This past Martin Luther King holiday, I spent time reflecting on MLK'S legacy and that of another great African American thinker and cultural influence, the author James Baldwin. I sat down and read the Montgomery Bus Boycott speech given by MLK in 1955, followed by the final chapter of Baldwin's The Fire Next Time, a book published in 1963, which opens with a short letter to his 14-year-old nephew James commemorating the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation.
I was an infant when President Lyndon Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. After these victories, many thought that an era marked by constructive change would lead to better relations between the races.
But this was not to be. The mass nonviolent protests in Selma, Montgomery, and Birmingham, which were so effective in forcing national legislation to curb racial strife in the South, did little, in the absence of further change, to quell the hostility seething in the North and elsewhere. As riots broke out in Detroit, Watts, and my hometown of Cleveland in the summers of 1966 and 1967, followed by MLK's assassination in 1968, the progress made in race relations began to backslide.
Reading James Baldwin, I was impressed with his argument for how we might move forward as a society to heal the divide between Blacks and whites. He didn't advocate for militancy or burning down the house, though he understood the historic anger and pain the Black community had every right to feel. Baldwin argued that the only way to achieve racial equality is through love. He believed that love "takes off the masks" of superiority white people wear to hide our own insecurities and failings. He added that once whites stop projecting our fear and longing onto African Americans, we will be free from our own self-imposed tyranny, and thus Blacks will be free too.
Interestingly, Baldwin put the onus on African Americans, as a people, to decide whether to love or hate. He went on to predict that if the African American community withdrew from white society, the country was doomed. However, if Blacks approached the white community with love, forcing them to confront their misdeeds, the nation would be saved.
Baldwin understood the hesitancy of his own community to take this radical step, especially after the sins of slavery, Jim Crow, discrimination, and segregation. The only solution, Baldwin asserted, is for whites and Blacks to work together, which requires both parties to acknowledge uncomfortable truths and grieve for their pasts, how their ancestors were treated, and how their ancestors treated others.
There has been integration and upward mobility for some since the successes of the civil rights era, but 60 years later, inequality in health care, housing, education and job opportunity persists. I've discovered that people have very different approaches to remedying the wrongs that continue to plague our country when it comes to racial reconciliation. Some people, including myself, believe in governmental action. Others insist that it must occur on an individualized, person-to-person level, in line with the old adage that government programs cannot solve every problem. For example, following the murder of George Floyd, many of us for the first time felt compelled to look inside, at our own racist underpinnings.
On a recent weekend, I saw the new Tom Hanks film, A Man Called Otto. The title character, played by Hanks, is a curmudgeon, a misanthrope, and not very likable — until you learn his story. Filmed in drab, snowy, gray Pittsburgh, the film comes alive not with a glamorous locale but the warmth and authenticity of Otto's neighbors. The multiracial supporting cast is kooky, quirky, and somewhat cartoonish, but they are characters you might know if you grew up in the industrial Midwest like I did.
Penny-pinching Otto is a control freak who believes there is a right way to do everything — and most people are doing it wrong — whether it's recycling waste, parking a car, or walking the dog. During the first part of the film, nobody gets special treatment from Otto. But gradually Marisol, the Mexican mom who brings him homemade spicy cookies and other savory delights, weasels her way into Otto's heart. And a Black couple, longtime friends of Otto and his deceased wife, provide an opportunity for him to reconcile with his past and future.
Maybe if more of us chose to engage with people who are different from us, whether due to age, race, or socioeconomic status, we might learn more about the importance of coming together and discover we have more in common than we think. By sharing our hearts — and our cooking — we might learn we can bridge a divide that appeared impossible to mend.
Maybe it requires some to do a bit of "self-educating," and for others the willingness to offer another chance. We might transcend our imperfect, and yes, brutal history through either political action or individual acts of kindness. Maybe the solution is "both/and."
Jack Hilovsky is an author, actor, dancer, and blogger who has made his home in Seattle since 1986. His first book, RJ, Farrah and Me: A Young Man's Gay Odyssey from the Inside Out, was published in June 2022. It can be found at Elliott Bay Book Company, Madison Books, Nook & Cranny, and University Bookstore, among other local booksellers.