We often misremember Martin Luther King–so much that we celebrate fictional pablum, not the real MLK.
Politicians and others who oppose the socio-political arguments of Bernie Sanders are essentially opposing Martin Luther King. Senator Bernie Sanders, probably the best-known democratic socialist today, is living up to MLK’s legacy. At the time of his death, King was a democratic socialist—a position not widely accepted. He understood that the term was problematic and tended not to say it publicly, although he pushed the principles of democratic socialism.
Leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus were so opposed to the idea of democratic socialism that they pulled out all the stops in opposing African American Nina Turner in her bid for Congress in 2020. Nina Turner, a self-described democratic socialist, was co-chair of Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign in 2020. When she ran for Congress from Cleveland, Ohio, top Black Caucus figures came to town and campaigned against her, causing her to be defeated by a relatively unknown person.
A critical difference between a liberal and a progressive, or democratic socialist, is how they see society. A liberal reformer believes that the fundamental structures of American society are sound but need some adjustment here and there. A democratic socialist knows that our society needs restructuring. As Dr. King preached, “The Movement must address itself to the question of restructuring the whole of American society.”
Bernie Sanders, a leader of CORE and SNCC as a student at the University of Chicago in the 1960s and arrested for his activism, carries the torch for democratic socialism—as a legacy of MLK. For him, democratic socialism is the fight for economic freedom that ensures health care, a living wage, education, housing, and a clean environment.
In a major speech in 2020, Sanders said, “We must recognize that in the 21st century, in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, economic rights are human rights. That is what I mean by democratic socialism…as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, ‘Call it democracy or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all of God’s children.’”
In early 1968, King told journalist David Halberstam, “For years I labored with the idea of reforming the existing institutions of society, a little change here, a little change there. Now I feel quite differently. I think you’ve got to have a reconstruction of the entire society, a revolution of values.”
In 1966, King told his staff:
“You can’t talk about solving the economic problem of the Negro without talking about billions of dollars. You can’t talk about ending the slums without first saying profit must be taken out of slums. You’re really tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are messing with folk then. You are messing with captains of industry. Now this means that we are treading in difficult water because it really means that we are saying that something is wrong with capitalism. There must be a better distribution of wealth, and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism.”
While he did not use the term “democratic socialism” publicly, MLK did propose changes to society as informed by that orientation. As Michael Eric Dyson put it in his book, I May Not Get There with You, published in 2000, King’s “demands for a ‘revolution of values’ and society-wide economic change were driven in part by his democratic socialist principles.”
King’s Poor People’s Campaign, in which I was involved, was an expression of democratic socialism. Complaining that poverty was too high in this the wealthiest nation in the world, Dr. King announced the Poor People’s Campaign on December 4, 1967, “The Southern Christian Leadership Conference will lead waves of the nation’s poor and disinherited to Washington, D. C., next spring to demand redress of their grievances by the United States government and to secure at least jobs or income for all.”
An essential aspect of the campaign was petitioning the government to pass an Economic Bill of Rights to ease the poverty burden. This was democratic socialism.
