Martin Luther King, Jr. was fatally shot in Memphis on April 4, 1968. The observances marking his assassination 50 years ago will follow last month’s historic anti-gun violence demonstration — one of the biggest social protests since the historic movement for African American civil rights movement led by King. Events are planned around the United States this week to commemorate the somber anniversary.
Activists and political observers have found many parallels between the protests led by the students who survived the shooting in Parkland, Florida — a February 14 massacre that killed 17 people — and King’s quest for racial justice and social equality. The New Yorker’s Jelani Cobb was among numerous political observers to note this week that “the 50th anniversary of King’s death falls amid the largest anti-gun violence mobilization that we have seen since he departed.”
The outrage felt by the students who survived the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and their supporters culminated in last month’s March For Our Lives protest, a mass outpouring of anger over gun violence and a call for government action that drew some 800,000 people to the streets of Washington.
There were echoes in that mass mobilization of King’s historic “March for Jobs and Freedom” held in the U.S. capital city on August 28, 1963, which drew 200,000 people, a gathering that galvanized the forces of the antiracism effort and underscored not just its muscle, but its moral authority.
“Gun violence is and has always been a civil rights issue. Communities of color are too often ignored and neglected when it comes to gun violence, but black men are 13 times more likely than white men to be shot and killed,” Kris Brown, co-president of the Brady Campaign against Gun Violence, told Think Progress.
“The students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas made this clear when they stood and elevated the voices that they feel have been left behind these past few weeks, and we cannot allow them to be forgotten,” she said.
Other observers have flagged a number of other areas of convergence between the two grass roots movements.
Marshaling the energy and tenacity of young activists
“The Parkland students are similar to Dr. King and the civil rights movement in that they are young people working to address a social problem that many adults believed was unlikely to change,” Thomas Maher, a lecturer at Purdue University, told Think Progress.
“One thing that the Parkland students have done very effectively has been their ability to turn anti-gun violence into a youth issue,” he said.
“Dr. King was 26 during the bus boycotts, (civil rights pioneer and now US representative) John Lewis was 23 during the Freedom Rides. The Little Rock Nine were 15 and 16 years old. While there were certainly older members, a lot of the energy of the movement came from young people. The marches and walkouts since Parkland have that in common.”
Harnessing the power of the ballot box
The Parkland students have also highlighted the power they will one day exert as voters, just as Martin Luther King, Jr. demanded the vote for African Americans and then harnessed their economic power and their clout at the ballot box to press for change.
“They’ve connected these (shooting) tragedies with the fact that if you vote these folks out of office, you can make the changes that are necessary,” political commentator Zerlina Maxwell told MSNBC’s Deadline: White House program on Tuesday.
“They … understand that the way to change the law is to change the people who make the laws. That is the powerful difference that these kids are making in this country … by basically directing everyone toward the ballot box,” Maxwell said.
Tapping into the moral authority of the underdog
And just as King found moral authority in the nationally televised imagery of demonstrators being attacked by police dogs and officers wielding billy clubs, the youths leading the anti-gun movement have benefited from having the National Rifle Association, as well as that organization’s vocal boosters on the right, as their foil.
“They’ve deliberately put themselves and their experiences at the forefront of the movement, they’ve encouraged other students to participate in walkouts, and they’ve tapped into the fact that this is an aspect of gun violence that is specific to youth,” Maher said.
One example of the way the teenagers have taken the moral high ground was last week’s dust-up between Laura Ingraham and Parkland survivor David Hogg, which ended with the conservative commentator taking an abrupt Easter Break after her attempt to bully the teen on social media fomented a public backlash and an advertiser revolt against her Fox News show.
The high school students, for the most part, have retained the support of their allies by consistently arguing that they’re simply seeking the right to attend school without fear of being shot.
“They’ve only alluded to the ‘rights’-based language of the civil rights movement — in their appeal for the right to go to school without fear of violence,” said Maher. “This is perhaps understandable considering that for the past couple decades any discussion of gun control has turned into a debate over whether someone has the right to own a gun; a debate that the NRA and gun rights advocates are very comfortable having.”
He continued: “By sidestepping this debate over whether people should have guns to focus on how to make schools safer, they are able to move the conversation in a direction that may be more productive.”
Finding allies across racial, class, culture and interest groups
Brown has noted that the Parkland kids — some of whom have criticized the media for devoting the lion’s share of their coverage to white and affluent voices in the immediate aftermath of the shooting — have made an effort to leverage their privilege to focus on the larger cause of racial justice and civil rights. Just as King tried to make common cause across class and racial lines, the students from Parkland and the activists who support them are making a concerted effort to be inclusive.
“We’ve heard from countless survivors how important it is to hear and lift up the voices of all those impacted by gun violence,” Brown said. “For many students, especially in communities of color, the most dangerous part of their day is during the walk to and from school. We have to hear their voices, to invite them to join the conversation, to give them the opportunities they need and deserve to speak out on this issue.”
Said Maher: “The Parkland students seem to have made considerable effort to connect their anti-gun efforts to the broader movement against gun violence that young black people have been operating for several years.”
“This was evident in the speakers at the March for Our Lives, their efforts to meet with Chicago activists while organizing the march, and their repeated references to their minority peers,” he said. “So they are trying to connect the issue of school shootings to a broader issue of gun violence in the United States, and highlight how both problems share similar roots.
But Shannon Watts, founder of the group Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, drew a link to gun violence perpetrated by law enforcement in communities of color and the continued need to expand the conversation beyond random acts of violence at America’s malls and in its schools.
“A little over a month after Parkland, Stephon Clark was shot at least 20 times by Sacramento police officers in his grandmother’s backyard. His family now joins a club that no one wants to join — the many Americans who have had a loved one taken by gun violence, that disproportionately affects Black and Brown communities,” she said.
“If we are to end gun violence, we must address the systemic racism that contributes to it. The fight to protect Black and Brown lives and all other marginalized groups from disproportionate rates of gun violence is a civil rights issue.”