A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State (35 page)

By this time, King was already seen as a troublemaker. Understanding that if you cut off the head, the movement dies, King began to panic as his ride with the police continued:

By this time we were passing under the bridge. I was sure now that I was going to meet my fateful hour on the other side. But as I looked up I noticed a glaring light in the distance, and soon I saw the words "Montgomery City Jail." I was so relieved that it was some time before I realized the irony of my position: going to jail at that moment seemed like going to some safe haven!
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As the jail doors slammed shut behind King, he felt a strong inner peace: "For the moment strange gusts of emotion swept through me like cold winds on an open prairie. For the first time in my life I had been thrown behind bars."
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Taking a Stand

Soon King's bail was posted and he was free to leave, but King's rendezvous with jail cells was just beginning. More importantly, the movement that began in Montgomery, Alabama, was moving beyond state borders. A nationwide movement was in process, making King even more of a target.

Several weeks later, King happened to be in Nashville, Tennessee, giving a lecture when he learned that he, with others, had been indicted by a grand jury for violating Montgomery's segregation laws. He immediately booked a flight home, stopping over to see his father in Atlanta. Martin Luther King Sr. recognized that a new scenario had developed. The threat was no longer jail time. It was death. "My father, so unafraid for himself," writes King, "had fallen into a constant state of terror for me and my family."

Earlier, King's home in Montgomery had been bombed and the police were watching his every move. After the bombing, King's mother had taken to bed under doctor's orders.

King's father brought some of Atlanta's leading citizens into his home to speak with his son about the dangers of returning to Montgomery. But King knew that often courage in the face of tyranny is all that the oppressed have at their disposal. It was time, as King said, to take a stand. As he told those assembled:

My friends and associates are being arrested. It would be the height of cowardice for me to stay away. I would rather be in jail ten years than desert my people now. I have begun the struggle, and I can't turn back. I have reached the point of no return.
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Upon arrival in Montgomery, King headed for jail to discover that the others indicted with King had the day before surrendered for arrest. "A once fear-ridden people had been transformed. Those who had previously trembled before the law were now proud to be arrested for the cause of freedom."
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Nonviolent Resistance

Against incredible odds, the blacks of Montgomery not only won the right to be treated equally on the city's buses. Soon the movement took on amazing proportions which would compel a government that refused to hear their pleas to listen and heed their demands. But not a shot was fired by blacks of Montgomery.

Led by a man who believed in nonviolent resistance to government oppression, these brave people would soon transform the face of America–a man who believed that governments must listen to and heed our demands. If not, then it is within our power as a free people to press for change. And when government doesn't listen, then, in the words of King, we can engage in peaceful, nonviolent resistance.

CHAPTER 29

Know Your Rights or You Will Lose Them

It astonishes me to find ... [that so many] of our countrymen ... should be contented to live under a system which leaves to their governors the power of taking from them the trial by jury in civil cases, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of commerce, the habeas corpus laws, and of yoking them with a standing army. This is a degeneracy in the principles of liberty ... which I [would not have expected for at least] four centuries."
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–THOMAS JEFFERSON

W
hether we can turn things around will depend on how many Americans are willing to learn their rights and take appropriate stands for freedom.

Militant Nonviolence

"Most citizens," writes author and journalist Nat Hentoff "are largely uneducated about their own constitutional rights and liberties."
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The following true incident is a case in point for Hentoff's claim. A young attorney preparing to address a small gathering about the need to protect freedom, especially in the schools, wrote the text of the First Amendment on a blackboard. After carefully reading the text, a woman in the audience approached the attorney, pointed to the First Amendment on the board and remarked, "My, the law is really changing. Is this new?" The woman was a retired schoolteacher.

For more than two hundred years, Americans have enjoyed the freedoms of speech, assembly, and religion, among others, without ever really studying the source of those liberties, found in the Bill of Rights. Yet never has there been a time when knowing our rights has been more critical and safeguarding them more necessary.

Thus, it is vital that we gain a better understanding of what Thomas Jefferson described as "fetters against doing evil."
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If not, I fear that with each passing day, what Jefferson called the "degeneracy" of "the principles of liberty" will grow worse until, half asleep, Americans will lose what our forefathers fought and died for.

Martin Luther King Jr. certainly understood the imperative to know your rights and then engage in expressive activity to further the cause of freedom. King knew very well that government is a reactive institution not a proactive one–that is, government reacts to "we the people" when we the people get active. As King wrote in an essay published shortly after he was assassinated:

We need to put pressure on Congress to get things done. We will do this with First Amendment activity. If Congress is unresponsive, we'll have to escalate in order to keep the issue alive and before it. This action may take on disruptive dimensions, but not violent in the sense of destroying life or property: it will be militant nonviolence.
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The Bill of Rights

In other words, an active citizenry is all that stands between us and an authoritarian government. Education, thus, precedes action. It's time to become educated about your rights. A short summary of the first ten amendments shows how vital these freedoms are.

The First Amendment
protects the freedom to assemble together and speak your mind and protest in peace without being bridled by the government. It also protects the freedom of the media, as well as the right to worship and pray without interference. In other words, Americans cannot be silenced by the government.

The Second Amendment
guarantees "the right of the people to keep and bear arms." This is one of the most controversial provisions of the Bill of Rights. Indeed, there are those who claim that gun ownership in America should be restricted solely to the police and other government officials. In many countries, owning a firearm is a mere privilege, reserved for the rich and powerful. Self-protection, however, is not a privilege in America. It is an individual citizen right that the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized.

Protesters for Peace (Student movements and demonstrations (UA023.025.073), Special Collections Research Center, North Carolina State University Libraries.)

America was born during a time of martial law. British troops stationed themselves in homes and entered property without regard for the rights of the owners. That is why
The Third Amendment
prohibits the military from entering any citizen's home without "the consent of the owner." While Americans no longer have to fear the quartering of troops in their homes, the safeguards keeping the government–including the military–out of our homes are fast eroding. Increasingly, the threat of martial law being imposed is a clear and present danger.

There's a knock at the door. The police charge in and begin searching your home. They invade your privacy, rummaging through your belongings. You may think you're powerless to stop them, but you're not.
The Fourth Amendment
prohibits the government from searching your home without a warrant approved by a judge. But what about other kinds of invasions? Your telephone, mail, emails, computer, and medical records are now subject to governmental search. Even though they're all personal and private, they are increasingly at risk for unwarranted intrusion by government agents. The ominous rise of the surveillance state threatens the protections given us by this amendment.

You cannot be tried again after having been found innocent. The government cannot try you repeatedly for the same crime, hoping to get the result they want. It's one of the legal protections of
The Fifth Amendment
. Moreover, you cannot be forced to testify against yourself. You can "plead the Fifth." This means that if you are accused of committing a crime, it is up to the state to prove its case against you. You are innocent until proven guilty, and government authorities cannot deprive you of your life, your liberty, or your property without following strict legal codes of conduct.

The Sixth Amendment
spells out the right to a "speedy and public trial." An accused person can confront the witnesses against him and demand to know the nature of the charge. The government cannot legally keep someone in jail for unspecified offenses. Moreover, unlike many other countries, Americans also have the right to be tried by a jury of ordinary citizens and to be represented by an attorney. Our fates in criminal proceedings are not decided by panels of judges or unaccountable politicians.

Property ownership is a fundamental right of free people. In a legal dispute over property,
The Seventh Amendment
guarantees citizens the right to a jury trial.

Like any other American citizen, those accused of being criminals have rights under the Constitution as well. In some countries, the government abuses what they see as disloyal or troublesome citizens by keeping them in jail indefinitely on trumped-up charges. If they cannot pay their bail, then they're not released.
The Eighth Amendment
is, thus, similar to the Sixth–it protects the rights of the accused. These are often the people most susceptible to abuse and who have the least resources to defend themselves. This amendment also forbids the use of cruel and unusual punishment.

The framers of our Constitution were so concerned about civil liberties that they wished to do everything conceivable to protect our future freedom. Some of the framers opposed a bill of rights because it might appear that these were the only rights the people possessed.
The Ninth Amendment
remedied that by providing that other rights not listed were nonetheless retained by the people. Our rights are inherently ours, and our government was created to protect them. The government does not, nor did it ever, have the power to grant us our rights. Popular sovereignty–the belief that the power to govern flows upward from the people rather than downward from the rulers–is clearly evident in this amendment and is a landmark of American freedom.

The framers established a federal system of government. This means that power is divided among local, state and national entities.
The Tenth Amendment
reminds the national government that the people and the states retain every authority that is not otherwise mentioned in the Constitution. Congress and the President have increasingly assumed more power than the Constitution grants them. However, it's up to the people and the state governments to make sure that they obey the law of the land.

"We the People"

Having stood the test of time, there is little doubt that the Bill of Rights is one of the greatest statements for freedom ever drafted and put into effect. In the end, however, it is the vigilance of "we the people" that will keep the freedoms we hold so dear alive. Therefore, know your rights, exercise them freely or you're going to lose them. If freedom is to survive in an environment where the government continues to ignore and oppress its citizens, then we will need to think and act like revolutionaries–nonviolent ones, that is.

CHAPTER 30

Compliant Lambs or Nonviolent Gadflies?