Martin Luther King, Jr.: Theology, Politics, Scholarship

In the editing of the King Papers Clayborne Carson and his associates at The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change have demonstrated exemplary scholarship, industry, and integrity under extraordinary difficulties. The first volume contained a fine biographical and analytical Introduction as well as a full complement of editorial aids. The annotations were all one could hope for. This second volume maintains the high standards set in the first.

Volume 1 was especially rich in term papers from Morehouse College and Crozer Theological Seminary, which illuminated King’s moving struggle to find God and a Christian world view. In particular, it revealed a young man determined to substitute a religious faith grounded in science and reason for what he perceived as the naive orthodoxy of the black Baptists among whom he grew up. Yet he showed considerable uneasiness with the theological liberalism he was embracing and a tendency to veer back toward the faith of his ancestors and neighbors.

Both volumes make clear the centrality of religion to King’s political career. Accordingly, I shall here focus on his theological grounding and its indispensability to an understanding of the strength and weakness it imparted to his politics. The early striving apparent in Volume 1 accompanied a youthful struggle to define himself within a strong and loving family ruled by a stern father. King, the son and grandson of Baptist preachers who combined religious fervor with a commitment to social justice, seemed predestined to become a Baptist preacher. But to realize himself, he had to wage difficult and interrelated struggles with his father, his faith, himself. Volume 2 largely chronicles his career as a theology student and the development of the religious views, but it also includes valuable information on the National Baptist Convention, local black churches, the early response of southern blacks to desegregation, and much else. ¹

King’s stature as an American and world-historical, as well as a discretely black, political leader remains secure. No amount of idol-smashing is likely to dim his luster. Our immense debt to the man and our respect for his memory do not, however, provide the slightest excuse for a political agenda that credits him with virtues he did not have and successes he did not achieve. Great men, more often than not, commit great sins and must be prepared, even more readily than others, to go to their death as Pushkin’s Boris Goudonov went to his, crying out, “Forgive a poor sinner.” The unfolding tragedy lies elsewhere. Those who foolishly think they protect his memory by denying or explaining away his lapses from his own highest moral standards, render difficult a sober assessment of his legacy as a guide to present and future struggles.

The scandal of King’s well-documented plagiarism reveals only part of the even greater scandal of an academic career that will not bear scrutiny. ² Unflinchingly, if tactfully, Carson and his associates have documented the plagiarism in excruciating detail. It is not a pretty story. From his undergraduate papers at Morehouse to his papers at Crozer and Boston University divinity schools to his dissertation, King plagiarized constantly, blatantly, and on a grand scale. And he got away with it. Simultaneously, King incessantly wrestled with difficult subject matter, displaying a deep thirst for a knowledge of God and making an effort to understand His nature and His will. Plagiarized or no, his papers, from Morehouse to Crozer to Boston, provide ample evidence that he was thinking hard and trying to find Christian ground on which to stand. The plagiarism largely consisted of his collecting other people’s words and thoughts to buttress a viewpoint that he was formulating through a good deal of work and reflection. King’s student papers and doctoral dissertation remain required reading for those who would understand his life’s work...