‘Nothing new about backlash’: MLK Jr. scholar tells Whitworth students King’s legacy still relevant today

If Martin Luther King Jr. could respond to the first five weeks of the second Trump Administration, King scholar Lerone A. Martin thinks he would not be surprised.

“King said there’s nothing new about backlash,” Martin said. “That America has never given itself to a full commitment to racial justice and racial equity. There is always one or two steps forward and then three steps back.”

Martin spoke on the civil rights icon’s legacy to more than 100 Whitworth University students and faculty Wednesday night. He is a professor of religious and African American studies at Stanford University, where he is also director of Martin Luther King, Jr. Research & Education Institute. Since 1986, Stanford has been the repository of all King’s private writing and correspondence.

He was invited to Spokane by Whitworth’s Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion – an office the Trump administration is attempting to dismantle at educational institutions across the country.

These efforts would suppress true history from being taught, the Stanford professor said. Martin specifically cited Trump’s recent executive order banning schools and universities from teaching that America is systemically racist.

“No one here is being made to feel ashamed. But it is to make you feel accountable,” he said. “None of us can control how we were born, but we can control how we are being socialized.

“We can try to control it and how we conduct ourselves now that we have knowledge.”

To try to remove that knowledge of history is a “shame,” he added.

“That doesn’t trust that young people actually are smart and can sift through this stuff,” Martin said.

Speaking on how King viewed racism, Martin said the reverend was not concerned by “simple preferences” of individuals.

King was concerned with what racism does to the soul.

“King firmly believed in the idea of Imago Dei – that every human being was born in the image of God. Racism, King says, tarnishes this idea of the Imago Dei. Racism, white supremacy makes people of color feel that they are inferior. That they somehow weren’t born in the image of God,” Martin told the students of the Christian university.

The professor also warned the students to not let those in power convince them King is a “mascot of living in a color-blind society.”

“There is this idea that King believed we should all just get along to go along. King was about justice,” Martin said.

King taught of a “negative peace” whereby an “absence of tension” allows injustice to be overlooked. In a time of increasing pressure to go along with the powers that be, Martin called on the students to refrain from indulging in this negative peace.

“If King were here today, he’d probably tell us, ‘Why are you all surprised? This is American history. Why did you not think that after the election of Barack Obama – why did you not think there would be a pushback?’ ”

Despite efforts to erase it, Martin said the history of racial justice and injustice will still be taught.

“There’ll be a shift, but I think that those who are dedicated to the work will still continue to find different venues, set up freedom schools, set up alternative spaces where this type of work will continue,” he said.