Civil Rights Leaders face Challenges King Never Dreamed Of

Last spring immigration rights groups loudly demanded that civil right groups take part in immigration rights marches and endorse immigration reform bills in Congress.

They branded the immigration battle the new civil rights movement, and insisted that if Martin Luther King, Jr. were alive he would have backed up their claim. It’s risky to say what King would have done on that score.

Yet it’s almost certain that given King’s passionate support of the mostly Latino led and targeted farm workers movement in California, and his glowing praise of farm worker leader Cesar Chavez, he would have regarded the immigration reform fight as a bonafide civil rights battle. And that would get him in hot water today with many blacks and some civil rights groups who take great offense at comparing the immigration reform struggle to the 1960s civil rights movement. That’s just one glaring sign of how things have changed in the nearly four decades since King’s murder, and on the anniversary of the King national holiday celebration.

In the 1960s, things were much simpler for civil rights leaders. Their fight was against bigoted sheriffs and mobs. Civil rights leaders firmly staked out the moral high ground for the modern day civil rights movement. It was classic good versus evil. The gory news scenes of baton welding racist Southern sheriffs, firehoses, and police dogs, and Klan violence unleashed against peaceful black protesters sickened many white Americans. All, except the most rabid racists, considered racial segregation as immoral and indefensible, and the civil rights leaders were hailed as martyrs and American heroes in the fight for justice.

For MORE, click HERE.


Get your copy of the award winning "King: From Atlanta to the Mountaintop." It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that tells the story of the Civil Rights movement and the life of its Drum Major for Peace, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. To learn more and hear excerpts from this treasured program, click here.