Born and raised in Australia, we didn’t exactly have American history classes in Australian school. We had Australian history and basic world history education. I was aware of the Civil Rights Movement here in the States, while growing up in Australia, but I admired MLK from afar, just as I admired Ghandi—amazing peaceful heroes—and grappled with violent Australian heroes like Ned Kelley, the “Robinhood” of the next generation born to Australian convicts.
I heard bits and pieces of “I have a dream” on movies and knew roughly what MLK looked like. I didn’t know exactly what he did, but I was given the impression that he fought against racism for the equal rights of Black Americans. It has been incredibly interesting to read about his life, his family, his PhD studies, and his determination to become a civil rights activist as a preacher in the American south, in the book, King: A Life, by Jonathan Eig.
In the first quarter of the book, Rosa Parks and the instigation of the Civil Rights Movement has come alive to me. I don’t remember the first time I heard about Rosa Parks. Again, her story was incredibly vague to me as an Australian, but I knew that she refused to give up her seat to a white person on a bus back in the day. Now I know it was in the fifties.
But there was so much I had no idea about, and I wonder if you’ve heard these details yourself.
I had no idea… Black people in the 1950s had to pay for their bus ticket at the front of the bus, then exit and walk to the side/back entry door. Sometimes drivers would simply drive away after they had already paid to ride the bus! White bus drivers would drop Black passengers’ tickets on the floor, humiliating them in front of the other passengers.
I had no idea… some Black people were beaten for trying to resist giving up their seats to white passengers. Others—like Rosa Parks—were arrested and forced to pay bail. And when weather was at its worst, white bus drivers would often drive past potential Black passengers so they would have to walk in the snow and the rain… all the way home.
I had no idea… that Rosa Parks was actively and intentionally resisting. For me she was painted as an anomaly—like she was having a bad day and refused to give up her seat. Oh no! Rosa Parks was sick and tired of the racist treatment Black people received on buses and she was planning to refuse to give up her seat the next time a bus driver asked her to do so. She may have even chosen her seat deliberately in the hopes of being asked to give it up. She was purposeful and already had plans with the NAACP [National Association for the Advancement of Colored People] to initiate a bus boycott after her arrest! I find that admirable.
Rosa Parks was arrested December 1st 1955, and by December 5th, the bus boycott was underway.
I had no idea… about the specific connection between Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. Rosa Parks was a forty-two-year-old woman—the age I am right now. She was a mature and passionate activist. MLK was just twenty-six, almost twenty-seven years old, when he was called upon to essentially lead the bus boycott by preaching a sermon to thousands of Black people living in Montgomery—the capital of Alabama—inspiring them to stay off the bus and fight for human rights and dignity.
They had just had one successful day of boycotting. MLK drove around in his car and counted just eight Black passengers on the bus. This was more than anyone had dared to hope. They were hoping sixty percent of Black people living in Montgomery would boycott, but almost one hundred percent had not only heard about the boycott in time, they were keen to participate. Keen to share cars, maybe take a taxi, or just walk… all the way home.
I had no idea… that on that first day of the boycott, Martin Luther King Jr preached these words in a last-minute, unpracticed sermon to the masses:
“If we are wrong, the Supreme Court of this nation is wrong. If we are wrong, the Constitution of the United States is wrong. If we are wrong, God Almighty is wrong. If we are wrong, Jesus of Nazareth was merely a utopian dreamer that never came down to earth. If we are wrong, justice is a lie. Love has no meaning. And we are determined here in Montgomery to work and fight until justice runs down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.” (That last part is a verse from the book of Amos).
I had no idea… King had just received his PhD in Systematic Theology earlier that same year! And now he had found his voice. Eig writes, “They would show their opponents love, yet love alone would not free his people, he said. The people would have to demand freedom: Follow me, King said, and we will use the power of love to make America our Promised Land.” Eig continues, “It was the day, at the age of twenty-six, that King found his voice, preaching a mixture of political agitation and gospel, making the radical seem reasonable, perhaps inevitable. The world would change. All men would be free. Their time had come.”
**********
Frankly it wasn’t until I moved to USA that I learned MLK’s birthdate was January 15th 1929, and today we have a public holiday to honor MLK and the Civil Rights Movement. Funnily enough, one of my grandmothers (in Australia) was born Jan 15th 1927. I wonder now, how much she would have known about MLK and the Civil Rights Movement.
There was plenty of racism in the Australia my grandmother grew up in, with a “White Australia” policy until the seventies-ish, and the abominable treatment (lynching, raping, kidnapping children and adopting them into white families) of Indigenous Australians.
We also have a “convict” history—Britain sending white felons to “Old Sydney Town,” (the name of a predominantly outdoor museum I visited as a child in Sydney that educated me on convict history) and “Van Diemen’s Land” (in Tasmania) amongst other areas in Australia, to work as penance for crimes as petty as stealing a loaf of bread. I am not aware of any African slave history in Australia. So, racism looks a little different in Australia.
Rather than the Civil Rights Movement we had the abolition of the “White Australia” policy and Australia has become very multiculturally diverse. I also distinctly remember a day of “apology” and reconciliation between White Australians and Indigenous Australians in the aughts (2008). Not that that is enough.
In 2023 Australia epically failed to vote for more Indigenous representation in Parliament (government / politics). Australians predominantly voted “no” and I was reeling in shock and disappointment from this side of the world. I heard from family that there was a lot of misinformation that scared a lot of people. Some were worried about losing property to Indigenous Australians—afraid that what we did to them would be done back to us! I believe in sharing the land, and I have faith that Indigenous people believe in that too. Why do we still live in fear?
The Bible teaches that there is no fear (of punishment) in love.
I want to educate my children about the history of racism in both of their countries of citizenship. And I want to teach them about love and equity and how to stand for these things.
I have been on a “deconstruction” path for well over a decade and moving to the States has opened my eyes to our need, particularly those of use who are white, to deconstruct racist systems and actively work toward an anti-racist world that is more equitable. JD and I read an incredible book last year called, Me and White Supremacy, that I highly recommend to all who aim to be allies of BIPOC [Black, Indigenous and People of Color].
I have a tendency to read more than one book at one time, and alongside King, I just so happed to be reading a textbook called Spiral Dynamics. I am starting to realize that the deconstruction-reconstruction “spiral” is a natural human (homo sapiens) evolutionary process of adaptation!
When I use the word “deconstruction” now, I am not just talking about Christian/religious/faith deconstruction, I am talking about deconstructing where I am at as a human being who is part of various societies and systems, and evolving to a new plane of existence—to new ways of thinking—and reconstructing in those new spheres until the cycle/spiral repeats.
We (humans) have created racist systems—like the segregated and discriminatory bus system, and even the British penal colony system, the Nazi regime etc. etc—to serve white societies, and MLK was one of many who began actively deconstructing that system in the United States decades ago. Racism is still in need of further deconstruction and replacement. New systems will be constructed because human beings need coping mechanisms for life on this planet. The deconstruction-reconstruction systems that are emerging today are much more global than ever before. Whereas I grew up with minimal education about the Civil Rights Movement in the States, technology means that people all over the world can do a simple google search and find encyclopedias of knowledge on the subject! We are reconstructing in light of this globalization, recognizing that everything we do impacts everyone and everything else in our world. We are trying to build more equitable systems. Perhaps we are still on a path to create “liberty and justice for all,” but now we are referring to all humankind, not just the white male Americans the phrase was written for.
It is MLK public holiday here in the States on Monday 20th January 2025, and instead of honoring the white privilege and power that is being repeatedly inaugurated, I want to honor MLK, Rosa Parks, the Civil Rights Movement, and stand as attempting-to-be-ally of BIPOC (people) globally.
Leave a Reply