By TAYLOR BRANCH [New York Times] – Glenn Beck did not adopt nonviolence explicitly for the “Restoring Honor” rally in Washington. That would have been too wrenching a leap for his followers and opponents alike. After all, nonviolent doctrines have been submerged, ignored or forgotten across decades of ethnic assertion and perpetual warfare, even by many heirs of the nonviolent movement themselves.
Mr. Beck obtained a simpler, tamer version from Alveda King last spring, when she recalled her childhood counsel from “Uncle Martin” that nonviolence boiled down to St. Paul’s three abiding guides in the Bible: faith, hope and charity. Mr. Beck told viewers back then that he walked dazed from the studio, gripped by a new theme. “I love this woman!” he announced on April 21. His crisis was ending. “I see the landing strip after last night,” he declared. He would apply organizing techniques from the civil rights movement. On the 47th anniversary of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, he would bestow citizenship medals for faith, hope and charity.
Only Mr. Beck knows the alternative.
Continued at the New York Times | More Chronicle & Notices.
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