Martin Luther King Jr. was on June 18, 1964 placed in a police car in St. Augustine, Florida. A German shepherd police dog was then put into the car in an apparent attempt to intimidate him. Instead, King and the dog promptly became friends. (Beth Clifton collage)
Leading influence on rise of animal rights movement
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 was profoundly influenced by several African-American evangelists who were animal advocates.
(See Four black leaders who built the humane movement and Black humane history found in great-grandpa’s attic near a town called Ark,)
Martin Luther King Jr. is in turn 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.
Meanwhile, during most of King’s lifetime, there was not much of an animal advocacy movement to speak out with, or for.
Coretta Scott King in 2003.
(Thomas Englund photo)
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.
Coretta Scott King
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.
Anti-vivisection activism had become co-opted by the radical right and was seemingly inextricably intertwined with opposition to teaching about evolution, opposition to vaccination, and fluoridating water.
But 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.
Martin Luther King Jr., left, & Dick Gregory, right. (Beth Clifton collage)
Dick Gregory
After Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, Coretta Scott King quietly raised their four children, including son Dexter Scott King, who became a prominent civil rights leader in his own right. She also continued as many of her late husband’s projects as she could. Through the influence of comedian/activist and animal advocate Dick Gregory, Dexter Scott King became a vegetarian in 1987. Coretta Scott King followed him into veganism in 1995.
Longtime friend Barbara A. Reynolds and others close to Coretta Scott King emphasized her vegan beliefs in published remembrances after her death in Atlanta on January 30, 2006, at age 78.
Lillian & Dick Gregory.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Dick Gregory, meanwhile, often attributed his decision to give up meat to the teachings of Martin Luther King Jr. about nonviolence, which were in turn based on the teachings of Indian independence struggle leader Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948), a lifelong vegetarian and advocate of vegetarianism.
(See Dick Gregory, 50 years a vegan activist, dies at 84.)
Henry Spira & friend.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Henry Spira
The legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. to animal advocacy had by then already become manifest through the work of Henry Spira, the founder of Animal Rights International and the Coalition for Nonviolent Food.
Born to a Jewish family in 1927, in Antwerp, Belgium, and known as Noah throughout childhood, Spira was in 1937 sent to live with relatives in Hamburg, Germany. Thus Spira survived Krystalnacht, the night of rioting in November 1938 that commenced the pogroms of World War II. The family joined Spira’s father in Panama soon afterward, then emigrated to New Jersey.
Involving himself in various causes before, after, and during a stint in the U.S. Army, Spira worked on a General Motors assembly line, sailed as a ship’s electrician, participated in union activism, and became a freelance investigative reporter for The Militant, the newspaper of the Socialist Workers Party, under the pseudonym Henry Gitano.
From June to December 1956, Spira covered Martin Luther King Jr.’s anti-segregation boycott of the bus system in Montgomery, Alabama. Spira covered a similar boycott in Tallahassee, Florida, in 1957, then returned to New York to persuade unions, especially the United Auto Workers, to support desegregation.
(See Fierce critics Ann Cottrell Free & Henry Spira goaded HSUS to mature.)
Martin Luther King Jr. next to the bus that Rosa Parks rode, #2857, in the incident that touched off the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott. (Beth Clifton collage)
Freedom Riders
In 1958-1959, Spira took on abuses of civil liberties by the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover in particular, at the height of Hoover’s clout. The FBI tried hard to discredit Spira, much as it tried to discredit Martin Luther King Jr. himself, but Spira’s research and character withstood the test even after he traveled to Cuba late in 1959 to report on the transformations underway there after the Communist takeover under Fidel Castro.
On April 1, 1961, two weeks before the CIA-directed invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, Spira exposed how the CIA was training Cuban exiles in Guatemala to invade. Many lives and much embarrassment for U.S. president John F. Kennedy might have been spared, had the White House taken note that Castro knew the attack was coming.
Spira caught up with Martin Luther King Jr. again in 1963-1964, traveling with the Freedom Riders to cover King’s Mississippi voter registration campaign for The Independent and The Californian.
Cesar Chavez & dog. (Cathy Murphy photo)
Eight years of frequent proximity to Martin Luther King Jr. guided Spira throughout the rest of his life.
A 1965 voyage to Guinea aboard the hospital ship S.S. Hope inspired Spira to become an award-winning teacher of English and journalism at Haaren High School in Spanish Harlem.
Spira & Peter Singer
Then, in 1973, Spira took a night school course taught by young philosopher Peter Singer. Spira encouraged Singer to expand a 1973 essay on why animals should enjoy rights into the book Animal Liberation, and allowed Singer to sleep on his couch while he was researching and writing it.
Inheriting a cat someone left with him at about the same time, Spira began to wonder why we cuddle some animals and eat others. Putting down his fork one night, he became an instant vegan.
Along the way, Spira learned that more than 100 years of antivivisectionism had never stopped a cruel experiment. He changed that with the 1976-1977 campaign that persuaded the American Museum of Natural history to end 18 years of sex experiments on maimed and disfigured cats. This was the beginning of the animal rights movement as we now know it.
Merritt & Beth Clifton
Spira died in his sleep on September 12, 1998, at age 71.
Spira may have been the best known major figure in the animal rights movement who personally knew and worked with Martin Luther King Jr., and also with Cesar Chavez, the founder of United Farm Workers, who was a fellow longtime vegetarian.
But King’s influence on Spira was so profound, and Spira’s influence on animal advocacy so large, that animal advocates everywhere owe King a debt of appreciation on the day in his honor.
(See also A black-and-white issue that the humane community has yet to face.)
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Those who learn true compassion and kindness also realize that any argument in favor of unkindness, intolerance, or lack of compassion cannot be successfully defended.
Three very inspirational figures! I started life as an activist working as a volunteer here in Montreal for Cesar Chavez’s grape & lettuce boycott. I would go into small vegetable stores with a clip board checking the stock to see that they were taking part in the boycott. Many of them were! I still proudly own a red and white Boycott Lettuce button!
Congratulations Merritt, beautifully put together. Three amazing compassionate and courageous individuals, role models for us all to emulate.
Hey, Elliot! So nice to see your comment. Hope you are doing well. You may remember me from when I worked for you and Chuck Kuell in the mid-80s. All the best to you!
And you, Dr. Katz are also an inspiration with your work. I am proud to even be reading the same blog as you are…
I am a longtime advisory Board member of the Tucson Wild life Center.
How interesting! I never knew…
This is fascinating…MLK quotes are still very common inspirational material for AR advocates.
And, on the bizarre end, are the strange bedfellows anti-vivisection once claimed!
The article and the comments are truly inspirational. Thank you for this great piece!
I may not be a major figure but MLK inspired me. I had just gotten my driver’s license and couldn’t even parallel park when I took off for downtown Atlanta. Dr. King was leading a demonstration that day. I was barely 16 when I met him, talked with him. He loved having young white people join him. He told me that the only weapon we need to win the war was our mouths. I took his advice and have been running my mouth ever since.
Nice article. I read somewhere that MLK was essentially a vegetarian too. Could that be true? Cheers to animal and human justice everywhere on this beautiful day meant to honor him.
I read that the German shepherd is actually was Dr. Martin Luther King’s dog named Grand Jury.
This is something of a garble. The photo was taken on the morning of June 18, 1964, when King was taken by police to testify to a grand jury in St. Augustine, Florida. A more complete account of the incident, with additional photos, appears at http://dreamdogsart.typepad.com/art/2013/08/martin-luther-king-jr-in-police-car-with-dog.html.
Sharing again to social media with gratitude to everyone involved. Dr. King and his family are and will continue to be inspirational as having advocated and fought for us ALL and for walking the talk, setting excellent examples of what human beings might hope to attain to, to be our very best.
As one who grew up inspired by the life of Martin Luther King Jr., I want to thank you for this informative article. It filled in so many gaps in my understanding of the early years of our movement.
Thanking you and sharing to social media on one of the two domestic holidays I celebrate, with gratitude and continuing hope.
Great article and in-depth piece Merritt & Beth. Very inspiring indeed and a great living legacy for all to learn from,
Amb. Nehemiah Nehemiah Rotich
Nairobi
Kenya
Nehemiah K. Rotich headed the Kenya Wildlife Service from 1999 to 2002, was the Kenyan ambassador to the United Nations Environmental Program in 2002-2003, returned to the Kenya Wildlife Service as consultant and chief operating officer in 2017-2018, and is board chair for the African Network for Animal Welfare, for which he established the National Judicial Dialogues on Wildlife & Environmental Crimes in 2013 to educate the Kenyan judiciary about wildlife crime.
Thanking you always for the hard work you both do to bring facts to us all, and to profile those who inspire us to be our best in all ways.
It’s very poignant reading this article again and Dr. Katz’ post. All of these compassionate and thoughtful people are very much missed and they are inspirational to so many in this time as well. Thank you.
In 1969 or 1970, when I was a research scientist with American Cyanamid, I had the good fortune to be invited for dinner by Cleveland Amory who had recently founded the Fund for Animals, merged into the Humane Society of the U.S. in 2004. The meeting was to discuss my articles written between 1966 and 1968 in The Animals’ Voice – the quarterly magazine of the Blue Cross of India of which I was the editor. Through Cleveland I had the fortune to meet Henry Spira.
Thanks you for more of the story Chinny, may progress continue for all beings!
The King family have always been and will always be inspirational for me.
Sharing with gratitude, and that ever-present hope that many more will study their lives, works and thoughts, and examine their own hearts and souls. Compassion and caring, in such short supply in today’s world, are the most needed attributes!
Thank you, for this story of how animal rights began. With people determined to save lives, displaying conscience, selflessness, empathy, and unity. It seems Australia and the West has gone backwards and has become more cruel to silent trusting animals. Governments misinforming and murderous as ‘electorally popular’ to falsely blame and kill more. https://www.change.org/p/knox-advocats/u/32244275
Everyone should review this information annually, if not more often! It’s crucial and educational, and so positive. Changing the world, and our society in particular, for the better depends on each and every one of us. Dr. King and his family knew this.
Sharing with gratitude to all responsible, on this Kingdom Day, 2024.
Thank you for this informative piece. It’s both interesting and inspiring.
Very interesting article. And, of course, you are right about the timeline re the AR movement and MLK.
I used to live on W. 77th St. down the block from the Museum of Natural History. I lived there from 1970-76. I recall seeing people demonstrating in front of the museum with horrifying pictures of cats. I always took them seriously and it affected me. I found out sometime later, that this was Henry Spira and others who might not be around anymore. One was Barbara Schultz who I worked with in the early 1990s on the NYS Cat Intubation bill. I never met her – it was all phone work – but she was a dynamo. She disappeared after the bill was passed into law. Big defeat. If you recall the bill, it would allow EMTs to go into vets’ offices and practice intubation on cats. Cat owners would give their approval for this to happen Unbelievably stupid and I don’t think it ever really happened or at least not on a noticeable scale. Who would permit for anyone to practice on their cat?
Sharing, again, with much gratitude to everyone involved in the education of our and other societies to what’s now referred to as DEI, compassion, kindness, and Love. These can be suppressed and hidin, but they can NEVER go out of style.