In Martin Luther King Jr.'s Strength to love, the Civil Rights leader offers a number of his sermons on everything from communism and Christianity to Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi, whose own nonconformity and nonviolent civil disobedience influenced King's own methods. One of the main themes of this work is that racial prejudice and its injustices are often perpetuated or reinforced through social institutions like the criminal justice system or even the Catholic Church, which King makes culpable here in promoting slavery and segregation. Support by the Christian church for racism throughout history is one of the "shameful tragedies" revealed by history in King's (1981) view. This analysis will review King's book and a number of its main ideas and themes. A conclusion will address how the book might be used to help teach high school social studies students about civil rights history.
In King's (1981) Strength of Love, the overall message that comes across is that the Civil Rights leader strongly believes in a higher and benevolent power that unites or binds all human beings in what King labels the inescapable human "network of mutuality." King's sermons cover a range of topics, including an unbiased presentation of Communism that seeks to further understanding as to why such a system might seem a viable option to a capitalistic system that condones slavery. Whether it is the tendency of the Christian church to support racism or of leaders to corrupt political systems for their own ends, King maintains we have distanced ourselves from the important higher power or spirit in all of us by focusing solely on secular concerns. As King (1981) writes, "The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men."
King made many sacrifices during his quest for civil rights and equality for African ...