Dr Martin Luther King Jr - A historical perspective (DVD)

The man who dreamed

DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.
A historical perspective (DVD)
Director: Thomas Friedman
Delta Music UK. 60 mins. £9.99

The greatest challenge of this generation may prove to be the shift in the majority presence of evangelicals from the North (US/Europe) to the South (Africa/Latin America/Asia). As with previous demographic movements, this has to do with ‘cultural shifts, with changing the books themselves’ *. If God so loves African people, can white people love them in the US/UK?

Thomas Friedman, an award-winning journalist and Jew ‘explores how Dr. King’s ideas, beliefs and methods evolved in the face of the rapidly changing climate of the Civil Rights Movement’. The style is documentary, narrating the story of Dr. King’s life with footage from events and excerpts from speeches.

Several issues are raised. First, by following Gandhi rather than other Indian leaders, Dr. King failed to realise that non-violence would be insufficient to liberate African-Americans. We see violence on the cross. Second, here we see visible racism. Today’s challenge is to face up to invisible racism and deal with the human heart. Third, to what extent are people healed from the inside-out, or from the outside-in: by God’s individual work or by legislation, the judiciary and social pressure?

If it’s a straight biography you are after, this may be the cheapest on the market and is recommended.

The best DVD on the American Civil Rights movement would probably be Eyes on the Prize, currently being re-issued by PBS on seven DVDs at 375 dollars! For a comparative approach, see Martin and Malcolm and America: A dream or a nightmare by James Cone.

Much racial reconciliation work has been done in the US since 1968, by African and white evangelicals. The communities are today, sadly, widely segregated: for progress to be made white evangelicals will need to learn to think and act as their African brothers and sisters do…

Alan Sharp, with thanks to Tom Chacko for his comments;
elder, Tooting United Reformed Church, South London, and Interserve Urban Vision mission partner

* Lamin Sanneh, Whose religion is Christianity? The Gospel beyond the West, Eerdmans, Michigan, 2003, p.37.