3. Strain, Christopher Barry. “Civil Rights and ... - Freedom Archives

professionals and faculty members from Alabama State College who suited King's needs
for intellectual development and propriety. Yearning for direction, he leaned heavily on
his father, Martin Luther King, Sr., for advice and guidance, as he always had when faced
with difficulty . A product of a privileged, middle-class upbringing, King believed, like
his father, that moderate politics was the best path for Negro advancement~ But in taking
the helm of the MIA, he took the first step in what proved to be a distinguished career in
radical politics .
King did not employ non-violent direct action in the early stages of the civil rights
movement as a matter of protocol ; in 1955, it was not a codified element of organized
social protest. He learned the power of nonviolence comparatively late in his short life.
How King came to embrace nonviolence is essential in understanding the larger
movement, which relied in large part on nonviolent protest for its successes . It is also
essential in understanding the complex role self-defense played in this struggle . To
understand self-defense, one must first understand nonviolence, which came to be seen as
the normative method of protest in the civil rights struggle.
Unfortunately, apprehending King's ontology can be tricky . His philosophy of
nonviolence synthesized the teachings of Jesus Christ and Mahatma Gandhi, but King
never detailed his ideas in a rigorous or systematic way . It is therefore rather difficult to
assemble the eclec'c components that comprised his philosophical framework .
Theologians and historians face the challenge of piecing together how King understood
4See Harvard Sitkoff, The Struggle for Black Ea~Ly~ 1954-1992 rev. ed. (New
York : Hill and Wang, 1993), 43 .