I ran across a fascinating essay about what would have been a normally uninteresting topic, “The Death of Environmentalism: Global Warming Politics in a Post-Environmental World.” (by Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger) The most quoted lines in the essay relate to our attempts to give leadership to building movements everywhere:
Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech is famous because it put forward an inspiring, positive vision that carried a critique of the current moment within it. Imagine how history would have turned out had King given an “I have a nightmare” speech instead.
Apparently, as King stood up to speak that August 28th, 1963 before the Lincoln Memorial, he began an intended nightmare speech. “We’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check, but instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check that has come back marked “insufficient funds.” He argued that it was fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment, that those who underestimated the movement’s power would have a “rude awakening.”
Mahalia Jackson, a gospel singer, heard from her place on the dias the dark trajectory of King’s words. She rang out from behind King these words: “Tell them about your dream, Martin!” She had heard riffs of the dream speech to other audiences and she knew that King was headed down the wrong path. She cried out again, “Tell them about the dream.”
King heard her and seemed to hesitate, speaking as if to himself: “Let us not wallow in the valley of despair . . . I say to you my friend.” A soft applause from the tired audience gave him the chance to reorganized his thoughts. He then began a new speech, “And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream.” From that moment on, as Nordhaus and Shellenberger argue, King “led the hot crowd in a rapid climb out of the valley.”
Movement Leaders Focus on the Future
Gerald Kelly in his review of an excellent book by Viv Thomas, The Future Leader, argues that movement leaders focus on a positive future — a future that expects the kingdom to come.
If leadership is not about a focus on the future, what is it about? In a culture in transition, leaders are by definition those who see the future first—and those who are prepared to work for deferred rewards. Our culture is crying out for leaders, regardless of gender, age, and social background, who are ready to look ahead, to grasp intuitively the outlines of an emerging landscape and to chart a course that they and those who travel with them can follow.
Our movement leadership is about the birth of the kingdom, not about its survival. The King of Kings has begun to reign. Remember, few follow a dooms day prophet. Study even the prophets of old–even in their Old Testament critique they most often end with a bright dream of a coming kingdom. As you lead movements, have a dream, not a nightmare!