DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Today was a federal holiday in the United States in honor of the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. King was the most visible spokesman and leader of the non-violent civil rights movement in the United States until his tragic assassination in 1968. Today we reflect on his legacy, with a focus on his concern for environmental justice and his visionary, ecological thinking on the interconnectedness of all life.
“It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated.”
Ecology and the environment aren’t the first things that we think of when reflecting on the life and legacy of Dr Martin Luther King Jr. However, an important part of Dr King’s legacy was to set in motion the beginnings of the environmental justice movement, and to raise awareness of the interconnectedness of all life on earth. Dr King’s all-encompassing vision of justice was one where the nations and peoples of the planet are one. He saw social, economic and environmental injustices as interlinked - including poverty, racism, and environmental justice. ”All of these problems are tied together.” In Letter from Birmingham Jail, Dr King wrote, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
Dr King and the beginnings of the environmental justice movement
Environmental Justice is defined as "the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, sex, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies." It is an issue that reverberates as strongly today as it did in the 1960s, from climate change and its disproportionate impact on people of color, to the battle led by indigenous peoples around the world to protect their forests and defend their land rights.
“ One cannot be concerned just with civil rights. It is very nice to drink milk at an unsegregated lunch counter—but not when there’s Strontium 90 in it.”
The first action in the environmental justice movement in the United States was the Memphis Sanitation Strike in 1968, a protest against unfair treatment and justice for sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee after two garbage collectors were crushed to death by a malfunctioning truck. It was the first time African Americans mobilized nationally to oppose an issue of environmental injustice, and marked the beginning of this intersectional movement. Dr King addressed the crowd of approximately 25,000 people in person. It was the largest indoor gathering the civil rights movement had ever seen. Speaking to this diverse crowd of labor and civil rights activists, and members of the black church, King spoke about the power of unity: “You are demonstrating that we can stick together. You are demonstrating that we are all tied in a single garment of destiny, and that if one black person suffers, if one black person is down, we are all down”. Dr King’s overarching view of justice expressed itself on the social level as human solidarity. Racism and white supremacy are opposites of connectedness and unity. Dr King predicted the “inevitable decay of any system based on principles that are not in harmony with the moral laws of the universe.” He believed that, “the universe is on the side of all that’s moving toward justice and dignity and goodwill and respect.” He was assassinated just a few days after his address to the crowd, on the evening of April 4, 1968.
National Guard and striking sanitation strikers. Source: Joshua Rashaad McFadden. Accessed at www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/sanitation-workers-strike-memphis
With his life cut far too short, Dr King did not live to see the groundswell of 20 million Americans participating in Earth Day 1970, or the very first pictures of our fragile ‘blue marble’ planet earth from space, sent from the Apollo space mission. Yet in his work and recorded speeches, we can hear echoes of his ecological & environmental consciousness: “The cities are gasping in polluted air and enduring contaminated water,” he warned in 1967. He also opposed nuclear technology and the existential threat it posed to people and planet: “We’ve played havoc with the destiny of the world. Somewhere we must make it clear that we are concerned about the survival of the world.”
An ecological consciousness
Dr King often, particularly in the last years and months of his life, framed issues in the universal terminology of the interconnected universe, using language more commonly heard in reference to ecology and ecosystems. His vision was essentially one of connectedness. We share this vision for connectedness at Wild Tomorrow Fund. The implementation of our vision to save wildlife and wild places is embodied in our wildlife corridor project at The Greater Ukuwela Nature Reserve, where we are working to protect, restore and reconnect habitat for the benefit of both wildlife and people in KwaZulu-Natal South Africa, and globally.
As we restore the corridor, we are bringing economic opportunities and alleviating rural poverty by employing our 8 rangers and 15 “Green Mambas” (women who we employ for ecosystem restoration work) from our local community who are each breadwinners for their families and extended communities.
We are also working in small but determined steps, to restore humanity’s connectedness to nature, to “rewild” the human heart. Our work is restorative not only for Ukuwela’s wildlife and tapestry of ecosystems, but also for the many people who lend their time, their talents, their love, and their labor to undo some of the environmental harm we have caused locally and globally. It’s a diverse team of local South Africans including Zulu rangers and women from the community, teachers at the kindergartens we support, international volunteers and guests: all united in a shared mission to protect nature and restore some of what has been lost.
Generation restoration
Dr King’s vision shares the same heart as the emerging ‘regeneration’ movement, which we at Wild Tomorrow Fund are centered around. As explained by Paul Hawken in his introduction to “Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation” (2021): “Nature and humanity are composed of exquisitely complex networks for relationships, without which forests, lands, oceans, peoples, countries, and cultures perish. Our planet and youth are telling us the same story. Vital connections have been severed between human beings and nature; within nature itself; and between people, religions, governments, and commerce. This disconnection is the origin of the climate crisis, it is the very root - and it is where we discover solutions and actions that can engage all people, regardless of race, gender, or belief.”
Martin Luther King’s thinking was ahead of his time in linking the interconnectedness of life on earth, social justice and ecological consciousness. This way of thinking is referred to today as intersectional environmentalism - acknowledging that social justice and environmentalism are intrinsically linked and both must be considered to achieve environmental justice. As Dr King said so beautifully and simply, “justice is indivisible,” because ultimately, “we are tied together.”
“I believe that we can transform dark yesterdays of injustice into bright tomorrows of justice and humanity.”
The Greater Ukuwela Nature Reserve, South Africa. Photo by 2022 Conservation Photography Volunteer, Terry Opalka.
References/additional reading:
Dellinger, Drew (2014). Martin Luther King Jr, Ecological Thinker. Accessed 15 January 2021 at www.drewdellinger.org/martin-luther-king-jr-ecological-thinker
Environmental Justice. United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Accessed January 17, 2021. at www.epa.gov/environmentaljustice.
Memphis Sanitation Strike. https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/memphis-sanitation-workers-strike
Convention on Biological Diversity(CBD). OPEN ENDED WORKING GROUP ON THE POST-2020 GLOBAL BIODIVERSITY FRAMEWORK Third meeting Online, 23 August – 3 September 2021.
Thomas, Leah (2022). INTERSECTIONAL ENVIRONMENTALIST : how to dismantle systems of oppression to protect people + planet. Voracious. See more at: www.intersectionalenvironmentalist.com/