From the Introduction   This is a new kind of book about the world vision of Martin Luther King, Jr. Too many people continue to think of Dr. King as "a southern civil rights leader" or "an American Gandhi," thus ignoring his impact on poor and oppressed people everywhere.  "In a Single Garment of Destiny"  is the first book to treat King''s positions on global liberation struggles through the prism of his own words and activities.  The purpose is not only celebration, but also a critical engagement with a towering figure whose ideas and social praxis have become so significant in the reshaping of the modern world.   King''s interest in the problems of the poor and oppressed worldwide was evident long before he achieved national and international prominence.  He came out of a family background that encouraged a concern for world affairs; his own father, Martin Luther King, Sr., the distinguished pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, communicated with black South African activists and addressed the problems of racism and poverty in America and in other lands when King, Jr.

was a child. Inspired by this family tradition, King, Jr., at age fifteen, in a high school speech called, "The Negro and the Constitution," spoke of the resonating irony of an America claiming freedom while denying basic rights to blacks, and also referred to the United States'' moral responsibility in a world that threatened the true flowering of democracy. As a student at Atlanta''s Morehouse College and at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania in the late forties and early fifties, King, Jr. came to the conclusion that blacks in America would not win genuine freedom as long as peoples of color abroad suffered on grounds of race and economics.             King had experiences in Montgomery, Alabama that not only increased his interest in international events, but also solidified his commitment to ending racism, poverty, colonialism, and other social evils that disproportionately afflicted black Americans and peoples in the so-called Third World.  While serving as pastor of Montgomery''s Dexter Avenue Baptist Church from 1954 to 1959, King occasionally drew parallels between white racism in the United States and European colonialism in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and it was his conviction that the black struggle in the Jim Crow South had much to contribute to and learn from movements for independence abroad. This conviction matured during the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955-56, and was significantly reinforced when King attended the independence celebrations in Ghana at the request of Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah in March, 1957, and also when he visited India, "the land of Gandhi," in 1959.

  Inspired by his experiences and travels abroad, King actually joined the American Committee on Africa (ACOA) in the late 1950s, a New York-based organization of Christian pacifists who contributed to freedom movements inside South Africa, and who advocated nonviolent approaches in the assault on systems of oppression everywhere.              The 1960s brought similar involvements on King''s part.  Although his work through his Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the ACOA, and the American Negro Leadership Conference on Africa (ANLCA) are more widely known, he also endorsed and supported numerous organizations throughout the world that contributed financially, morally, and in other ways to freedom movements.   King actually combined such activities with a powerful and consistent advocacy for world peace in pulpits throughout America and in other parts of the world.   As far back as the late 1950s, he had called for the total eradication of war, and, by the early 1960s, had signed numerous statements with other liberal Americans condemning nuclear testing.   By the time of his death in April, 1968, King had become completely convinced that the achievement of world peace and community hinged on the elimination of what he called "the world''s three greatest social evils"; namely, racism, poverty, and war. (See Part I, "All of God''s Children: Toward a Global Vision.")            More specifics on how King sought to connect the civil rights movement with freedom struggles abroad would be helpful here in grasping the depth of his belief in  global liberation, or what he called "a new world order.

" In July, 1957, King joined Eleanor Roosevelt and Bishop James A. Pike as initial sponsors, under the auspices of the ACOA, of the worldwide  Declaration of Conscience , a document included in this volume. The declaration proclaimed December 10, 1957, Human Rights Day, as a day to protest against the organized inhumanity of the South African Government and its racial apartheid policies, and it urged churches, universities, trade unions, business and professional organizations, veteran groups, and members of all other free associations to devote the day to prayer, demonstrations, acts of civil disobedience, and other forms of nonviolent protest. The  Declaration of Conscience , signed by 123 heads of state and religious leaders and scholars, actually symbolized, perhaps more than anything else, King''s efforts to establish links between the struggle in the American South and the black South African anti-apartheid cause.           In July, 1962, King and the black South African leader Albert J. Luthuli became co-sponsors, under the banner of the ACOA, of the worldwide  Appeal for Action Against Apartheid , a declaration also included in this book.   This crusade was in the nature of a follow-up to the global effort of 1957.  King and Luthuli, both ministers and activists committed to nonviolence, had communicated with each other through the mail since the late 1950s, and, although they never met, they shared a commitment to the poor and the oppressed everywhere, or what King called "the least of these.

"   The  Appeal for Action Against Apartheid  called upon churches, unions, lodges, clubs, and other groups and associations to make December 10, 1962, Human Rights day, a day for meetings, protest, and prayer, and to urge their governments to push for the international isolation of South Africa through diplomatic and economic sanctions against that country.  Aside from King and Luthuli, 150 social activists and religious and world leaders signed the appeal.  At that same time, King and his SCLC were launching a major campaign to strike down the entire system of segregation in Albany, Georgia.             King''s strategy was to build a coalition of conscience in America while contributing to a larger, worldwide coalition of conscience to challenge racism internationally.  He made major speeches on South African apartheid in England in December, 1964, while en route to Oslo, Norway to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, and at Hunter College in New York in December, 1965.   In the 1964 speech, King highlighted the need for the release of imprisoned black South African leaders such as Nelson Mandela and Robert Sobukwe, and challenged the world community, especially the United States and England, to withdraw all economic support for the South African regime, including the purchase of gold.   Unfortunately, King''s statements on the white supremacist policies and practices of the South African government at that time received little or no attention from major media sources in America and Europe.    In the 1965 speech, delivered after King and his coalition of conscience had spearheaded a successful voting rights campaign in Selma, Alabama, King reiterated the call for economic sanctions against South Africa, and he declared that "the potent nonviolent path" that had brought racial change in the U.

S. and liberation to India and regions in Africa should be employed on a more global scale to defeat the forces of racism in South Africa and globally.  The failure to respond creatively and constructively to racism as a world problem, said King in one of his last books,  Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?  (1967), could only lead to a race war and perhaps the fall of Western civilization.  Interestingly enough, King''s call for economic sanctions would be echoed repeatedly in the 1980s, twenty years later, as the world grew less and less tolerant of the South African apartheid system.  In recent years, the United Nations has held a number of international conferences on racism, and this should also be a reminder of the timelessness of certain concerns that King raised around that issue.  King recognized in his own time that the dialogue on race necessarily had to be reframed, far beyond but not neglecting black-white relations in the United States, and this need continues today. Predictions of the emergence of a post-racial America (and world) after the election of President Barack Obama have proven premature, and some scholars are now writing about the globalization of racism. King wrote of this phenomenon years ago, and his prescience and the continuing relevance of his insights need to be appreciated and better understood.

(The documents included in Parts II and III, including "The Color Bar" and "Breaking the Bonds of Colonialism" have much to offer, regarding racist ideology and practices.)             King felt that the assault on world racism could not.