The Politics of Radical Love

One of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s greatest gifts to the world is how he embodied the power of love to solve social problems.

Today, it may seem like Dr. King's work doesn't apply to the entrenched conflicts that cause tremendous violence and oppression around the world, from the Middle East to Sudan. But what he advocates for isn't a pie-in-the-sky utopia or "superficial optimism."*

King recognizes human beings' propensity for collective evil (this is why he rejects liberalism), but he also trusts that history--and God--is on the side of justice and truth. Describing racial and economic injustice as "inseparable twins," he speaks out against the crushing tragedies of racism, economic injustice, militarism, and colonialism.

King's principle of nonviolence illuminates the revolutionary power of resistance grounded in radical love. He writes in 1960, "As I delved deeper into the philosophy of Gandhi my skepticism concerning the power of love gradually diminished, and I came to see for the first time that the Christian doctrine of love operating through the Gandhian method of nonviolence was one of the most potent weapons available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom."

Dr. King teaches us that, despite the conflicts dividing races, religions, and nations, we can embrace new ways of living that give birth to freedom, justice, and equality.

Only love has power to remake the world, because only love has the power to remake us.

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*All quotes are from MLK's article "Pilgrimage to Nonviolence" (1960) republished in The Radical King, edited and introduced by Cornel West (Beacon Press, 2015).

[Image description: MLK sitting for a portrait at Atlanta University, circa 1963. Image credit: Howard Sochurek / Getty Images]