Peniel Joseph is the Barbara Jordan Chair in Ethics and Political Values and the founding director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin , where he is also a professor of history. He is the author of several books, most recently "Stokely: A Life." The views expressed here are his.
(CNN) The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would have celebrated his 89th birthday on Monday. This year, the federal holiday in his honor, which takes place every third Monday of January, falls on his actual birthday, January 15.
And since April will mark the 50th anniversary of King's death, it is worth remembering, now more than ever, how he lived.
President Donald Trump's symbolic affirmation of the King holiday on Friday came amid global condemnation for his disparaging and racially inflammatory statements regarding Haitians and Africans the day before.
Trump's public praise of King is belied not only by his private words but also by his deeds. King is not widely remembered as a policy expert, but he should be. Federal civil rights, voting rights and open housing legislation all passed, in part, through the pressure he brought to bear on Congress, presidents and wider democratic institutions.
Indeed, Trump's latest burst of rhetorical violence against non-whites serves as an important reminder of the work that needs to be done in order to fulfill King's dream of a "beloved community" free of racial oppression, economic injustice and war. The King holiday offers a moment for the nation to reflect on the meaning of American democracy, citizenship and justice.
In 1968, King celebrated his birthday against a climate of political tension, racial strife and economic injustice strikingly familiar to our own time. King -- then the world's leading social justice mobilizer -- tapped into grassroots anti-poverty efforts to help organize a "Poor People's Campaign" and stage a "camp-in" in the nation's capital. Its aim was to push Congress to pass meaningful anti-poverty legislation.
King's adversary-turned-ally Bobby Kennedy approved of these plans, telling Marian Wright Edelman (the future founder of the Children's Defense Fund) to bring the poor to Washington so that the nation could see the truth about poverty with their own eyes.
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King recognized economic justice as an issue capable of binding together disparate groups toward a unified movement for radical democracy, one that could lift up farm workers in California, rural whites in Appalachia, sharecroppers in Mississippi, Native Americans living on reservations and urban residents confined to ghettoes. Today, the Trump administration's efforts to institute work requirements for Medicaid recipients stands in stark contrast to King's efforts toward economic justice, which promoted a guaranteed income for the poor, health care, jobs, education and an end to racial segregation in housing and public schools.
King's plans to coordinate a caravan of the poor, representing the nation's multi-cultural and multi-racial makeup, found natural allies among Latino farm workers, Native Americans, poor whites and mothers on welfare who schooled him on the intricacies of federal policy in ways that humbled and enlightened him.
Throughout the early part of 1968, King traveled across the nation, delivering speeches against racial and economic injustice. The descriptions of hunger and want from black residents in Marks, Mississippi, moved King to tears -- so much so that he decided to headquarter the caravan destined for Washington in what he characterized as "the poorest county in the United States."
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King imagined democracy as a living, breathing organism imperiled by the sickness of racism and the disease of poverty. He diverted precious energies from his plans to spend the summer in Washington to travel several times to Memphis, where he spoke in support of over 1,000 black garbage workers on strike for a living wage. He did not live to see the conclusion of the strike or spend time in "Resurrection City," the tent village that survived for two months in the nation's capital.
Undoubtedly, King would have been deeply disappointed by Trump's disparaging remarks against Haitians, immigrants and Muslims. King's extensive travels to India, Africa and Europe imbued in him a cosmopolitan sense of humanity he called "the world house."
For King, the concept of a "world house" moved beyond an ethnic- and tribal-based understanding of the international community toward an ethic of mutuality and interdependence. He believed that like a butterfly effect, what happened in the smallest corner of the world impacted the rest of humanity for good or ill.
Accordingly, King forged political alliances through personal connections. He argued that humanity's fate remained interwoven in a broader political and spiritual tapestry than widely acknowledged.
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The most ironic part of King's legacy is that his holiday was signed into law on November 2, 1983, through bipartisan efforts by President Ronald Reagan, an eloquent conservative figure who publicly admitted to having disagreements with the civil rights leader.
The holiday did more than simply recognize King's individual accomplishments. It celebrated the civil rights movement's successful inclusion of the idea of racial justice and human rights as fundamental principles of American democracy.
But the holiday has also allowed us to hide from ourselves. King might not recognize himself in the uncomplicated, even timid, figure that much of the nation and the world celebrate today. The risk-taking King who defied presidents to protest war is often missing in our popular memory of him.
We must not forget the radical King, who marched shoulder to shoulder with garbage workers, locked arms with Black Power militants and lived in Chicago ghettoes in an effort to stimulate social change. And yet, the revolutionary King who proclaimed that America's greatness remained in "the right to protest for right" has all but vanished from public memory, replaced by generic platitudes about freedom and justice that can be claimed by anyone.
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Through non-violent civil disobedience, King leveraged social-justice transformation in American civil society even when institutions, including the church, largely disagreed. King longed to change hearts, minds, public policy and laws, too. He viewed the political as personal and believed the reverse true as well, offering moral and political witness for reimagining an American democracy as a beacon, especially for groups left out of its original conception.
King's legacy will endure long past the Age of Trump. More importantly, it reminds us all that American power resides not in any fantasies of exceptionalism but in the souls of millions of ordinary people who risked their lives to reimagine the contours of freedom, democracy and citizenship.
King's revolutionary life, fearless love of the poor and wretched and uncompromising stance against war and violence offer hope for a better future. His life also provides a framework for resistance against rising levels of inhumanity, racism and injustice that he would find all too familiar today.
Each year Americans celebrate the life of the US civil rights movement's best-known spokesman and leader on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
The movement pioneered by Martin Luther King pressured the American government to end legalised segregation in the United States.
This year will be the first Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Donald Trump's presidency.
Who was Martin Luther King Jr and why is he so important?
Martin Luther King: Life in pictures
10 show all Martin Luther King: Life in pictures
1/10 Martin Luther King Martin Luther King during his famous 'I have a dream' speech in Washington in 1963 AP
2/10 Martin Luther King Martin Luther King Jr at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963 AFP/Getty
3/10 Martin Luther King American civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King (1929 - 1968) arriving at London Airport. He is in England to be the chief speaker at a public meeting about colour prejudice and to appear on the BBC television programme 'Face To Face' Getty Images
4/10 Martin Luther King Martin Luther King Jr. tells a Miami, Florida news conference, that he will go to Los Angeles to meet with black and white leaders and help create "a community of love" in the violence torn city in August 1965 AP
5/10 Martin Luther King Martin Luther King Jr. and his civil rights marchers head for Montgomery, the state's capitol, March 21, 1965, during a five day, 50 mile walk to protest voting laws AP
6/10 Martin Luther King An image from 1960 shows Martin Luther King at a meeting Getty Images
7/10 Martin Luther King Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife Coretta Scott King leading freedom marchers in Montgomery, Alabama in 1965 AP
8/10 Martin Luther King Civil rights protestors marching from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial, where the March on Washington climaxed in Martin Luther King's 'I Have A Dream' speech Getty Images
9/10 Martin Luther King Martin Luther King and the March on Washington BBC
10/10 Martin Luther King March on Washington – 1963 Famous for Martin Luther King Jnr’s “I have a dream” speech, the march on Washington saw 300,000 people gathering at the Lincoln Memorial calling for equal rights for African-Americans Getty
Born in 1929, Martin Luther King Jr was a Baptist minister best known for using the tactics of nonviolence and civil disobedience to combat racial inequality.
Mr King led the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955 after Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white person.
He also helped organise the March on Washington in 1963, where he delivered the "I Have a Dream" speech he is best known for.
In 1964, he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his civil rights work.
Towards the end of his life, he expanded his campaigning to include opposition to poverty and the Vietnam War.
Mr King was assassinated by James Earl Ray on 4 April, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee, while he was planning a national occupation of Washington DC.
News of his death was followed by riots in many US cities.
Who commemorates Martin Luther King's memory and since when?
In pictures: Martin Luther King Jr's campaign for civil rights
15 show all In pictures: Martin Luther King Jr's campaign for civil rights
1/15 Memories of a March and a Dream: Martin Luther King during the March on Washington, on 28 August 1963 AFP/Getty Images
2/15 Civil rights protestors marching from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial, where the March on Washington climaxed in Martin Luther King's 'I Have A Dream' speech Getty Images
3/15 Martin Luther King Jr. sits on a couch and speaks on the telephone after encountering a white mob protesting against the Freedom Riders in Montgomery, Alabama in 1961 Getty Images
4/15 American president John F. Kennedy in the White House with leaders of the civil rights 'March on Washington' (left to right) Whitney Young, Dr Martin Luther King Getty Images
5/15 American civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King (1929 - 1968) arriving at London Airport. He is in England to be the chief speaker at a public meeting about colour prejudice and to appear on the BBC television programme 'Face To Face' Getty Images
6/15 Martin Luther King Jr
7/15 Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife Coretta Scott King leading freedom marchers in Montgomery, Alabama in 1965 AP
8/15 Martin Luther King Jr. and his civil rights marchers head for Montgomery, the state's capitol, March 21, 1965, during a five day, 50 mile walk to protest voting laws AP
9/15 An image from 1960 shows Martin Luther King at a meeting Getty Images
10/15 Civil rights Leaders hold hands as they lead a crowd of hundreds of thousands at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Washington DC Getty Images
11/15 AP
12/15 Over 200,000 people gather around the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC, where the civil rights March on Washington ended with Martin Luther King's 'I Have A Dream' speech. Getty Images
13/15 Martin Luther King Jr. tells a Miami, Florida news conference, that he will go to Los Angeles to meet with black and white leaders and help create "a community of love" in the violence torn city in August 1965 AP
14/15 Beyond the 'us' and 'them' mentality: Martin Luther King's 'I Have a Dream' speech in Washington DC in 1963 AP
15/15 Martin Luther King had been imprisoned for taking his campaign of non-violent protest to the streets of Birmingham, Alabama AFP/Getty Images
Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a paid federal holiday in the US, meaning civil servants and many school pupils are given the day off.
The day is observed on the third Monday of January each year, the day closest to his birthday on 15 January. This year, it will be held on Monday 15 January.
In 1968, Congress was presented with a petition signed by more than three million people which called for the Mr King's birthday to be commemorated.
However, Republicans initially resisted the move, arguing Mr King had ties to communism and an "inappropriate" sexual past they felt the government should not honour.
But in 1983, Ronald Reagan, the US President, signed Martin Luther King Jr. Day into law as an official public holiday and it was first observed three years later.
Outside of the US, it is observed in Hiroshima, Japan, with a special banquet at the mayor's office, and Toronto, Canada, which officially recognised Martin Luther King Jr. Day, though not as a paid holiday.
How is Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebrated?
Atlanta, Georgia: 50 years after Martin Luther King Jr had a dream
10 show all Atlanta, Georgia: 50 years after Martin Luther King Jr had a dream
1/10 Martin Luther King Jr
2/10 Civil rights protestors marching from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial, where the March on Washington climaxed in Martin Luther King's 'I Have A Dream' speech Getty Images
3/10 Martin Luther King Jr. sits on a couch and speaks on the telephone after encountering a white mob protesting against the Freedom Riders in Montgomery, Alabama in 1961 Getty Images
4/10 An image from 1960 shows Martin Luther King at a meeting Getty Images
5/10 Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife Coretta Scott King leading freedom marchers in Montgomery, Alabama in 1965 AP
6/10 Civil rights Leaders hold hands as they lead a crowd of hundreds of thousands at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Washington DC Getty Images
7/10 Martin Luther King Jr. and his civil rights marchers head for Montgomery, the state's capitol, March 21, 1965, during a five day, 50 mile walk to protest voting laws AP
8/10 American civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King (1929 - 1968) arriving at London Airport. He is in England to be the chief speaker at a public meeting about colour prejudice and to appear on the BBC television programme 'Face To Face' Getty Images
9/10 American president John F. Kennedy in the White House with leaders of the civil rights 'March on Washington' (left to right) Whitney Young, Dr Martin Luther King Getty Images
10/10 One vision: the Atlanta skyline
Many Americans use the day as an opportunity to learn about Mr King's life and achievements.
Others spend the day volunteering for a cause they think Mr King would have supported.
Many states hold special events or lectures about race relations in the US. There is a historic walking tour in Harlem, New York, and street parades in Los Angeles.
Will Donald Trump be doing anything today to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. Day?
Donald Trump refuses to answer press questions about 's***hole' comment
Donald Trump honoured Mr King by making a national park out of the ground where he was born and preached until his death.
However, last week the US President was accused of referring to Haiti and African nations as "s***hole countries."
A few days ago, Mr Trump walked out of the Oval Office to shouts of "Mr President, are you a racist" after signing a proclamation honouring Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
He has since told journalists he is “the least racist person you've ever interviewed.”
Donald Trump: I am the least racist person you've ever interviewed
Much of Mr Trump's first year as President has been marked by racial controversy.
In February, he kicked off Black History Month by praising long-dead abolitionist Frederick Douglass in the present tense, as if Mr Douglass were still alive.
He referred to NFL players protesting systemic racism as "sons of b****es" and suggested they should be fired for their refusal to stand during the national anthem.
During a speech to African leaders in summer, he referred to the non-existent country of "Nambia" when attempting to discuss Namibia.
In June, he said Nigerian immigrants would "never go back to their huts" after coming to the US.
Today is the day American many politicians pretend to care about the life and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr, one of the wisest souls who attempted to save this sorry nation. Don’t fall for their scams.
While King did care about black and/or poor people in the United States and around the world, he was no American exceptionalist. “Don’t let anybody make you think God chose America as His divine messianic force to be a sort of policeman of the whole world,” King once said.
‘It was an extraordinary speech’: the day I met Martin Luther King Read more
He also criticized how Americans “have deluded ourselves into believing the myth that capitalism grew and prospered out of the Protestant ethic of hard work and sacrifice” when “the fact is that capitalism was built on the exploitation and suffering of black slaves and continues to thrive on the exploitation of the poor – both black and white, here and abroad”.
And yet, modern-day Republicans and Democrats often speak as if they love King, even as they excoriate the real heirs to his legacy: the Black Lives Matter activists and other social justice warriors who fight for racial and economic liberation. But the truth is, many of these American politicians would have hated King when he was alive as much as they hypocritically dishonor his radical legacy today.
Take President Trump, who signed a bill a week ago turning King’s birthplace into a national park, only to viciously refer to immigrants from El Salvador, Haiti and all countries in Africa as “shithole countries” a few days later – stirring up the kind of racist hatred King died trying to defeat over the weekend the nation remembers him.
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"> If he’d lived past age 39, King would have been offended by Trump calling Haiti a 'shithole' country
Take Democrat senators (who love to talk about loving King) and who recently voted for a $700bn war funding package this fall, the kind of bill King would have excoriated as part of “the three evils of society” – “the giant triplets of racism, economic exploitation and militarism”.
Our war-loving politicians would not have liked when King got all up at Riverside church a year to the day before he was assassinated to deliver his most powerful speech: “Beyond Vietnam”. They’d have cringed when he criticized American imperialism, warning “if we continue, there will be no doubt in my mind and in the mind of the world that we have no honorable intentions in Vietnam” and that “the world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve”.
If he’d lived past age 39, King would have been offended by Trump calling Haiti a “shithole” country and saying Haitians “all have Aids”. But King would have been equally angry about the exploitation of Haiti for centuries – by enslavement, by colonial plunder, and even by “respectable” US Republicans like George HW Bush.
It was under Bush senior in the early 1990s, after all, when the US intercepted hundreds of fleeing Haitian refugees, sent them to a makeshift prison at Guantánamo Bay (this, not 9/11, is how Gitmo became an indefinite detention center), tested them for HIV, and sterilized the HIV positive women without their knowledge or consent.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘If he were here today, King would be down on his knees with NFL protesters questioning the premise of the national anthem.’ Photograph: Michael Zagaris/Getty Images
If King were alive today, American politicians would probably be enraged that he was unhappy about the tax scam bill or the Dow hitting 25,000, and they’d be aggrieved when he got angry about Walmart laying off thousands of Sam’s Club workers with no notice and states wanting to add cruel work requirements to Medicaid for people who can’t work.
As often as American politicians are always saying they wish Ferguson or NFL protesters did things “more like King”, white Americans have never really liked any kind of racial protest, and didn’t especially like King when he was alive. They didn’t like him marching at Selma or helping run a bus boycott in Montgomery. They didn’t like him organizing a Poor People’s Campaign to try to bring together economically exploited people of all races. And they certainly didn’t like him showing up in Memphis to help sanitation workers strike for better working conditions after two of their own, Echol Cole and Robert Walker, were killed on the job.
America is spiritually bankrupt. We must fight back together | Cornel West Read more
As beautifully depicted on the cover of this week’s New Yorker cover art, “In Creative Battle” by Mark Ulriksen, if he were here today, King would be down on his knees with NFL protesters questioning the premise of the national anthem and protesting militaristic jingoism. He’d have been with Eric Garner, as he told the police to stop harassing him.
And he would have been with “unbought and unbossed” Erica Garner, as she fought police until her sadly premature final breath at just 27.
As you listen to American politicians from both parties invoke MLK this weekend, think about if their actions live up to King’s vision of justice – and push them as hard as he would have when they fall short.
HE WAS a Christian minister and activist who led a groundbreaking civil rights movement - and gave African Americans the courage to speak up against injustice.
But Martin Luther King Jr.'s life was tragically cut short, when he was assassinated at age 39. Here we tell you everything you need to know about King, and how his life and work is remembered today.
Getty Images Martin Luther King Jr. was a leading figure in America's civil rights movement
When is Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2018?
Martin Luther King Jr. Day is an American federal holiday.
King was born in Atlanta on January 15 - and the holiday falls on the nearest Monday to this date.
Several cities and states began to mark the day in 1971, just three years after his death, and the date became an American federal holiday in 1986.
Hundreds of streets in the United States have been renamed in King's honour, as well as a whole county in Washington State.
Nearly 50 years after his death, King continues to inspire - and President Barack Obama famously asked for his bust to be placed in the Oval Office.
AP Pictured with his wife, Coretta, after leaving jail in 1956. King was found guilty of conspiracy to boycott city buses, but a judge suspended his $500 fine following an appeal
Who was Martin Luther King Jr.?
King was born in 1929 and became a Baptist minister and activist, who led a movement of nonviolent civil disobedience.
He led the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955, where people took a stand against racial segregation by refusing to surrender their seats to white people.
The campaign lasted for a year, and was sparked by the arrest of Rosa Parks - who refused to give up her seat.
Getty Images King addresses a crowd of demonstrators at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
King organised several nonviolent protests and marches in the following decade.
He helped to organise the 1963 March on Washington, where King delivered his famous 'I Have a Dream speech' and earned his reputation as one of he greatest public speakers in American history.
More of King's famous quotes include 'injustice is a threat to justice everywhere', and 'our lives begin to end the day we become silent on the things that matter'.
In 1964, King received a Nobel Peace Prize for his nonviolent fight against racial inequality.
Getty Images King arrives in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965 - at the culmination of the Selma to Montgomery March. Pictured with Ralph Bunche, Coretta Scott King, Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth and Hosea Williams (left-right)
In the final years of his life, King's focus changed to include a resistance to widespread poverty and the Vietnam War. The latter alienated many of his liberal allies.
In 1968, King was planning a national occupation of Washington - called the Poor People's Campaign.
King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4 - and his death was followed by riots in many US cities.
He was shot by a single bullet fired by James Earl Day at 6pm, as he stood on the second floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel.
King died an hour later at St Joseph's Hospital, and Ray was sentenced to 99 years in prison - after pleading guilty to avoid receiving the death penalty.
Ray died in prison in 1998, when he was 70 years old.
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How is Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebrated?
As Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a federal holiday, civil servants and most school pupils get the day off. Some other companies also opt to have a paid holiday on MLK Day.
It's a day for religious services, educating the kids and looking back on how race relations have improved.
Over the years, it has evolved into a 'day of service' - when Americans are encouraged to volunteer and help those less fortunate.
The US financial markets will be closed for the day.
