MLK leading influence on animal rights movements

Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968) in whose honor we celebrate Martin Luther King Day, never had any visible direct involvement with animals or animal issues––but he is justly remembered among the greatest influences on the animal rights movement of our time, and the many other animal advocacy causes that have splintered from it.

Martin Luther King Jr. was of course preoccupied with other causes and movements: not only the causes of black people, poor people, and other disadvantaged people in the U.S., but also opposition to the Vietnam War.

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Meanwhile, during most of King’s lifetime, there was not much of an animal advocacy movement to speak out with, or for.

The mainstream humane movement, which had championed civil rights and social justice causes and stood up to the Ku Klux Klan from the mid-19th century through the 1930s, had in the post-World War II era largely abdicated moral leadership, while becoming overwhelmingly preoccupied with operating animal shelters whose major function had become killing ever increasing numbers of unwanted dogs and cats.

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When Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, the animal rights movement as we have known it since the late 20th century was still seven or eight years from emerging.

While Martin Luther King Jr. was never on record as a voice for animals, and did not live in times where he might have had much opportunity for lending his influential voice to animal causes, his widow, Coretta Scott King, spoke out for animals with her voice, her personal examples of kindness, and her lifestyle choices.

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