The 50th Law (with 50 Cent)

part of his mission.
For the next few weeks he kept returning to Memphis to lend his
support and assistance, against the fierce resistance of the local
authorities. On Wednesday evening, April 4, he addressed another
crowd: “We got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter
with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop. . . . Like anybody,

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I would like to live a long life. . . . But I’m not concerned about that
now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the
mountain, and I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the promised land. I may
not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a
people will get to the promised land.”
The speech left him revitalized and in a good mood. The next day he
expressed some concern about an upcoming march that could turn
violent but said fear should not stop them from proceeding. “I’d rather
be dead than afraid,” he told an aide. That evening, he dressed and
prepared for a dinner at a restaurant with his aides, and running late,
he finally appeared on the balcony outside his motel room when a rifle
shot rang out and a single bullet pierced his neck. He died within an
hour.
• • •
Interpretation: Martin Luther King Jr. was a complex man with
several sides to his character. There was the pleasure-loving King, who
loved nice clothes, food, dances, women, and mischievous behavior.
There was the practical King, always wanting to solve people’s
problems and think things through thoroughly. There was the
sensitive, introspective King, a side that increasingly inclined him
toward spiritual pursuits. These sides were often in conflict from
within, as he succumbed to passing moods. This was what often caused
him to agonize over decisions. Associates would often be troubled by
how deeply he considered his options and how often he doubted
himself, imagining that he was not worthy of the role that he had been
called upon to play.
His relationship to his father reflected this complexity. On the one
hand, he truly loved and respected him, enough to consider becoming
a minister and emulating his style of leadership. On the other hand, he
became aware from a very early age of the dangers that would ensue if
he allowed himself to be overwhelmed by his father’s dominating
presence. His younger brother, A.D. King, lacked such awareness, a
fact that caused him much pain in his life. A.D. became a minister, but
he never could assert his independence. His career was erratic as he
moved from one church to another. He developed an alcohol problem
and later in life revealed a definite self-destructive streak that troubled
his older brother. A.D. lived in their father’s shadow.

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Something from deep within Martin Jr. impelled him to create
some distance and autonomy. This meant not mindlessly rebelling
against his father, which in the end would simply have revealed how
defined he had been by him in reverse. It meant understanding the
differences between them and using these differences as levers to
create space. It meant taking the best from his father—his discipline,
his high sense of principle, his caring nature. And it meant going his
own way when something from deep within urged him to do so. He
taught himself to listen to such intuitions, which led to his decision to
begin his public career in Montgomery and to accept the MIA
leadership position. In such moments, it was as if he could foresee his
destiny and drop his habit of overthinking things.
Then, a few weeks after becoming the MIA leader, as he began to
feel the increasing tension that went with the position, the many sides
of his character suddenly took over and led to an inner crisis. There
was the self-doubting King, the fearful King, the practical King
frustrated by the endless obstacles and infighting, the King who
yearned for a simpler and more pleasant life. This inner conflict
paralyzed him. And as all of that reached a peak the night he entered
his kitchen, suddenly those inclinations and intuitions that had guided
him before in his life transformed into an actual voice, the voice of
God, clarifying his destiny and offering continual support. He could
hear this voice so clearly from within that it would echo and
reverberate throughout his life.
From then on, in conversations and speeches, he would continually
refer to this “voice” that now guided him. And with this voice the
doubts, fears, and debilitating inner conflicts would disappear. He
could feel integrated on a whole new level. Certainly the moods and
anxieties would return, but so would the voice, making his mission
clear to him.
People were often surprised, and sometimes perturbed, by how
strategic he had become as his leadership role expanded to a national
level. During and after every civil rights campaign, he would conduct
deep analysis of the actions and reactions of the other side, learning
lessons and honing tactics. For some, this did not square with his
position as a spiritual leader—for instance, his decision to use children
and teenagers in Birmingham as a means to fill the city jails. Ministers
were not supposed to think like that. But to King, such pragmatism
was intimately connected to his mission. To merely inspire people with

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speeches was sentimental, and he hated that. To not think deeply
about results was to merely seek attention for appearing righteous, and
to gratify the ego. He wanted to effect change, to dramatically and
palpably alter the conditions of blacks in the South.
And so he came to understand that the game was about gaining
leverage against the whites in power, who resisted change at every
step. He had to use sit-ins and boycotts to maximize the pain they felt,
even during the negotiating process. He had to maximize the attention
from the press and bring into the living rooms of white America the
ugly reality of life in the South for blacks. His strategic objective was
their conscience. He had to keep the movement unified in the face of
the increasing desire for violence among younger blacks. And as the
voice reminded him of his ultimate purpose, to stand up for and bring
about real justice, he naturally felt compelled to widen the struggle into
a mass civil disobedience campaign.
In a sense, King would serve as the voice for black America,
assuming a role similar to that of the voice that had guided him. He
would strive to bring unity to the cause and keep the movement
focused on practical results instead of debilitating infighting.
His bouts of depression, which became more intense in the later
years, stemmed from his deep sensitivity not only to the people around
him (the envy and continual criticisms he faced) but to the zeitgeist.
Before others did, he sensed the mood in America, the grim reality of
the war in Vietnam, the despair in the inner cities, the restlessness of
the young and their hunger to escape reality through drugs, the
cowardice of the political leadership. He linked this with his own sense
of doom—he knew he would be assassinated. Such moods would
overwhelm him. But the voice he had heard so many years before in
Montgomery allowed him to squelch his fears and rise above the
depression. Whenever he felt connected to his mission and purpose in
life, he would experience a profound sense of fulfillment. He was doing
what he was called to do, and he would not have traded this life for any
other. In his last days, the connection grew deeper: he would bring
change to the people of Memphis, but his fate would cut this short.