UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES, WAS UTOPIAN IDEALISM SUCH A CRIME?

This is a message that I sent to the voters of Greenville County, where I reside. (I refuse to call it “home.”) The county has justifiably become known as “the meanest county in America” in part for its refusal to declare Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday a holiday. (Ironically, in a recent poll, the electorate preferred Confederate Memorial Day to Dr. King’s birthday by 22%!) Dr. King’s detractors again trotted out the well worn, thoroughly discredited, canard that “communist sympathizers” guided Dr. King. I now share my message with a larger readership, in part to vent my (our?) ire over the repeated use by anti-Semites of “communist sympathizer” as a thinly veiled euphemism for “Jew.”

When is an apology not an apology? Perhaps when some otherwise unforgivable act is seen in the larger context of time and situation. Murder can become justifiable homicide. Sitting in at a segregated lunch counter was virtuous as a precedent-setting act of civil disobedience. Abortion may be forgiven to save a mother from imminent death. Furthermore, when one enjoys a Bavarian beer, as Hitler did, it does not infer collusion with his forces of evil.

So, in the context of time and situation, is Dr. Martin Luther King’s “collusion” with Americans who identified with utopian idealism and even perhaps socialist/communist causes. I can attest to this with a reminiscence that is up-close-and-personal. The generalizations that we might infer from it deserve a consideration that upholds Dr. King’s legacy without writing a revisionist history of it.

My cousins Martin and Shirley were social utopians at a time when social utopianism was a damnable offense to Senator McCarthy and his sympathizers. Martin was a talented young physician who chose to live in the Chicago slums, where he practiced poverty medicine. The wages of Martin and Shirley’s “sin” were to be called before McCarthy’s witch hunt road show and threatened and excoriated for their socialist/communist sympathies. Despite McCarthyism, or perhaps because of it, my family was extremely proud of Martin and attributed his sudden death from a heart attack at age 34 to the stress brought on by the torment of his accusers.

Did Martin and Shirley have socialist/communist affiliations? Indeed they did. They were social utopians who saw their alternatives in context of the prevalent American mood as stark black-and-white: Either associate with other social utopians or capitulate to the radical conservatism of McCarthy, et al – xenophobia, racism, contempt for the underclass. Did they want the violent overthrow of the US government and/or Soviet world domination? Not on your life. They saw their hope as Jews in people like David Ben-Gurion and the Israeli kibbutz system. As Americans, they saw their vision of social change in people like Adlai Stevenson, JFK and yes, Dr. Martin Luther King.

Was Martin and Shirley’s affiliation wrong? In retrospect, perhaps yes. We can now see that a true democracy, based on American values of fundamental freedom and self-determination, is a more prudent and successful alternative to socialism/communism or regressive McCarthyism. Was their affiliation understandable, even forgivable? I would argue that it was.

The same could be said of many idealistic Jews of that era. They could not sever the connection between McCarthyism and barefoot anti-Semitism. They came from a long heritage of social justice preached by Isaiah, Amos, Joel and Micah. They were well attuned to the social utopianism born of persecution by Eastern European tyrants.

Moreover, socially utopian Jews were understandably drawn to the nascent civil rights movement. Whom more than Eastern European Jews had suffered from denial of civil rights? Whom, save for African Americans, had suffered more social and economic discrimination than American Jews?

The Jews brought another vital dimension to the civil rights movement, for many American Jews had already “made it” financially and professionally and yet had retained their commitment to social justice. They were in a unique position to provide legal, financial and organizational wherewithal that complimented the African American determination to cast off inequality and injustice. We were, simply put, two minorities helping each other attain the full blessings of the American heritage.

Kivie Kaplan, Al Vorspan, Rabbi Dr. Abraham Joshua Heschel, Rabbi Dr. Mark Tanenbaum, were integral to the civil rights movement and close confidants of Dr. King. But – and this is critical – their connection to Dr. King was not politically driven by socialism/communism. It was the product of a shared commitment to the type of social utopianism articulated in Dr. King’s magnificent “I Have a Dream” speech. If we deem Dr. King guilty by association, we are condemning some of the most visionary luminaries of the 20th century.

Even the much-vilified Stanley Levison must be viewed in this light. Levison was indeed an advisor to Dr. King. However, Dr. King’s FBI files themselves attest to Dr. King’s disassociation from Levison when he learned of his secret communist ties, particularly as Levison shifted his focus from domestic civil rights to the issue of Vietnam.

Was Martin and Shirley’s utopian idealism “wrong”? Certainly not. Misguided? That can be determined only by 20-20 hindsight. Was Dr. King’s dream “wrong”? Good Lord, I hope not. Is it at all sullied by the people who offered their guidance and goodwill? That, too, is unimaginable – as unimaginable as all conservatives being discredited by men who also called themselves “conservative,” like David Duke and Imperial Wizard Robert Shelton.

You see, the Psalmist said it 3,000 years ago: “From all my teachers have I gained understanding.” The ability to sift the good teachings from the chaff marks the difference between the wise man and the dupe. Dr. King and his fellow idealists were certainly among the former.