Taylor Branch believes Glenn Beck’s professed admiration for the non-violent philosophy of Martin Luther King is genuine. Since Branch spent a quarter of a century immersed in the details of Dr. King’s legacy I am not inclined to reject his conclusions out of hand, even if they diverge from my own.
By his own admission, Glenn Beck is an average guy with a charismatic persona and little formal education. You can’t expect intellectual consistency from such a man. In fact, it is precisely this everyman status that makes Beck interesting: in many respects he is a mirror image of his followers. Beck is popular because he voices the inarticulate concerns of poorly educated, reasonably successful and instinctively conservative white Americans.
But his intellectual limitations have never held the popular pundit back. His head may be on the small side but he has a big heart–and this is where Mr. Branch, charitably, focuses his attention. Evidence abounds that, until quite recently, Glenn Beck shared the far right’s standard evaluation of Dr. King: an idealist liberal and revolutionary hell-raiser with strong socialist leanings. Conservatives and liberals rarely read each other’s mail, so it is not surprising that a man like Glenn Beck had never examined King and the movement he led in any real depth.
Then, Branch tells us, Glenn Beck got a letter from Alveda King, the niece of the slain civil rights leader. Ms. King is the kind of black conservative that drives liberals crazy. She cherishes her uncle’s commitment to civil rights; but she is also an outspoken of abortion and gay rights, and it was these issues that drove her into Glenn Beck’s corner.
Here we are dealing with two good-hearted people who were able to communicate at a deep level because neither appreciated the enormous ideological gulf fixed between them. Alveda may someday appreciate the strong links between Glenn’s brand of conservatism and the sinister underbelly of American racism. Glenn may someday realize that the goals of the civil rights movement were diametrically opposed to the ideas and ideals scrawled across his famous chalk board. But because Alveda and Glenn hadn’t figured all this stuff out they were able to talk.
According to Branch’s New York Times Op-ed, Ms. King came to their first meeting clutching a souvenir from the civil rights movement, “a 10-point ‘pledge of nonviolence,’ a copy of the form signed by demonstrators preparing to face persecution and jail.” This document, Branch says, stuck Mr. Beck “with the force of revelation.” As Glenn told his television audience, “These people were serious about nonviolence”.
Face-to-face with the principles that drove Dr. King’s civil rights activism, Beck had an awakening of sorts. According to Branch:
He posted the commandments on his Web site, then analyzed them over several broadcasts on the Fox network last April: “No. 3 is ‘walk and talk in the manner of love.’ This one’s going to be hard.” Sacrifice personal wishes, he recited, that all may be free. Observe with friend and foe the ordinary rules of courtesy. Remember the nonviolent movement seeks justice and reconciliation, not victory.
Mr. Beck extolled disciplined sacrifice by marginal, misunderstood people, noting that most newspapers had branded Dr. King a troublemaker stirring up violence. He added his own saucy twist to the final pledge: As you prepare to march, meditate on the life and teachings of Jesus. “If it’s Buddha, it’s Buddha. If it’s Moses, it’s Moses. But meditate,” Mr. Beck exhorted his viewers. “Jesus, he’s my guy. Your guy might be different.”
Branch isn’t suggesting that Beck became an instant convert to King’s non-violent philosophy, but he was able to appreciate, perhaps for the first time, the heroic dimension of King’s movement. Civil rights protesters were like the Pilgrims who settled New England and the settlers who, in a later generation, opened up the frontier regions of America. They were like the soldiers who stormed the beaches of Iwo Jima. They were heroes.
Here’s where things get curious. You can’t celebrate the civil rights movement without rejecting the “state’s rights” conservatism of the southern whites who stood on the comfortable end of the fire hoses and the german shepherds. Has Mr. Beck figured that out?
Probably not. But then, neither have most of his followers. Americans, by and large, have made a place in their civil lexicon for the ideals of the civil rights movement (watered down to the colorblind principle of equal opportunity) and the limited government anti-communism championed by southern segregationists. When Beck returns to his chalk board will we find him extolling the memory of Martin Luther King and George Wallace?
If so, how should progressives respond? Should we denounce Beck as an intellectually inconsistent moron, or should we celebrate the fact that he has finally found a place on the chalk board for what Taylor Branch calls “the liberal half of the American heritage”?
I’m not sure. Glenn Beck is a walking demonstration that having a good heart isn’t enough. But if he keeps saying nice things about Dr. King, he may also prove that some folks must feel their way to the truth. A Glenn Beck spouting the ideas of Martin Luther King and George Wallace (circa 1968) is a big improvement over a Glenn Beck who knows nothing but Wallace. In an age of culture war confusion, we must rejoice in minor miracles.
Friends of Justice 
I hope that Glenn Beck’s conversion will bring about the face to face meeting that Jim Wallis has been asking for, and that both will come to the meeting with agape-charity in their hearts. I hope they can say with John Wesley, “Is thine heart right with mine, as mine is with thine. It is enough. Give me thy hand.” [Quote may not be exactly right.]
Incidentally–or maybe not–Patricia and I were asked to help serve communion in the Methodist church in Tulia this morning. There are people in that church who were adamantly and outspokenly opposed to our stand re: the drug sting. Most have come to peace with us. But one in particular still tries to avoid face-to-face contact. I was gratified to be asked, but wondered if some people might object to being served the presence of the body and blood of Christ by us. Sure enough, this one person came to the communion rail and received the sacrament from our hands. I’m going to believe it was significant unless and until I am shone otherwise.
I don’t know many people who would describe Glenn Beck as having a “good heart.” How do we know this? His rants about socialist-communist conspiracies, social justice = evil and President Obama as a racist offers little in the way of proof that Beck is simply some good guy with a “good heart.” There have been many charismatic tv personalities over the years who convincingly came across as having a good heart. See the Trinity Broadcast Network. Lots of fooled grandmas out there.
I like Taylor Branch and appreciate his work. Several of his edited volumes on Dr. King are sitting here in my office. I trust his opinions on Dr. King. But, unless I missed something, Branch doesn’t know Glenn Beck and his conclusions are those of an outside observer like everyone else.
What if Glen Beck lives up to this pledge? What if his followers did? Would there be hope that we’d have a government based on faith, hope, and charity and not base on fear, rage, and hate? In other words, on mindlessness? If there is anger, let it be rational and let it be linked to clear thinking and examination of what has worked and not worked the past.
Excellent comments. My guess is that folks like Taylor Branch, because they are so deeply invested in the civil rights legacy, are hoping against hope that it has not been completely abandoned. I doubt Glenn Beck would be able to take his constituency with him if his conversion to the principles of the civil rights movement proves to be genuine. He is popular largely because he vocalizes popular sentiments; if he starts thinking for himself he will glance over his shoulder and notice that he has lost half his following.
I think a man like Beck can have a good heart and still do a great deal of damage because his head is so out of touch with the real world. On the other hand, if he genuinely wants to do the right thing there is always hope that his grasp of reality will improve.
What’s more interesting from our perspective about this Glenn Beck phenomenon is that “The Folks in Control,” however one might characterize them in terms of race, status, class, wealth, geographic location or whatever, allowed our current situation to develop over arguably the last 50 – 100 years, and now there are complaints by a vocal group of concerned citizens.
Is it possible, as postulated by some, that the liberal, conservative, progressive, corporate and banking interests, and libertarian POWER FORCES in our society are laughing all the way to the bank, and that we minions with little money and power (the members of the Institute for Applied Common Sense included) are the ones complaining? And that because of new technological advances in communication and the power of the Internet, the voice of the minions is now being disseminated with greater force, essentially saying, “Stop! Enough is enough!”?
Furthermore, is this a case of the minions fighting for limited scraps at the bottom of the heap, while the real riches are controlled by a few? Have we at the bottom been pitted against one another?
Is this arguably a populist movement somewhat similar to the one led by “the Great Commoner,” William Jennings Bryan at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th Centuries?
Is what we are experiencing simply the most vocal expression of the perhaps 80% of we citizens at the bottom of the heap?
The much-maligned William Jennings Bryan opposed the teaching of evolution in large part because he opposed the then-popular notion of social Darwinism, the idea that, in the natural order of things, the brightest and the best prosper at the expense of the poor. Therefore, social programs designed to help the poor enable the weak and undeserving thus polluting the gene pool. The eugenics movement, discredited by the Nazis, was a natural outgrowth of this kind of thinking. Bryan doesn’t fit easily into contemporary categories. Religiously conservative, he was socially progressive. He opposed biological evolution because he saw it as the twin cousin of social Darwinism. He may have been right.
Alan Bean
Even if Glenn Beck has had a change of heart, he still ain’t no MLK, no more than Dan Quayle is JFK.
It astounds me that ANYONE, let alone Taylor Branch, would ever drop their guard in believing a single thing that Glenn Beck says. He is a pure hate-machine. He has done more damage to our republic in the rise of the neo-KKK Tea Party base with his outright lies and calls for violence that calling falling for this latest con unspeakably irresponsible. The Fascists of the GOP saying they want to negotiate on something . . . anything . . . and I suppose Branch would believe that too. I’m dumbfounded at the dangerous naivety. You cannot EVER trust a fascist, especially one with the track record of Glenn Beck. I think I’m going to be sick hearing that Branch just jumped the rails like this.
I think recent history has shown how wrong Branch is. Excellent historians would do well to research links between KKK rhetoric and the Tea Party rhetoric. They might also take a look at the NRA and KKK rhetoric. The US is a big tent, but those who think they are in charge are shoving far too many people out into the cold.