A BETTER EDUCATION
There is work ahead, but first, we must seek to understand. Get that education!
Robert Caro was describing the problematic situation in which black Americans had to live in the Southern parts of the United States before the 1950s. His descriptions were powerful. He narrated how blacks were disenfranchised, how they tried to vote and would not be registered, and when they sued, they had no justice. It was this way for many years. The House of Representatives passed bills that were supposed to liberate the blacks and grant them the ballots. The Executive arm of government was also fully pursuing policies that wanted to give blacks the ballot, yet there was one arm of the legislative arm of government that kept opposing this: the Senate!
For years, efforts were made, yet there were no positive results. Many commentators had come to believe passing any Civil Rights Bill in the Senate was impossible. Commentators were saying the situation in the South was hopeless. With folks like Richard Rusell, an incredible gentleman, and parliamentarian who understood power and used it very well, there was no hope that anything positive could happen.
Then Robert Caro wrote these words;
The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was one of the generation of new, better-educated, more confident black leaders who were beginning to appear in the South—one with unusual political sophistication. Hardly had he become minister of Montgomery’s Dexter Avenue Baptist Church when he announced a goal: “Every member of Dexter must be a registered voter.” Registered—and knowledgeable. Weekly forums discussed election issues; a political action committee was formed.
~ Master of The Senate by Robert
This paragraph jumped out at me.
Reread this;
"The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was one of the generation of new, better-educated..."
Better educated!
So, for years, the Civil Rights movement was doing its best, but more was needed. It seemed as if the dam was forever closed. It had reached its limit... but it was not to be; a new generation of BETTER EDUCATED LEADERS arrived at the scene. Martin Luther King Jr represented this group of BETTER EDUCATED LEADERS who would change the landscape of America forever.
Even before their emergence, a generation of BETTER EDUCATED LEADERS made a big difference and pushed the freedom of black Americans to that point. Frederick Douglass was the best representation of these BETTER EDUCATED LEADERS in his generation. Douglass's education made him qualified to become the voice of his people. With his education, he rallied the troops and fired the hearts of men and women about the injustice his people were facing. He made Americans and the world see what slavery was and what it was doing to his people. Thanks to the work of Douglass and several others, the chains of slavery were broken.
Although black Americans had gained their freedom from slavery, they were not fully citizens. They were denied the vote. They were denied seats on buses. They were denied school admission. They were denied the right to eat in cafes. They were second-class citizens. This anger was there for years. Some tried to mobilize it for good. Yet, their efforts were not enough. A new set of BETTER EDUCATED LEADERS were needed. A young man of 25 had just graduated from seminary with a Ph.D. He had been offered an opportunity to become a lecturer, but he refused. He wanted to go to the flocks and do the work of his Master. He had read Nietzsche, Kant, Thomas Jefferson, Mill, etc. He was ready for any intellectual engagement, and he knew how the world worked. This young man would die at the age of 39, but by the time he died, he had divided America into two. America before the King's Years and America after the King's Years.
Without his education, I doubt if King could have made the difference he did. Yes, yes, anyone can make a difference and change the world. But you have a better chance of succeeding if you get an education. A BETTER EDUCATION. A BETTER SOPHISTICATION.
We are all surrounded by various injustices. Our world is still broken. So many things need fixing. We may be angry at them, have a desire to change things, and even be ranting about them. But first, we need to get the education that makes us capable of confronting these forces of injustice and changing them.
I've always told people that part of the reason I read is because I want to understand the world. I want to see why things are the way they are so I can change them. Without this understanding, you may be hitting the wrong targets.
America did change. The Senate did pass a Civil Rights Bill. The first one was in 1957. But you know who made that bill possible? It was a maverick politician named Lyndon B Johnson. Johnson will become president someday and pass the most important Civil Rights bills that gave blacks the vote and nearly everything they've been asking for decades. He succeeded in passing these bills only because he understood the Senate, power, and how to get things done.
There is work ahead, but first, we must seek to understand. Get that education!