Bruce Bartlett: MLK's greatest gift to America

Bruce Bartlett's latest column makes an excellent point that I agree with, which is that Martin Luther King Jr.'s greatest accomplishment was not in choosing to lead the civil rights struggle with a strategy of non-violence but in somehow being able to pull it off. From Mr. Bartlett:

"The really big problem with a nonviolence strategy is that is needs to be comprehensive to work; a few hotheads who take matters into their own hands can set back the entire movement, undo all its progress in a matter of moments. Convincing everyone in the civil rights movement to follow his nonviolence strategy was Dr. King’s greatest accomplishment, one that was truly extraordinary and still underappreciated."

 The key is that a non-violent strategy is, in the end, the quickest and most effective way to address a moral issue. More from the article:

"... although nonviolence seemed like a long-term strategy, in fact it worked remarkably fast. The Montgomery bus boycott started on December 1, 1955, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed into law less than 10 years later on July 2, 1964. That’s lightning speed by the standards of such things, historically speaking."

All this was done to realize the next major step in addressing the slavery issue - a terminal condition that our nation was born with and from which violence and brutality naturally flowed - and its natural by-product, segregation. The non-violent nature of the civil rights movement not only brought necessary change to our nation but saved countless lives and much suffering in the process.  Thank you, Dr. King.

Read Bruce Bartlett's article at:

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2013/08/30/What-Martin-Luther-King-Really-Gave-to-America.aspx#page1