But in reality civility is strong truth delivered in a manner in which it can be heard and received.
"Letter From a Birmingham Jail" doesn't mince words, but there is power in its truth and also in its civility. It calls moderate whites out. And it had the power to convict of sin.
Does anyone think that confronting and spitting on some in the Trump administration had any such moral power?
As a young teen whose parents were news junkies and supporters of the Civil Rights Movement, it was MLK who made a difference in hearts and minds and made us believe in the morality of the cause of civil rights.
Maybe some in the Deep South noticed Malcolm X because of the legacy of fear of freed slaves that their guilt made them prey to down to that generation. But in our household, Martin Luther King was our hero. I read "Stride Toward Freedom" and "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" by the age of fourteen.
The next year on my parents' wedding anniversary Martin Luther King was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. My parents and I were devastated.
For many years, the assassination marred their anniversary and they were sad. The commissioned a bust of a young MLK, which to this day is on a bookshelf at their home (although my mom has been gone several years now). And when a documentary came out a couple of years later, the whole family went to see it at the old Paramount Theater in downtown Austin.
King wasn't submissive, he was a man of strength and strong moral authority. And his civility was part of that moral authority.
Nothing was stronger than Dr. King. Not Malcolm X. Not the KKK. And not Bull Conner.
His moral message opened many hearts and minds, mine included. But a new generation of white people are now hearing the moral call. I hope the Black Lives Matter movement is able to keep the hotheads and those provocateurs who would love to provoke a race war from succeeding.
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