REVISIONING HEROS

Martin Luther King Day. King was for sure a stand-up dude. We absolutely need to celebrate his charisma, his leadership, and his visions. But sometimes the people who get the credit for ideas are not the same as the people who came up with the ideas.

 Like Darwin’s Origin of Species. That idea of evolution originated with a man named Alfred Russel Wallace. Wallace was from a poorer segment of society, unlike Darwin who came from money. There may have been an economic prejudice at play when Darwin received all the credit.

Also, the discovery of the shape of DNA was given to scientists Watson and Crick. But in fact, a woman scientist, Roslin Franklin, had discovered this through an X-ray photograph of DNA. Her work was taken without her knowing and shown to Wallace and Crick. They deciphered her photographs which led to their eventually receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for the discovery of the structure of DNA- the spiral helix.

So, Martin Luther King is accredited with the non-violence movement, but it was activist and organizer Baynard Rustin, who was the advocate for non-violence. Before King's association with Baynard, King would carry a gun and had hired bodyguards. It was Ruskin who being raised a Quaker had the premise of non-violence. Mr. Rustin was the one to go to India to learn non-violence from the disciples of Gandhi. It was Rustin who organized many of the marches and counseled King on non-violence techniques and philosophy. Why was he not at the forefront? Because he was openly gay. Martin Luther King distanced himself from Baynard Rustin because of this.

Even though our heroes are rightfully celebrated, many times it is the unsung heroes in the background that are holding our hero’s up. Many times, it is prejudice that keeps the originator of radical new concepts from being acknowledged.

Perhaps we need to broaden our concepts from a single hero to a group or organization of heroes. How we look at heroism may be evolving to see hero teams or hero agencies because indeed it is organizations of many that get things done, not just a hero of one.