Michael Eric Dyson: In the Name of King

In the Name of King

by Michael Eric Dyson | Time.com

A year ago, as my interview wrapped with President Obama in the Oval Office, he led me to the bust of Martin Luther King Jr. by Harlem Renaissance sculptor Charles Alston that he had installed near a bust of Abraham Lincoln. Obama's gaunt visage creased in delight as we gazed in silent awe on the face of a man the two of us baby boomers have acknowledged as a great inspiration. In the near future Obama will participate in a far more public recognition of the martyr's meaning when he speaks at the dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Mall. King becomes the first individual African American to occupy the sacred civic space dominated by beloved Presidents like George Washington and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. King's image on the Mall is a sturdy reminder that his story, and the story of the people for whom he died, helped to rescue American democracy and make justice a living creed. King's memorial is even more impressive because his statue rises 30 ft. high on a direct line between the likenesses of Jefferson and Lincoln, dwarfing those memorials by 11 ft. — it is one of the tallest on the Mall. Even in death, King is still breaking barriers.

Obama's words on the Mall will be framed by a bitter dispute over King's legacy in black America and its revelation, or distortion, in leaders like Al Sharpton and Obama himself. Sharpton has emerged as an improbable leader of black America and a more improbable defender of Obama, a status that challenges his prophetic credentials in some quarters. Sharpton tangled on radio in 2010 with television host Tavis Smiley over Sharpton's contention that Obama shouldn't "ballyhoo 'a black agenda.' " Earlier this year on cable television, Princeton professor Cornel West shouted at Sharpton that the voluble minister could be "easily manipulated by ... the White House" to become the "public face" of entrenched Wall Street and corporate interests.

If Smiley and West fear that Sharpton has become Obama's pal and not his prophet, they seek to take up the slack and press Obama about his neglect of blacks and the poor at every chance. Their relentless criticism has earned them rebukes from many black folk and the enmity of radio host Tom Joyner, who once championed the duo, while Joyner's colleague Steve Harvey derided the pair as "Uncle Toms." These vicious attacks didn't stop Smiley and West from hitting the road recently for a 16-city "poverty tour" to spotlight the invisible poor in the name of King. Unfortunately, the political and racial circumstances that gripped their crusade drew more press to them than to the poor. Obama, Smiley and West and Sharpton all claim King's example. Who makes the most of it is a complicated story.

It is both fitting and ironic that Obama presides over the cementing of King's status as an icon in the national political memory. Obama's historic presidency is unthinkable without King's assassination and the black masses' bloodstained resistance to racial terror. Obama embraced King's rhetoric of justice during his presidential campaign while eschewing his role as prophet. Presidents uphold the country; prophets often hold up an unflattering mirror to the nation. King may now be widely regarded as a saint of American equality, but he often had to criticize his nation's politics and social habits to inspire and, at times, to force reform. He helped to make America better by making it bend to its ideals when it got off course as its loving but unyielding prophet. Had he lived, King would have certainly hailed Obama's historic feat even as he took issue with some of the President's policies toward black and poor people. It would have been principled criticism rooted in an obsession with improving the lives of the vulnerable. To paraphrase Obama's favorite film, The Godfather, King's arguments would have been business, not personal.

The same doesn't appear to be true for Smiley and West. Smiley openly criticized candidate Obama for not attending his State of the Black Union gathering in 2008, and many believe the slight stuck in Smiley's craw and has led him to blast the President ever since. The notion is swatted away by Obama's appearance on videotape at Smiley's 2009 event. Smiley criticized Presidents Clinton and Bush too, though, it must be noted, not as visibly or vocally as he's done with Obama. Smiley has admitted that Clinton seems to him like a fourth brother, a closeness that may have tempered his criticism of the former President. No such restraints keep the media marvel from an intrepid criticism of Obama.

The same is true for West, a brilliant intellectual who has even more aggressively aired his grievances, calling Obama "a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats." It proved a pattern: West's trenchant analysis of Obama's policies is often sullied by needless name-calling. West's gripes are sometimes disturbingly personal and laced with macho psychoanalysis and peals of wounded ego: disgust with Obama because West and his family couldn't get Inauguration tickets (West's complaint that the bellman who carried his bags at a Washington hotel could get a ticket when he couldn't undercuts his noble advocacy for working and poor folk); the perception that Obama was afraid of a "free black man" like West (a belief that may be unfounded in light of Obama's in-your-face dressing-down of West after a presidential address in Washington); and the hostility West unleashed when he said that he wanted to "slap [the president] on the side of his head" after Obama had ambushed and embarrassed him in their D.C. spat. West's loving heart may belong to King at his best, but his lashing tongue belongs to Malcolm X at his worst. His legitimate criticism is lost in the mix. (See photos of the civil rights movement, from Emmett Till to Barack Obama.)

Sharpton's evolution may put him closer to King the presidential dealmaker than critics of the supremely gifted leader and newly minted talk-show host have so far let on. Sharpton cut his prophetic teeth on urban protest as an unpolished version of his idol Jesse Jackson, courting controversy and combatting police brutality against poor and working-class blacks. The accoutrements of his guerrilla resistance included the jogging suit, the lavishly styled perm, the bullhorn and the shrilly amplified mantra "No justice, no peace." Sharpton's odyssey from stubborn outsider to ultimate insider is documented in the shift to well-tailored suits and a more modest coif. Sharpton scaled the ire of the white masses and the embarrassment of the black elite to become a savvy power broker with unparalleled access to Obama. It remains to be seen what Sharpton makes of his opportunity, but the fact that he has it doesn't mean he should be condemned as a sellout. In fact, his greatest contribution may be not what he makes happen but what he keeps from happening by being at Obama's ear or elbow.

Constructive criticism of Obama is healthy; demanding that he pay attention to the needs of poor folk and people of color is righteous. Confusing personal beef with principled criticism only ends up undermining the high aims of social prophecy. When critics call Obama names, they sound no better than the bigots who wish him failure and death. We ought to remember that as we celebrate a man who was a selfless prophet and soldier of truth before he was murdered and turned into a saint and statue.

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Michael Eric Dyson, a Georgetown professor and contributing editor of TIME, is author of April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King Jr.'s Death and How It Changed America. Follow him at @MichaelEDyson.

Obama Carefully Courts Black Votes with Sharpton

Obama Carefully Courts Black Votes with Sharpton
Jesse Washington, AP National Writer

He avoids race, so the story goes. He can't afford to alienate white voters, black people will vote for him again anyway, so he has little to gain by approaching such a volatile subject.

Yet on Wednesday, President Barack Obama is scheduled to make a foray into racial territory by speaking in New York at the Rev. Al Sharpton's national convention — an early step on the tricky path that Obama must navigate in order to engage black voters who are crucial to his re-election.

On the one hand, there's nothing unusual about a president fulfilling a campaign promise made to a staunch political ally whose radio show is broadcast in 40 cities each weekday. Nor is it odd for Obama, who has spoken to other civil rights groups, to connect with Sharpton, a frequent White House visitor whose fame flows from his aggressive brand of black advocacy.

Aside from the timing of Obama's speech — two days after his re-election bid was made official — Wednesday's events at the National Action Network gathering are heavily political. Obama's top campaign aide, David Axelrod, is to address a special plenary, followed by the secretaries of education and housing, the attorney general and the EPA administrator.

Obama remains highly popular among blacks. In 2008, 95 percent of blacks who voted chose Obama. In a Gallup poll last week, 84 percent of blacks approved of Obama's overall performance, about the same percentage as six months ago.

So why all the attention now?

It's actually harder for Obama to reach out to black voters than it would be for a white president, said Mark Anthony Neal, an African-American studies professor at Duke University, "because there's a narrative that he's catering to a black constituency."

"Obama needs Al Sharpton as a certain kind of surrogate for black voters," Neal said. "Symbolically, his willingness to speak at the convention is a subtle message to black voters that he is paying attention to their concerns.

"Because that's the other side of the narrative ... there is a heavy critique of Obama among black voters for not being cognizant and attentive enough to issues affecting the black community."

A factor in this dilemma is the view among some whites that the president gives blacks favorable treatment. Carol Swain, a Vanderbilt University political science professor and Obama critic, called that view a misperception, but said it was fed by cases like the New Black Panther voter intimidation lawsuit and the Justice Department asking Dayton, Ohio, to lower its police exam passing score because too few black applicants passed.

This dynamic may have made Obama "overly defensive" about race, said Bill Anderson, a host on the Philadelphia black talk radio station WURD.

"But think about it," Anderson said. "If the president speaks to an entire room of white people, nobody says he's alienating society. But if you go to an organization that's dealing with (issues) important to society but from an African-American perspective, all of a sudden, you're a separatist."

That's how some view Sharpton.

As his National Action Network celebrates 20 years of fighting for social change and justice, Sharpton's methods and image have evolved. President George W. Bush publicly praised him for leadership on education, and Sharpton joined arch-conservative Newt Gingrich on a 2009 national tour advocating for better schools.

Six Democratic presidential candidates came to Sharpton's convention in 2007, and Sharpton remembers Obama promising that win or lose, he would return. Now Obama will be the first sitting president to attend.

Yet some still consider Sharpton to be the rabble-rousing, pompadoured agitator of the 1980s who spread Tawana Brawley's unproven claim about being sexually assaulted by white men and, in a separate case, exhorted protests that ended with eight dead at a Jewish-owned store in Harlem.

Sharpton is used to the criticism, even when it comes from black people. "It's a burden you bear gladly," he said in an interview. "I'm doing a job people would rather not see done."

The National Action Network website lists 42 chapters nationwide and claims 200,000 members. In addition to his 40-city radio reach, Sharpton is on satellite radio and leads a weekly Harlem rally.

"I'm probably talking to more people than most activists have ever done," Sharpton said. "I know what's on people's minds, and I'm able to mobilize them."

He also has a strong connection to what Obama adviser and Harvard University law professor Charles Ogletree once called "the streets ... the people who are voiceless, faceless and powerless."

These are the people bearing the brunt of the 15.5 percent black unemployment rate reported in March, up from 15.3 percent in February. The overall national rate in March was 8.8 percent, a two-year low.

The president "is going with Sharpton to show us some support some kind of way," Ilsa Lilly Fields, a black woman, said as she left a West Philadelphia drugstore Tuesday.

Fields made a face when Sharpton's name was mentioned: "He's just loud and always in everyone's business. He's not a helpful person."

But she said Obama was doing the best he could to help blacks: "We're a patient people. We know what Obama has to do. We're just waiting for him to do it."

Swain, the political scientist, said even though Obama has not addressed black issues, blacks remain protective of him — "almost like a member of the family."

"Black people are in many ways worse off today than they have been in decades," she said. "They're worse off than if there was a white president, because a white president has to do something for the black community. Obama doesn't have to do anything."

Across the street from the drugstore, inside Yock's Sandwich-Ville USA, out-of-work plumber Benjamin Ryan said many whites in his union complain that Obama is favoring blacks.

"It's just the way they're raised," said Ryan, who is white. "It's far from the truth, but it's what they're exposed to."

Ryan's wife, Sharletta, who is black, said Obama visiting Sharpton's conference is just "playing a typical game of politics." She approves of his performance as president, but called Sharpton a "race pimp."

Ryan predicted Obama would not get as many white votes in 2012 as he did in 2008, "so getting out the black vote is going to be huge."

Anderson, the talk show host, said Obama's visit sends a message: "This is something I need to do, and (critics) are just going to have to deal with it."

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Jesse Washington covers race and ethnicity for The Associated Press. He is reachable at jwashington(at)ap.org or www.twitter.com/jessewashington.