the faithful witness of people such as the four Hutterites in 1918, two of whom became martyrs because of the seriousness and fortitude with which they followed the words of Jesus.

Would that all of us Christian believers were as dedicated to the one we call Lord!

Thankful for This Passionate Advocate for Children

During this Thanksgiving week, I am thankful for many things and for many people—such Marian Wright Edelman, a passionate advocate for children over the last 40 years.

Marian Wright was born in South Carolina in 1939. Her father, a Baptist minister, died when she was 14. His last words were, “Don’t let anything get in the way of your education.” She didn’t.

Marian went on to earn a law degree at Yale and then in 1964 became the first African-American woman admitted to the Mississippi Bar. That year she was very active in civil rights activities in Mississippi, leading in what came to be known as Freedom Summer.

In 1968 Marian married Peter Edelman, a lawyer from Minnesota. They made an interesting couple: she a black Baptist, he a white Jew.

The Edelmans have three grown sons, including Jonah (b. 1970), their second son, who has a Ph.D. from Oxford and is the co-founder and CEO of Stand for Children, an education reform organization.

 Ms. Edelman started the Children’s Defense Fund in 1973, and it has become the nation’s strongest voice for children and families. Here is CDF’s mission statement:

The Children’s Defense Fund Leave No Child Behind mission is to ensure every child a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start and a Moral Start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities.

Hillary Rodham was one of the first staff lawyers for CDF, and then after she married Bill Clinton in 1975 she was the Chair of its Board of Directors from 1986-92.

Ms. Edelman was one of the featured speakers at the 2008 New Baptist Covenant gathering in Atlanta. I heard that talk and was much impressed by her—and have been on CDF’s mailing list ever since.

I also enjoyed reading some of her latest book, The Sea Is So Wide and My Boat Is So Small: Charting a Course for the Next Generation (2008).

One of CDF’s ongoing activities has been sponsoring summertime Freedom Schools across the country. Since 1995, more than 100,000 K-12 children have had a CDF Freedom Schools experience. (Here is the link to CDF’s website.)

The church June and I are members of has sponsored a Freedom School for six weeks each summer for several years now. It is a considerable expense and takes a lot of work, but it is a wonderful ministry to the children in the church’s neighborhood, the majority of whom are Hispanic and African-American.

This year for the first time I read a story to the nearly 100 children enrolled in our Freedom School, and I was impressed by the children’s attention and to the way the leaders were teaching/leading them.

The first Freedom Schools were held in Mississippi as part of the 1964 Freedom Summer civil rights activities mentioned above. So this was the 50^th anniversary year—as you can see from the picture I took the morning I was at our church’s school in July.

This year a scholarly book honoring Ms. Edelman and the Children’s Defense Fund was published under the title “Improving the Odds for America’s Children.” On the back cover are these words by Hillary Clinton:

In the past forty years, the Children’s Defense Fund has tirelessly worked to improve the lives of children in America. There are dozens of laws on the books protecting children and supporting families that simply wouldn’t be there if it weren’t for the Children’s Defense Fund.

Please join me in giving thanks for Marian Wright Edelman and her indefatigable advocacy for the nation’s children.