There Is a Balm in Gilead Review Lewis Baldwin
Closer Than Nosotros Knew
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March 17, 1991
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MARTIN & MALCOLM & AMERICA A Dream or a Nightmare. Past James H. Cone. Illustrated. 358 pp. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books. $22.95. THERE IS A Lotion IN GILEAD The Cultural Roots of Martin Luther King, Jr. By Lewis V. Baldwin. 348 pp. Minneapolis: Fortress Printing. Paper, $19.95.
In a landmark analysis, "Martin & Malcolm & America," James H. Cone cuts through the caricatures of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as a certified American hero and Malcolm X as a black demagogue to reveal two men whose complementary visions were converging at the fourth dimension of their deaths. Mr. Cone explains the differences between this century'due south major African-American leaders: King saw in America a dream every bit withal largely unfulfilled, Malcolm Ten saw a realized nightmare; King opted for integration, Malcolm Ten for nationalism; King taught love of enemies, nonviolence and the reformability of whites, Malcolm X taught "an eye for an eye," necessary self-defense and the evil of whites.
Each human, the writer argues, became disenchanted with his original vision. Malcolm X broke with his Black Muslim master, Elijah Muhammad, after learning that orders had been given to kill him because he had moved away from an exclusively religious arena into mainstream political and civil rights action. In Africa he learned that orthodox Islam, opposite to Elijah Muhammad'due south teaching that whites were devils by nature, tolerates no form of racial discrimination. Malcolm 10 was moving toward Rex's point of view when he was assassinated in 1965 "by the blacks he loved and was seeking to liberate from self-hate." Later on Malcolm Ten's expiry, Mr. Cone writes, King began to make a "radical turn abroad from his vision of the American dream and to gaze at the horror of Malcolm's nightmare." The failure of whites to back up authentic integration made him realize, in his own words, that "the vast majority of white Americans are racist." The Vietnam State of war caused King to describe America as the "greatest purveyor of violence in the earth today." He was moving closer to Malcolm X's views when he was assassinated in 1968 "by the whites he loved and was seeking to set gratuitous of racism."
Mr. Cone, a professor of theology at the Wedlock Theological Seminary in New York, does not ignore either man's weaknesses, acknowledging, for example, their sexism. On the other paw, he points out that neither "benefited financially from the movements they led, and each paid the ultimate toll -- death." He also acknowledges his personal debt to both: "I am an African-American theologian whose perspective on the Christian religion was shaped by Martin Male monarch and whose black consciousness was defined past Malcolm X."
Mr. Cone makes a compelling case for his merits that the legacy of Malcolm X is equally important to the black community and to American society as that of King. While Male monarch's hope that "nosotros shall overcome" remains an abiding inspiration, Malcolm Ten's fierce pride in beingness blackness and his strength of black beingness provide an indispensable resources for black identity, energy and self-respect. I observes that Islam as well equally Christianity may be an important resource for the black customs in its quest for racial justice. Reading Mr. Cone on the positive influence of orthodox Islam on Malcolm 10 causes me to reconsider my own stereotypes of Islam and Arabs, and to recognize more clearly the anti-Islamic and anti-Arab prejudice now surfacing in the United States in the aftermath of the Persian Gulf war. White as well as black Americans are in the debt of James Cone, whose important book volition revise and refocus the legacies of Male monarch and Malcolm Ten.
In "There Is a Lotion in Gilead," Lewis 5. Baldwin somewhat overstates the case in describing his volume equally "the first all-encompassing treatment of [ Male monarch's ] roots in black folk civilisation, specially that of the Southward." However, Mr. Baldwin, who teaches religious studies at Vanderbilt University, discusses Rex's sense of place in a Southern context, his nourishing family heritage and his roots in the blackness church with its messianic traditions; and his argument is interesting.
We scout King receiving affidavit and a sense of cocky-worth from his parents, hearing and learning from black preachers, enjoying soul food, singing the sorrow songs of slave forebears, drinking in the rich and savory culture of black Atlanta and Morehouse Higher, being blessed by marvelous mentors, including his father, the Morehouse president Benjamin Eastward. Mays and the blackness theologian Howard Thurman. Mr. Baldwin argues persuasively that these were the master influences that shaped him, his education in the North at the Crozer Theological Seminary and Boston University calculation philosophical concepts to augment and clarify the Christian organized religion bred into him in his early on years.
The writer's choice of the word "optimism" instead of "hope" to define King's "incurable organized religion in God and a belief in the essential goodness of humanity" is unfortunate. "Hope" is a biblical discussion, "optimism" is non. As Mr. Cone shows, Male monarch'due south early optimism was shattered by black riots in Watts and Chicago and by the Vietnam War, leaving him sadder but wiser, relying on a biblical sense of hope -- deep, big, eschatological.
This book is marred by gratuitous and self-serving criticisms of other biographers of King and by Mr. Baldwin's reverential handling of his bailiwick. Nevertheless, information technology is vibrant with stories, names, humor, music and all the richness of the Southern black church and community. Mr. Baldwin succeeds in his mission to help readers "understand better the faith and the civilisation to which Martin Luther King, Jr., was heir."
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/1991/03/17/books/closer-than-we-knew.html
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