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from the The Black Commentator

On or around the January 21st celebration of the life and work of Dr. King, Senator Obama was asked the question of who did he think Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would have supported for President. Senator Obama offered a very profound answer: He said, to the effect, that Dr. King would probably have not supported anyone but would have been pressuring everyone on behalf of social justice.

In the wake of Obama’s outstanding victory in South Carolina, two things are clear:

* One, that this race is not over and that everything is clearly up in the air, meaning of course, that each state’s primary is critical.
* Two, that the candidates (especially Senators Clinton and Obama) must not be allowed to engage in a tit-for-tat squabble, but must be pushed on the actual content of their visions and platforms.

In this sense, Senator Obama’s words may be more insightful than even he realized when he uttered them.

In suggesting that Dr. King would be pressuring all of the candidates, Senator Obama was, perhaps, inadvertently offering a critique of this presidential season. At a point when the two top Democratic contenders, along with most of the media, are focusing on symbolism and celebrity, little attention has been given to the actual programmatic differences and similarities between Senators Clinton and Obama. Instead, we have been “entertained” to the political equivalent of reality TV with he said / she said / they said, instead of a focus on what the candidates, should they be elected, would commence to do the day after Inauguration.

It is easy to get swept up in the whirlwind. A serious African American candidate and a serious female candidate running in the same election is historic. A friend of mine (and fellow activist), commenting on the race said that while he agreed with former Senator John Edwards on the issues, he felt that the world did not want another white man in the office of the President of the United States. I remained silent for a minute in hearing this and then, after agreeing on the significant symbolic value of a woman or black man as President, asked my friend “…but what about the issues? What about what they would ACTUALLY do?” Sadly, my friend had no answer other than to repeat his point about the symbol of a different face in a high place.

My guess is that Dr. King would have been far less swayed by symbolism than are many of us. Among other things, Dr. King believed in the necessity for social movements to change conditions. While it is absolutely true that Dr. King, like many other great social movement leaders, needed political allies in office - as was the case with his relationship with President Lyndon Johnson at a certain moment - it was also the case that Dr. King gave priority to the movement over the person. In other words, while King agreed with Johnson on his civil rights reforms, he was willing to take the immense risk of turning against Johnson on the question of the Vietnam War. King stood on principle, and particularly, his central concern was for the welfare of those in mainstream society stepped upon each day, whether by throwing them into an immoral war; casting them aside in the name of a more efficient economy, or allowing them to languish in the poverty of the ghetto or the hills of Appalachia.

It would be worth thinking a bit more deeply. How are the candidates approaching the immense challenges of today? What are they saying about Iraq? About the recession we are entering? About healthcare? What difference will they make in the lives of the person who just lost their home to foreclosure?

We, who are concerned with justice, must be asking those questions and in that sense, emulating precisely what Senator Obama suggested Dr. King would be doing today. The pressure that Senator Obama believed Dr. King would be exerting would be far more than that of a phone call, email or fax and it would be far more than an individual act. It would be organizing and mobilizing a movement, that is, hundreds of thousands of those who have decided that they are ready to take their futures into their own hands, rather than await a savior.

Bill Fletcher, Jr. is Executive Editor of The Black Commentator. He is also a Senior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies and the immediate past president of TransAfrica Forum.