Germans find few heroes outside the realm of sports. The 50th anniversary of the murder of Martin Luther King Jr. is an appropriate day to think about the ongoing need for iconoclasm, DW Editor-in-Chief Ines Pohl writes.
"Unhappy the land that needs heroes," the German playwright Bertolt Brecht wrote in his play "Life of Galileo" at the end of World War II. With the quote, Brecht, himself a target of the Nazis, summed up his denouncement of hero worship in authoritarian society. He was strongly convinced that liberal and democratic societies do not require heroes to solve problems. On the contrary, individual responsibility is elevated, and hero worship amounts to blind obedience that leads to self-created incapacitation.
Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated 50 years ago Wednesday. The preacher never gave up his struggle against injustice, the Vietnam War and the oppression of black Americans. He and his supporters remained committed to a strategy of nonviolence in the face of the incredible violence used against them. Even today, he instills courage in people who are dissatisfied with the status quo and who believe that a different life is possible.
DW Editor-in-Chief Ines PohlImage: DW/P. Böll
Recently in Washington, DC, and around the United States, hundreds of thousands of people protested the gun lobby's influence on US politics. The main demonstrations were led and organized by students from Parkland, Florida, after 14 of their classmates and three members of the staff at Stoneman Douglas High School were killed in a mass shooting in February. At the rally in the nation's capital, 9-year-old Yolanda Renee King put a 21st-century spin on her grandfather's iconic "I Have a Dream" speech. And the legacy of the civil rights movement has been clear in the words and actions of 18-year-old Emma Gonzalez, one of the organizers of the "March for Our Lives" rallies.
It is not a matter of blind obedience to make heroes of King and people like him. Such figures give us strength and courage. They help movements grow, and movements are stronger than individuals.
Sources of hope
Heroes such as King give us hope. They show us that it is worth rising up to leave our comfort zones, demonstrate moral courage and show solidarity; to build networks and never give up; and to shake people from their positions of privilege and call on them to take part.
It is precisely this energy that Germany and many other countries need to tackle a complicated world and not lose hope amid myriad, seemingly futile conflicts. Ultimately, it is vital for maintaining faith in the strength and possibility of the democratic state, which conscious citizens need to function and ward off the lethargy that lurks when alternatives seem to be absent.
Martin Luther King's funeral: Laying an American saint to rest
Flip Schulke's photos of Martin Luther King Jr.'s funeral show the anguish of those who attended just days after the civil rights leader was killed on April 4, 1968. The photographer was a close friend of King's.
Image: Flip Schulke. Photo courtesy of UT Austin's Briscoe Center for American History
Day of private and public grief
Coretta Scott King, wife of Martin Luther King, Jr., and family sit in a pew during the first of two funeral services held on April 9, 1968, in Atlanta, Georgia. The first was for family, close friends and other invitees at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where King and his father served as senior pastors. There followed a 3-mile procession to Morehouse College, King's alma mater, for a public service.
Image: Flip Schulke. Photo courtesy of UT Austin's Briscoe Center for American History
A brother's sorrow
King's brother, Alfred D. King, breaks down during the funeral at Ebenezer Baptist Church. The church was filled with hundreds of people, including labor leaders, foreign dignitaries, entertainment and sports figures and leaders from numerous religious faiths. The service began with Rev. Ralph Abernathy delivering a sermon which called King's death "one of the darkest hours of mankind."
Image: Flip Schulke. Photo courtesy of UT Austin's Briscoe Center for American History
A final goodbye
Coretta Scott and her children view King's casket. Following the assassination, news of the murder sent shockwaves through African-American communities in a number of cities, resulting in deadly riots between the day of the murder and the day of the funeral. President Lyndon B. Johnson declared a national day of mourning for the lost civil rights leader on April 7.
Image: Flip Schulke. Photo courtesy of UT Austin's Briscoe Center for American History
At peace after violent end
King lies in repose in his casket. He died from a gunshot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was supporting a strike by local sanitation workers. "The bullet knocked him out of his shoes," says Andrew Young, one of King's closest aides. "I saw the bullet had entered the tip of his chin and went straight to his spinal cord. He probably never heard or felt the shot."
Image: Flip Schulke. Photo courtesy of UT Austin's Briscoe Center for American History
Paying respects
Mourners file past King's casket. At his widow's request, a recording of his "Drum Major" sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church, given on February 4, 1968, was played. In the sermon he asks that at his funeral no mention of his awards and honors be made, but that it be said that he tried to "feed the hungry," "clothe the naked," "be right on the [Vietnam] war question," and "love and serve humanity."
Image: Flip Schulke. Photo courtesy of UT Austin's Briscoe Center for American History
Silence broken by songs
The procession from Ebenezer Baptist Church to Morehouse College was observed by over 100,000 people. The silence was occasionally broken by the singing of freedom songs that were sung during marches in which King participated. At the open-air service at the college, as per King's request, his good friend Mahalia Jackson sang his favorite hymn, "Take My Hand, Precious Lord."
Image: Flip Schulke. Photo courtesy of UT Austin's Briscoe Center for American History
Vale of tears
"I'm realistic enough to know that I can meet a violent end," King said before his death. "I live every day with the threat of death. But I don't think the important thing is how long you live but how well you live, and I'm not concerned about my longevity or the quantity of my life but the quality of my life."
Image: Flip Schulke. Photo courtesy of UT Austin's Briscoe Center for American History
We shall overcome
Beside Coretta Scott King weeps Harry Belafonte, the American singer, actor and social activist. Following the public service, King's casket was taken by hearse to his final burial place at South View Cemetery. "I still believe we can build a society of brotherhood and a society of peace," King said before receiving his Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. "Deep in my heart I do believe we shall overcome."
Image: Flip Schulke. Photo courtesy of UT Austin's Briscoe Center for American History
Joining the America pantheon
A bewildered Reverend Jesse Jackson, the American civil rights activist and politician, beside King's graveside. "Along with Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King has assumed something approaching Founding Father status in American history," says Ben Wright at the Briscoe Center for American History, which houses Flip Schulke's photographic archive.
Image: Flip Schulke. Photo courtesy of UT Austin's Briscoe Center for American History
