--- title: How the World Mourned Martin Luther King Jr.'s Global Vision description: Many Americans tend to think of Martin Luther King Jr. solely as a leader of African Americans, overlooking his worldwide reach. canonical: https://time.com/5224787/martin-luther-king-global-vision/ author: Jason Sokol article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-04-04T14:00:01.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-12T09:05:05.896Z article:section: History og:title: How the World Mourned Martin Luther King Jr.'s Global Vision og:description: Many Americans tend to think of Martin Luther King Jr. solely as a leader of African Americans, overlooking his worldwide reach og:url: https://time.com/5224787/martin-luther-king-global-vision/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc45d9170e4ae613f/69892c8f0a4a224e169d248c/mlk1.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2405 og:image:height: 1353 og:image:alt: MLK in Berlin og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How the World Mourned Martin Luther King Jr.'s Global Vision twitter:description: Many Americans tend to think of Martin Luther King Jr. solely as a leader of African Americans, overlooking his worldwide reach twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc45d9170e4ae613f/69892c8f0a4a224e169d248c/mlk1.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Martin Luther King Jr.'s Vision Was More Global Than We Remember. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-sub-2026q3/newsletters?i=3f6c93d0-b21f-4fef-bf36-c6700b587055&cr=time-sub-2026q3-v1) * TIME Subscriptions: [time.com/subscribe-agent](/c/time-sub-2026q3/subscribe?i=3f6c93d0-b21f-4fef-bf36-c6700b587055&cr=time-sub-2026q3-v1) ## Video: A Lasting Legacy [Watch (HLS stream): A Lasting Legacy](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/NGyDN8dT.m3u8) (6:49)  _Published 2013-08-13. Five decades after the March on Washington, Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of social justice for all is still a work in progress._ by [Jason Sokol](https://time.com/author/jason-sokol/) ## Jason Sokol Apr 4, 2018 2:00 PM UTC by [Jason Sokol](https://time.com/author/jason-sokol/) ## Jason Sokol Apr 4, 2018 2:00 PM UTC Many Americans tend to think of Martin Luther King Jr. solely as a leader of African Americans — or, even more narrowly, of southern blacks. We overlook his worldwide reach and his global vision. Half a century after King’s death, that vision remains both strikingly relevant and sadly unrealized. Just as King hoped white Americans could simply treat African Americans as human beings, he believed that people across the world ought to view each other as brothers and sisters. In 2018, as a [wave](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/05/world/europe/italy-election-northern-league-populists-migrants.html) of angry [nationalism](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/italy-elections-2018-migrants-berlusconi-italians-first-refugees-deportation-coalition-a8216721.html) sweeps [across](http://www.dw.com/en/rising-nationalism-and-the-eus-split-with-the-east/a-42073959) the globe and white supremacist movements gain strength, such basic precepts assume a radical cast. King often pointed out that national boundaries were artificial. In September of 1964, during a visit to Germany, he thrilled audiences in both East and West Berlin with his talk of the need for brotherhood to a people divided by the Berlin Wall. On the night of Sept. 13, a crowd of two thousand packed St. Mary’s Church in East Berlin while thousands more waited outside. Speaking from the pulpit, King called Berlin “a symbol of the divisions of men on the face of the earth. For here on either side of the wall are God’s children and no man-made barrier can obliterate that fact.” King continued: “Regardless of the barriers of race, creed, ideology, or nationality, there is an inescapable destiny which binds us together. There is a common humanity which makes us sensitive to the sufferings of one another.” He told of the black freedom struggle in the United States, offered a message of hope for those who endured state repression, and highlighted the cruelty and foolishness of the wall. Later that year, he received the Nobel Peace Prize — proof of his glowing reputation abroad. He then called for a worldwide boycott against South Africa and intensified his criticism of the apartheid regime. For all of this, King became that much more of a hero to freedom fighters and dissenters across many continents. In Africa and Asia, and on both sides of the Cold War, King was regarded as a leader in the struggles against racism, poverty, colonialism and imperialism. He burnished that reputation when he spoke forcefully against the Vietnam War. One year before his death, on April 4, 1967, King delivered his most famous antiwar address. In New York City’s Riverside Church, he proclaimed: --- > “” --- It was as though King had spoken directly to future leaders who might deny asylum to refugees, tear families apart with deportations, or campaign on the idea of building border walls between nations. “We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate,” King declared. When King was assassinated in Memphis, on April 4, 1968, many citizens across the world experienced that loss just as powerfully as did African Americans. On every continent, throngs of people gathered in public squares and places of worship to honor Martin Luther King. At St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Nairobi, Tom Mboya, Kenya’s minister of planning, read King’s final speech to an overflow crowd that included members of parliament. A visiting church worker from Indianapolis taught the audience the words to “We Shall Overcome.” The Pope hailed King during Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica. In Paris, hundreds gathered at the Cirque d’Hiver, including labor leaders, intellectuals and heroes of the French resistance during World War II. They mixed homages to King with denunciations of the United States, so enraged were they by America’s racial injustice at home as well as its waging of the Vietnam War. In London, the House of Commons passed a motion expressing outrage at King’s assassination. Soon the Labour government introduced a piece of anti-discrimination legislation known as the Race Relations Act. Thousands of Britons gathered on the steps of St. Paul’s Cathedral, where King had spoken in 1964, and spilled out onto the street to hear tributes to King. Speakers reflected on King’s life and performers led the crowds in song. The _Times of London_ called King’s death a great loss “to a world that had come to love and respect him.” In life and in death, King’s global vision resonated far and wide. As he said at Riverside Church in April 1967: “History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate….Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world.” King led the crusade for a world without walls. He foresaw that the struggle for this new world would be beautiful. He also warned that it would be long and bitter. **_Historians explain how the past informs the present_** _Jason Sokol is the author of_ [The Heavens Might Crack: The Death and Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.,](https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/jason-sokol/the-heavens-might-crack/9780465055913/) _available now._ ## Transcript >> I remember the day when the March in Washington was all over. We went back down to the White House. President Kennedy invited us back down. And he stood in the door of the Oval Office and greeted each one of us. He was like a proud beaming father that everything had gone so well. >> For months after that, we just saw a really harvested-- the emotional joy of what we have done. >> The joy that we took home with us out of that-- out of that arena inspired us to start thinking about what could we do beyond what we were doing already. And the lesson is not to stop, not to give up. >> If you asked us back then that Barack Obama would be in the White House today, we would say no way. >> When people laughed as Dr. King suggested, we wouldn't have went back home back to the heart of the deep south to intensify efforts to gain a vote, to get a Civil Rights Bill passed, but 18 days after the march was the terrible bombing of the church in Birmingham. About 4 girls were killed on a Sunday morning. That was a sad and dark hour for the movement, but it stirred to us that we had more work to do. >> I'll just say that it encouraged us more. These people are reacting this way against us because we're being effective and so we're gonna keep on doing. We're gonna do even more if we can. We won't let this stop us. We won't let this turn us around. >> We did get the Civil Rights Bill. Eventually, we did get a vote on our side. The quality of life for many people remained the same for many, many years. Other ways to really stop a movement is to kill off its thinkers and they killed Dr. King and they killed Medgar Evers and they killed Bobby Kennedy and John Kennedy. All this was in one fell swoop, eliminated. >> After the civil rights movement, which moved into the entire world movement, other movements were gaining enormous energy, so the women's movement, the environmental movement took shape. The anti- apartheid movement and the will and the belief that they could be successful emanated from the remarkable ability of the civil rights movement to progress. >> I recognized very quickly that the young people and the other people who were in the Occupy Wall Street Movement, they were the stepchildren of Martin Luther King, Jr. They were the stepchildren of the March in Washington. They were trying to raise the consciousness of the country to the inequitable distribution of wealth opportunities very much in the same way that he was trying to do it. >> We need to lead to get out front on some of the big issues and to be a headlight and not a taillight. And people who are speaking up today for immigration reform, for gay rights, control of the proliferation of guns, they have shown some courage. >> The action of the Supreme Court 5 in gutting the essence of the-- of the Voting Rights Act, it's an enormous reversal. It's been one of the most successful pieces of legislation in modern history. >> Enormous change takes time and you have to continue to battle. You don't win a lawsuit or win yet another law in the books and then fold your tents and go home. Oh no, you know, the struggle continues. >> I was part of this mobilization that has never been duplicated again and I wonder why. I wonder why. I'm not blaming young people. Well, yes, I am. But they ought to be doing a bit more. >> I really thought that feeling around Obama was so important to know that it existed. >> I, in retrospect, wish that we've managed to keep him from running for office 'cause he could have run a movement. I think he would have had a better chance at making social change happen if he had approached it and, you know, the way King did. >> What I say to a lot of young people who speak about the fact that the civil rights movement is somehow a thing of the past, I say, " Let me paint a picture for you ." Almost all the movement in that period, almost all critical thought, almost all critical decisions are made by the young. They can wanna take a look at John Lewis and where he was. He was 18. You could take a look at Julian Bond. He was 18. You could take a look at Diane Nash. She was pregnant and then leading a movement. She was the one who designed the freedom rights. And none of these people [ unk ] with political design and with clear thought. These were simple ordinary folks. When young people say, " Where do we find our leaders? Where are the Dr. Kings ?" Well, look where Dr. King resided and where he was found in the first instance and maybe you'll find that there's some more Dr. Kings there. >> I credit the fact that I got schooled, I got brought up in the movement-- in the civil rights movement to give me the perspective. >> That march laid the basis for the modern battles for human rights all across the globe. It cannot be underestimated the fact that individual ordinary people from across America made up their minds, they were gonna step into that movement and step into the streets and come to Washington to raise their grievances in the finest traditions of American democracy. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5224787/martin-luther-king-global-vision/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5224787/martin-luther-king-global-vision/"},"headline":"Martin Luther King Jr.'s Vision Was More Global Than We Remember. 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