Did MLK Condone Riots?

Did MLK Condone Riots?
(a 3 min read)

Back in 2020, protests for criminal justice reform sprang up in cities all across America and the world. These, I believe, were appropriate and necessary, because we desperately need reform. As MLK said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Most unfortunately, many of these protests turned into violent riots. This was profoundly destructive and distracting, and many Black leaders and voices pleaded with rioters to remember the original intent.

This was especially true here in Atlanta, the center of the Civil Rights movement and the home of the man we celebrate today. Our mayor Keisha Bottoms repeatedly called out rioters for not only destroying parts of our city, but also distorting the message of needed reform (and endangering the legacy of the nonviolent revolution led by Dr. King.)

Some defenders of the riots, however, used a quote from MLK to justify their violence: “…riots are the language of the unheard.”

As this article points out, however, Dr. King never condoned violence. He understood it, and he recognized it as a consequential outcry from populations and communities continually subjected to injustice. He also himself felt the natural pain and outrage of 400 years of systematic subjugation, most of it violent. But that doesn’t mean he condoned or called for it; it’s precisely why he emphasized nonviolence, to stop the cycle and elevate everyone to a higher moral plane.

I know this is sometimes hard to see and accept. If he were totally against riots, he shouldn’t have even come close to using language that could be misinterpreted as such, right?

Actually, no. Language is the currency of all human endeavors, and precise language is the path to progress. See, like so many times in our own lives, Dr. King needed to do two things at the same time:

1. Call attention to the roots of a problem by looking at its natural, reactive fruit
2. Call people to address the root by responding to it in a radically mature way instead.

All good leaders do this. “I hear your pain, and that helps explain your rage. I also agree the situation has to change as soon as possible…and there are better ways to do so than getting reactive. Let’s work together to do __________instead.”

Perhaps this “explain, but not excuse” is the most helpful language for understanding our current divides:

This country has a horrible legacy of unjust police brutality toward Black people, and that helps explain the explosive levels of pain and violence erupting on the streets. But this explanation does nothing to excuse rioting or looting or attacks. Since we want to create lasting change, both in the law and in the hearts and minds of America, there is a better way.

And…

Our country’s growing wealth inequality, bias against the less educated, and radical social changes over the last 40 years helps explain the rising levels of disorientation and pain among the rural and lower/middle class populations. But this explanation does nothing to excuse violent behavior or the promotion of falsehoods as a justification. What’s needed now is the calm, difficult debate about how to increase education and employment opportunities for all Americans.

Now, to be sure, I am not equating the plight of Black people in this country’s long history with the economical hardships and social disorientation among largely white populations over the last two generations. If my language here seems to do so, I apologize in advance. The systematic mistreatment of Black populations in this country is, simply put, a holocaust, and in order to heal as a society, we must end it at every level.

And we must do so without violence. Why? Because violence always creates resistance, which usually leads to more violence. It takes a radical response of a different kind to end the cycle.

This is the truth Dr. King believed in his bones, and it’s perhaps best summed up in his often cited reference to his nonviolence mentor, Mahatma Gandhi, who himself was referencing Jesus:

“An ‘eye for an eye’ eventually leaves the whole world blind.”

Peace begins with a pause,

Hal