This past Monday was a

national celebration of the birth of the Rev. Dr. Martin

Luther King Jr., the only Georgian ever to win the Nobel

Peace Prize - but as far as most folks, black as

well as white, are concerned, it is just an excuse to be

off from work.

It is the only federal

holiday to honor an African-American, but even those who

share the color of his skin - and the benefits of

living in a society changed for the better by the human

rights revolution he led - often do little more to

mark his memory than attend a parade or possibly a

quasi-religious service in some church in the community.

But, the memory of the man

who dreamed of a new dawn in America and then worked

tirelessly to make that dream a reality - even

though he never lived to see his dream becoming reality

as it is today - is too often treated shabbily, even

For, while the Roman

Catholic Church is preparing to recognize him as a 20th

century martyr for the faith during ceremonies in Rome

this summer and while the Church of England installed a

life-size statue of him over the doors of their national

church, Westminster Abbey, Dr. King would never have

wanted to be just another plaster saint on a pedestal in

the darkened corner of some magnificent cathedral.

He was a living, breathing

firebrand, an individual filled with passion who was not

satisfied with the world as it was and fought for a

society as it could become.

Sometimes we forget the man

that was as we recall the placid dreamer who delivered

memorable speeches which envisioned a new and better

America.

Indeed, as Jake Lamar asked

in a recent issue of The New York Observer newspaper,

"Is there any 20th-century American icon who has

been more banalized, neutralized, and homogenized by

mythology than Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.?

"From the day he was

martyred in 1968, the civil rights crusader has been

enshrined as a romantic visionary: the healing,

nonviolent, nonthreatening integrationist," Lamar

said. "King's birthday gives Americans, black and

white, conservative and liberal alike, the annual

opportunity to appropriate his legacy and slather it with

sentimental goo, to squeeze the complex ideas of a true

revolutionary into four wistful words: "I have a

dream.'"

Those words may sound

harsh, but the truth contained therein can not be denied.

Dr. King was a nonviolent

revolutionary who was never satisfied with any peaceful

evolution.

And, it has to be

remembered that for Dr. King nonviolent revolution was a

tactic: You push and push against an unjust system and,

then, when the forces of reaction get to the breaking

point, lay your body on the line as a sacrificial victim

to their rages of violence.

(Indeed, Dr. King's most

successful campaigns were those in which he could get his

followers to goad their opponents into violent outbursts

which pulled at the heartstrings of men of good will all

across this land when viewed on the evening newscasts. In

those places like Albany, where his protests were met

with restraint and they were simply arrested, not beaten

or water-hosed or turned into bait for the dogs, his

protest movements were counted as failures.)

But, in most of the

memorial services held to highlight Dr. King's legacy, it

is never the revolutionary that is recalled but the

dreamer.

Consequently, most of those

memorials miss the point.

Dr. King was not a

one-dimensional individual with only one facet of his

character revealed.

He was a flesh-and-blood

activist, one who used his eloquence to define and defend

his cause when it was appropriate but who was just as

willing to use the other tools available to a true

revolutionary when necessary.

And, like the Savior he

followed, Dr. King was killed, not because he made nice

speeches that made folks feel good but because he

challenged the very roots of a society into which he was

born and was unwilling to accept.

[Lee N. Howell is an

award-winning writer who has been observing and

commenting upon politics and society in the Southern

Crescent, the state, and nation for more than a quarter

of a century.]