[转载]有争议的诺贝尔奖：1964年马丁∙路德∙金在奥斯陆

作者 史克明, 美国驻北京大使馆二等秘书 （政治官）

 

当他去挪威接受诺贝尔和平奖时，他因非法抗议活动入狱后出狱不到两年。他与30名民权活动家以及家人组成的代表团一同抵达奥斯陆，代表团中包括一个曾因为非暴力反抗而在过去九年中被捕十三次的人。当他因争取国内社会变革而获得声望时，他也变成了一位批评自己政府外交政策的尖锐批评家。在他的获奖演说中，他承诺不把大笔诺贝尔奖奖金用在自己身上，而是将它献给他的运动，以便组织更多他和他的非暴力抵抗支持者们为之被捕很多次的社会活动。虽然今天马丁∙路德∙金是美国的一位国家英雄，但是记住这一点很重要，在他自己的时代，他是一位非常有争议的人物，他的活动破坏了美国的社会秩序而且遭遇了强烈反对。美国社会和政府对他在外国所获殊荣的反应是透视这个混乱年代中的美国的窗口。

 

一个给挑战社会秩序的人的有争议奖项

 

 

1964年10月，在奥斯陆的诺贝尔委员会宣布它评选美国民权领导人，小马丁∙路德∙金神父为诺贝尔和平奖获得者。金博士是一位浸信会牧师，他领导抵制阿拉巴马蒙哥马利公交系统，以反对针对非洲裔美国人搭车者的种族歧视，他在1955年成为全国知名人物。1957年，他当选为南方基督教领导大会的领袖，他利用这一职位通过公民反抗和其他非暴力的方式努力结束种族隔离和歧视。他使用的“直接行动” 包括打破不公正的法律和挑战不平等的社会秩序。结果，金博士在获得诺贝尔奖之前以及之后都被关进监狱。1963年4月，金博士在阿拉巴马伯明翰入狱11天，在此期间他撰写了现在著名的“来自伯明翰监狱的信”，在信中他描述了使用直接行动对抗社会不公的理由。仅在获得诺贝尔奖几个月后，他因在阿拉巴马塞尔马的抗议活动而再次被捕。

 

金选择接受诺贝尔奖遭到美国社会一些部门的大声批评。代表乔治亚州的美国参议员赫尔曼∙塔尔梅奇说，向一个提倡打破法规的人颁发高荣誉使他感到震惊。亚特兰大宪法报发表了一封来自乔治亚多拉维尔市的人写的信，信中说金“已经比历史上任何一个群体的领袖造成了更多的种族冲突和人类不正当行为”。伯明翰城市的种族隔离主义者公共安全委员，尤金∙“公牛”∙康纳，公开地讲，诺贝尔委员会选择金是“滥竽充数“。

 

当获得诺贝尔奖时，金在接受正在进展中的美国联邦调查局（FBI）调查。FBI局长，埃德加∙胡佛，在金博士被宣布获选诺贝尔奖一个月后，告诉一群记者，“我认为金是这个国家最臭名昭著的骗子。”他继续称金博士为美国“最垫底的人物之一”，并说他被共产党顾问所“控制”。 1965年，金博士开始积极发言反对越南战争——这个美国遏制苏联威胁战略的中心部分。继林登·约翰逊总统1968年的国情咨文之后，金博士在华盛顿召集了一次大规模示威游行，以抗议“历史上最残忍和毫无意义的战争之一。”

 

美国对金博士贝尔奖的外交回应

 

尽管美国国务院和美国信息局（USIA）都没有为金博士赴欧洲参加诺贝尔奖典礼提供财务上的支持，许多美国外交官支持他接受此项海外荣誉。当金博士抵达奥斯陆时，“纽约时报”援引美国驻挪威大使玛格丽特·乔伊·蒂贝茨的话说，“作为一个美国人和美国人民的代表，我为我的一名美国同胞被授予此奖而感到喜悦和感激。”她赞扬金博士“在他的同胞中”所发挥的作用。蒂贝茨大使在大使官邸为金博士一行举行了一场非正式外交招待会，并且，她随后与金博士一起出席了诺贝尔典礼。

 

其他美国外交官们则比较谨慎，这反映出美国社会在公民权利问题上的巨大分化。在离开奥斯陆后，金博士前往巴黎，在体育馆发表演讲。这场由旅居巴黎的美国外籍人士组织的演讲，是为金博士所领导的民权团体——南方基督教领导大会——所举行的筹款活动。美国驻巴黎大使馆信息控制主任斯蒂芬·佩特森·贝尔彻是该活动的共同赞助人之一。据贝尔彻说，他与其他几名美国外交官高调出席了此次演讲，美国驻法国大使查尔斯·波伦询问国务院他是否应该参加，而他被告知参加演讲不是“他职责的一部分。” 大使没有出席，但几天后私下告诉贝尔彻说，“当他回头再看时，他很抱歉没有去马丁·路德·金的演讲，，[他认为]他应该去。”

 

1964年11月5日，林登·约翰逊总统连任两天后，约翰逊总统给金博士打电话。总统祝贺金获得诺贝尔和平奖，他说非洲裔美国人“为你的荣誉感到非常自豪，我会邀请你，我们将努力为未来的事情集思广益......现在我们要走进下一个四年，并作出一些进展。” 从奥斯陆的诺贝尔典礼回来后，1964年12月18日约翰逊总统邀请金博士到白宫，向他的殊荣表示祝贺，并讨论公民权利的问题。

 

传承的遗产

 

为纪念马丁·路德·金，华盛顿特区的最新纪念碑将很快揭幕。监督建造纪念碑的基金会在2007年选择中国艺术家雷宜锌为纪念碑的主雕塑家。碑主体部分的大型花岗岩是在中国湖南省开采的。这样，中国的一部分将作为金博士哲学——积极非暴力社会变革——的永久丰碑竖立在此，并昭示着他与当代和未来数代人的持续相关性。

 

 

A Controversial Nobel Prize: Martin Luther King in Oslo, 1964

 

Christopher Smith, U.S. Embassy Beijing

When he traveled to Norway to receive a Nobel Prize for Peace, he was less than two years out of prison for illegal protest activity. He arrived in Oslo with a delegation of 30 fellow civil rights activists and family members, including one who had been arrested thirteen times over the past nine years for civil disobedience. While he gained fame for fighting for domestic social change, he also became a strident critic of his own government's foreign policy. In his acceptance speech, he pledged not to take the substantial Nobel Prize money for himself, but rather to put it in the hands of his movement in order to organize more of the social activism for which he and his fellow proponents of non-violent resistance had already been arrested many times. While today Dr. Martin Luther King is a national hero in the United States, it is important to remember that in his own time he was an immensely controversial figure whose activities disrupted the American social order and ran up against strong opposition. The response of American society and government to his high honor in a foreign land is window into America during this turbulent time.

 

A Controversial Prize to a Man Challenging the Social Order

 

In October 1964, the Nobel Committee in Oslo announced that it has selected U.S. civil rights leader the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. to receive the Nobel Prize for Peace. Dr. King, a Baptist minister, rose to national prominence in 1955 when he led a boycott of the Montgomery, Alabama bus system to protest racial discrimination against African-American riders. In 1957, he was elected to lead the Southern Christian Leadership Convention, and used this position to work to end racial segregation and discrimination through civil disobedience and other nonviolent means. His use of "direct action" included breaking unjust laws and challenging an unequal social order. As result, Dr. King was in jail both before and after his receipt of the Nobel Prize. In April 1963, Dr. King spent 11 days in jail in Birmingham, Alabama, during which time he wrote the now famous "Letter from Birmingham Jail" in which he describes his rationale for using direct action to confront social injustice. Just months after receiving the Nobel Prize, he was arrested again for his protest activity in Selma, Alabama.

 

King's selection to receive the Nobel Peace Prize was vociferously criticized by some sectors of American society. United States Senator Herman Talmadge, representing the state of Georgia, said he was shocked to see high honors given to a person who advocated lawbreaking. The Atlanta Constitution Journal published a letter from a Doraville, Georgia man who said King "has caused more racial strife and human misbehavior than any group leader in history." The city of Birmingham's segregationist Commissioner of Public Safety Eugene "Bull" Conner said publically that the Nobel Committee was "scraping the bottom of the barrel" through its selection of King.

 

When he received the Nobel Prize, King was under active FBI investigation. The FBI's director, J. Edgar Hoover, told a group of journalists the month after the announcement of Dr. King's Nobel Prize selection that, "I consider King to be the most notorious liar in the country." He continued to call Dr. King "one of the lowest characters" in America, and stated that he is "controlled" by Communist advisors. In 1965, Dr. King began to actively speak out against the Vietnam War, a central piece of the Unites States' strategy to contain the Soviet threat. Following President Lyndon Johnson's State of the Union Address in 1968, Dr. King called for a large demonstration march in Washington to protest, "one of history's most cruel and senseless wars."

 

The U.S. Diplomatic Response to the Dr. King's Nobel Prize

 

While neither the U.S. State Department nor the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) financially backed Dr. King's travel to Europe for the Nobel Prize ceremony, many U.S. diplomats were supportive of his receipt of this overseas honor. As Dr. King arrived in Oslo, the New York Times quoted the U.S. Ambassador to Norway, Margaret Joy Tibbetts, as saying, "As an American and representative of the American people, I want to express joy and gratitude that one of my fellow countrymen has been awarded this prize." She praised the role of Dr. King "among his fellow countrymen." Ambassador Tibbetts hosted an unofficial diplomatic reception buffet for Dr. King and his entourage at the Ambassador's residence, and she subsequently traveled with Dr. King to attend the Nobel ceremony.

 

Other U.S. diplomats were more cautious, reflecting the great division within American society on civil rights issues. After leaving Oslo, Dr. King travelled to Paris to give a speech at the Palais des Sports. The speech, organized by American expatriates living in Paris, was a fund-raiser for the civil rights group led by Dr. King, the Southern Christian Leadership Convention. Stephen Paterson Belcher, Information Control Director at the U.S. Embassy in Paris, was one of the event's co-sponsors. According to Belcher, who prominently attended the event with several other U.S. diplomats, U.S. Ambassador to France Charles Bohlen asked the State Department whether he should attend and was told that attending the speech was "not part of his mission." The Ambassador did not attend, but days later privately told Belcher that he "was sorry he hadn't gone to that Martin Luther King talk, as he looked back on it. [He believed that] he should have gone."

 

On November 5, 1964, two days after President Lyndon Johnson's reelection, President Johnson called Dr. King. The President congratulated King on his selection for the Nobel Peace Prize, saying that African-Americans "take great pride in your honor. I'll be calling on you and we'll try to get our heads together on the things that are ahead… Now we have got to move on the next four years and make some advances." After returning from the Nobel Ceremony in Oslo, President Johnson invited Dr. King to the White House on December 18, 1964, to offer his congratulations on the prestigious honor and discuss civil rights issues.

 

A Continuing Legacy

 

Washington DC's newest monument will soon be unveiled in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King. The foundation overseeing the construction of the monument chose Chinese artist Lei Yixin as lead sculptor for the monument in 2007. The large granite stones which are the central focus of the monument were quarried in China's Hunan province. In this way, a part of China will stand as a permanent monument to Dr. King's philosophy of positive nonviolent social change and make clear his continuing relevance to current and future generations.