History Repeats Itself

            Marx told us that history repeats itself. He was referring to Napoleon I and Napolean III, but this quote defines how we learn any part of history. At a young age, our elementary school teachers tell us this to explain why we learn history. Confucius told us, “study the past if you would define the future.” Looking at wars, elections, or protests we can see how humans don’t change. Human nature has remained constant for thousands of years. How we interact with one another might have changed, but we still fight for the same truths.

    

Martin Luther King Jr. sits in a jail cell at the Jefferson County Courthouse in Birmingham,.

        Martin Luther King Jr. wrote Letter from the Birmingham Jail in 1963 sitting in a jail cell. He had been arrested in Birmingham, Alabama for taking part in a non-violent protest against racial segregation. Pieced together on scraps of paper, he formed a letter that gracefully responds to a statement made by Alabama clergymen acknowledging social injustice but wanting the fight for equality to take place in court instead of publically in the streets, and wanting the movement to wait. The incredibly skillful letter outlines why fighting needed to be visible and happen now. Over fifty years later, we can see the outcomes of King’s noble fight. Whether or not all the problems have been fixed, King’s effort was a huge step for human rights. The fight for human rights could be the most repeated process in the world’s history. This is a battle that is consistently replayed: a group of people is considered less worthy of certain rights, they fight for equality, and progress is made. Unfortunately, this pattern is found too many times, and is still occurring today. You would think society would learn that the oppressed people prevail in the end, and efforts to keep anyone from having less rights as anyone else fail.

            Further through the letter I could only think what Martin Luther King would say knowing a population of the United States is denied one of the most human experiences: getting married and starting a family. Just like the history of blacks in the United States, the treatment of gays has improved. Looking back to 1779, Thomas Jefferson proposed a law that would have castrated men for being gay. Attention to this portion of human rights took off with the Stonewall Riots in 1969, a year after King died. In 1984 the City of Berkeley adopted the first same-sex domestic partnership ordinance, and in 2000 Vermont adopted the nation’s first civil unions policy. Not until 2003 was gay sex legalized in all fifty states. In the past election state voters legalized gay marriage in Maine, Maryland, and Washington. Now I know gay marriage will not solve all problems that gay people face. Like the rapper Macklemore says, “And a certificate on paper isn’t gonna solve it all, but it’s a damn good place to start.”

            We can see the progress, study what has happened, and predict the future, but we shouldn’t need to. This has already happened, too many times, all around the world. We can look at any group of people who have been treated less than human and see how they have prevailed. This isn’t an argument for gay marriage, but an observation on the patterns of history. In fifty years, people opposing gay marriage will fall into the same category of the Alabama clergymen that King wrote to. It shouldn’t take another Martin Luther King Jr. The United States already experienced him, and only fifty years ago. Lots of people voting for the legalization of gay marriage were alive during King’s time. His words have not changed; they remain timeless in writing like Letters of a Birmingham jail or video footage of “I Have a Dream.” King writes, “This ‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never,’” waiting doesn’t need to happen; we all know the ending to this story. It’s what we learned in Elementary School.