George Jacob-
George Jacob FRCGS is the President & CEO of the Smithsonian affiliated Bay Ecotarium- a Climate and Earth Justice Living Museum initiative in San Francisco, and has worked extensively on Human Rights related exhibits for museums across many continents.
Martin Luther King Jr. was only 19 when Mohan Das Karamchand Gandhi was assassinated in 1948. He would later visit India in 1959 and be forever transformed to bend the arc of history with the ensuing Civil Rights movement in the United States. Inspired by Gandhi’s satyagraha– ‘truth force’ doctrine, he preached non-violent resistance that eventually changed laws aimed at ending racial discrimination and restoring human rights. In 1964 at the age of 34, Martin Luther King became the youngest man to ever be conferred the Nobel Peace Prize.
Today, 55 years after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the American society, though has made significant strides in addressing social justice issues, it continues to face the specter of societal strife, polarization of resources, ideologies and continues to experience incongruence with real politique as well as lack of clarity on sustained emergence from the perpetual swamp of short-term political opportunism.
While internally, diversity, equity and inclusivity have become central to institutional building drawing from the ethos of affirmative action, the fringes of the bell-curve are often more vocal in their shrill demands to either end it or go woke. It is this chorus of extreme vocalizations that seem to grab the media attention and portray itself as vox populi. Stoked by political winds, it gathers momentum and takes wing in its untenable manifestation threatening to fracture institutions and tenants of natural justice. In the vacuous absence of true visionary leadership, the social fabric is pulled in multiple directions stretching with strain till it tears.
Many post-colonial societies plagued by slavery and its remnants have engaged with the process of setting up Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (TRC) leading to conversations on qualifying and quantifying wrong doings by government and non-government actors for reparations. Examples of these TRC investigations abound in South Africa, Canada, Algeria, Philippines, Argentina, Uganda, Rwanda, and Sri Lanka, among others. A Congressional apology for Slavery and Segregation of African Americans was issued by the US House of Representatives on July 29, 2008 followed by a formal apology by the US Senate on June 18, 2009. Around the same time a Joint Resolution was passed by the Senate acknowledging the long history of depredations and ill-conceived policies by the federal government regarding Indian Tribes/ Native Peoples of the land on April 30, 2009.
While these gestures are highly symbolic, it paves the way forward to build trust and a path for reparations. The generational delay in arriving at these inflection points is a victim of loss of historic living memory among the children, grand children and great grandchildren of early survivors. Museums and archives (both written and oral) offer many insights, perspectives and personal anecdotes that connect the dots of societal inequities and the toll as well as the courage it took with personal sacrifices, to stand up to oppression and forces of tyranny.
Externally, the eternal quest for Peace seems to be elusive as the world seems to lunge from war to crises to yet another war resulting in shattered generations, disturbed lifestyles for millions, mass exodus and immigration, extreme poverty and environmental destruction of mammoth proportions. Institutions entrusted with the collective wisdom to prevail over crises such as the United Nations seem structurally flawed and systemically paralyzed with both leadership and their ability to harness resources to face the juggernaut of new reality every 5 years.
As we celebrate the third Monday as Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Day, let us take a personal pledge to promote and preserve values of equality and social justice in our lives for everlasting PEACE.
“Commit yourself for the noble struggle of equal rights. You will make a greater person of yourself, a greater nation of your country and a finer world to live in.”
