Last week, I had the honour to be one of the panelists at the US embassy to celebrate Dr Martin Luther King’s immense contribution toward achieving social justice and lasting peace.

The discussions explored King’s hallmark actions that went beyond influencing changing of laws, and vividly won victories against the forces of injustice and repression.

Social change, for him, was not an abstraction or just a dream or an unreachable goal, but it was a realistic, achievable and tangible outcome of the struggle for freedom and equality.

Reconciliation for Dr King was not reconciling or compromising to leave injustice or racial bigotry in place. However, reconciliation was the active and involved process that resulted in specific social transformation that inured benefits to all people.

As evident, the success of the civil rights movement under Dr King’s leadership not only benefited Black America, but also the success of this movement for changes provided benefits to all people across the world.

Dr Martin Luther King did not err in his contention that peace within societies is not merely the absence of overt violence – what he called "negative peace”; instead, peace, according to him, must involve conscious efforts to build community and bring about greater social justice – "positive peace”.

He also noted that means and ends are interrelated, that only nonviolent and reconciliatory methods are likely to lead to a more just and peaceful society.

This King’s approach is well demonstrated in our contemporary world; for instance, Rwanda’s post-Genocide reconciliatory approaches entailed a system of community justice through dialogue, a process that has brought peace and lasting unity among all Rwandans.

By treating each other with dignity and sensitivity, we create an environment where everyone’s voice can be heard. Promoting and advancing mutual respect, understanding, and appreciation for the cultural and ethnic diversity is ultimate factor in building lasting peace and prosperity.

"May all who suffer oppression in this world reject the self-defeating method of retaliatory violence and choose the method that seeks to redeem,” Dr King once observed.

Dr King demanded and secured change through peaceful means until his demise in 1968. However, all was not lost. Mrs. King assumed her husband’s role as the guiding light that led the way towards a more equal nation.

She performed that role with enormous grace and strength, never relenting in the movement for civil rights. She saw justice as a birthright and lent her voice as a relentless advocate for all fair-minded Americans, gay or straight, black or white. 

Coretta Scott King devoted much of her life to spreading her husband’s philosophy of nonviolence. Just days after his death, she led a march on behalf of sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee.

Later that month, she stood in for her husband at an anti–Vietnam War rally in New York. In May 1968, she helped to launch the Poor People’s Campaign, and thereafter participated in numerous anti-poverty efforts until her demise in 2006.

Throughout her life, Coretta Scott King carried the message of nonviolence and social justice to almost every corner of the globe. During the 1980’s, Coretta Scott King reaffirmed her long-standing opposition to South African apartheid, participating in a series of sit-in protests in Washington that prompted nationwide demonstrations against South African racial policies.

In 1986, she traveled to South Africa and met with Winnie Mandela. She also remained active in various women’s organizations, including the National Organization for Women, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, and United Church Women.

Notwithstanding the developments in attaining equality and social justice, there are emerging challenges – economic globalization, technological advancements and conflicts all of which have impacted the understanding of peace building.

Today in Africa, for instance, the relationship between democracy and human rights, and the right to intervene when there is political instability bring parallel convictions between the state and the human rights activists.

The stalemate between the African Union and the Burundian government is an example of such challenges. The Burundian government has since taken a hard-line approach and rejected calls for inclusive dialogue, mediation efforts and an international intervention force.

Despite these underlying challenges, the King’s legacy can still be applied to bring solutions to humanity’s quest for justice and equality. As in his famous quote "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, we are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly”.

There should be no inaction when a country’s citizens are subjected to anguish as regard to social injustice or any form of political coercion. Africa has a duty to ensure that ‘human dignity, equality and social justice are upheld’ – the living and transformative legacy of Martin Luther King!

oscar_kim2000@yahoo.co.uk