At the end of his 1957 address, “A Look to the Future,” Martin Luther King Jr. curiously focused on the word “maladjusted.”
It was a popular buzz word for child psychologists of the time, King explained to the audience at Highlander Folk School in Monteagle, Tenn. Then he began applying the generally offensive word to himself: “There are some things in our social system to which I am proud to be maladjusted.”
The Baptist minister, Nobel Peace Prize winner and legendary civil rights activist offered other examples: “I never intend to adjust myself to the viciousness of mob rule. I never intend to adjust myself to the evils of segregation and the crippling effects of discrimination. I never intend to adjust myself to the tragic inequalities of an economic system which takes necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes.”
King’s speech should serve as a reminder to us that no matter how far we’ve come — or perhaps more appropriately, failed to come — on issues of equality, education, housing, income and quality of life, we must never quietly adjust ourselves to accepting inequality as normal or acceptable.
While the inequalities of our times spark less violent responses from society than in King’s day, they still exist. And they are in some ways, still tragic. Black unemployment was 8.3 percent in December – its lowest rate since before the recession began (and less than half of what it was at its 16.8-percent peak in 2010). But the rate is far higher than it is for white unemployment — 4.5 percent.
The median weekly paycheck for a white college graduate in 2014 was $1,132. For a Black college graduate it was $895 — about $230 less a week, according to Economist.com. Blacks suffer disproportionately from major diseases, incarceration, police brutality and poor schools. Pessimists will say that we’ve been fighting these issues since King’s days, since the civil rights leader 50 years ago shared his dreams and quoted negro spirituals. But as long as the inequality exists, we must actively resist it. Be maladjusted to it.
There are some talented and skillful leaders featured in in The Tribune’s supplement pages today. They include Cornell Brooks of the NAACP and Loretta Lynch, the first Black woman U.S. District Attorney.
But King, during that address at the Highlander Folk School, was not just directing his comments to a handful of great leaders, although there were some in the crowd that day – from Rosa Parks to Ralph Abernathy. King was talking to the ordinary man in the audience and everyday man in reach of his words.
“I call upon you to be maladjusted,” he said. “Well you see, it may be that the salvation of the world lies in the hands of the maladjusted.”
https://www.phillytrib.com/commentary/let-s-be-like-rev-king-remain-maladjusted/article_249d4d8d-c9e6-5ac3-a5c4-58a4bb13ec88.html
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