January 7, 1998
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Lew Harris (615) 322-2706
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Martin Luther King Jr.'s international impact often overlooked, says VU professor
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - As Martin Luther King Jr. Day approaches, it's time to stop praising the slain civil rights leader only for his accomplishments in the United States and to start viewing him as an international leader, says Vanderbilt University professor Lewis V. Baldwin.
"Most literature on King has limited him to the American context, presenting him as a southern black leader, a civil rights activist, an 'American Ghandi' or a national symbol," says Baldwin. "This approach undermines King's importance as a world leader and fails to capture the extent to which he addressed the global realities of racism, poverty and war. Evidence of his global impact is the fact that his birthday is celebrated in about 100 countries around the world."
King's birthday is Jan. 15 and Martin Luther King Day will be observed Jan. 19 (the third Monday in January) in the United States. In some countries, MLK day is celebrated on the actual birthday.
Baldwin thinks King's contributions to uplift the poor and oppressed in South Africa provide an important perspective from which his global significance can be assessed.
Baldwin also believes apartheid won't fully be dismantled until the early 21st Century, and that King's concept of community provides a blueprint for South Africans who are seeking to establish non-racial democratic rule. Baldwin says King believed the civil right movement in the United States South and the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa were directed at the same enemy: racism
Baldwin, an associate professor of religious studies at Vanderbilt, has spent 17 years studying King's papers and has written three books and numerous scholarly articles on the slain civil rights leader. Baldwin's most recent book is "Toward The Beloved Community: Martin Luther King Jr. and South Africa," published in 1995.
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