Two American Heroes—Martin Luther King, Jr. and Booker T. Washington—Who Overcame Injustice With a Zero-Victim Attitude

On this episode of Our American Stories, James Ward, author of Zero Victim: Overcoming Injustice With A New Attitude, tells the story of two other black men in American history who have inspired his zero victim mentality.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show,
including yours. Send them to our American Stories dot com.
There's some of our favorites up next. Pastor and author
James E. Ward Jor came to national prominence after Jacob
Blake Jr. Was shot during an incident involving the Kenosha,

(00:32):
Wisconsin Police. What made his response so unique was his
call to prayer, peace, healing, and forgiveness. In his book
Zero Victim, Overcoming Injustice with a New Attitude, James Ward
tells his story as a zero victim Black American. Here's
James Ward talking about two other African Americans in US

(00:54):
history who inspired his zero victim mentality.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Like researching historical figures to see if there were any
other zero victim thinkers in history, especially in the African
American community. And one of the great zero victim thinkers
in American history is Booker T. Washington, who of course
became the first president of Tuskegee University. And I like

(01:21):
his writings. For example, you know, Up from Slavery is
a well known you know writing of Booker T. Washington,
and as early as nineteen oh one. He was communicating
what I call a zero victim message, speaking to blacks
in the South who had experienced tremendous victimization. You're still

(01:44):
talking about the area's era of blacks not being considered
full human beings. You're still talking about blacks being subject
to you know, Jim Crow laws and the effects of
slavery and racism that were very very prevent in the
South and was overt you know, these things were it

(02:04):
was a way of life. And yet during that time,
Booker T. Washington was encouraging blacks in the South to
not be victims, to not see themselves as victims. That
despite the injustice that they were dealing with on a
daily basis and historically, in my words, he was encouraging
them to overcome injustice with the new attitude. And he

(02:28):
began to explain, for example, to blacks in the South
who were working in the cotton fields, who were working
on the sugar plantations, who were working the tobacco plantations.
He was reminding the blacks during that time, listen that
even though slavery has been difficult, you have the intellectual
property of commerce. It was the blacks in South, in

(02:51):
the South on those plantations that literally knew how to
grow tobacco and sugar cane and cotton. He tried to
explain to them and to teach them. And this is
where you see this really fleshed out in Tuskegan University
with his overall vision for the school. But he was
on this campaign to teach blacks in the South that
were industrious how they could use their intellectual capability and

(03:15):
the knowledge that they had gained from slavery to be
empowered economically, that they really understood, let's just say, the
basis of how to drive the economy in the South.
And Booker t would take that message even to the
pastors and the black churches, and you read from some
of his writings that he was oftentimes rejected and scolded

(03:38):
by the black pastors for not taking a much more
aggressive stance about slavery and the injustice that they were
dealing with. But he was not dismissive of that. But
he was talking about a new mindset. He was really
trying to encourage them to engage, and he was asking
the pastors to actually help teach what I call now
a zero victim mindset people during that time, and so

(04:02):
I like his perspective. In some situations, it was not
well received, but then we see the effect of a
great university, which is Tuskegee University, coming out of that
way of thinking. Even his successor, Robert Modin, they continued
this track where they were really calling blacks to be
empowered with this zero victim mindset, teaching them how to

(04:25):
engage economically with industry, how to use their hands and
their work experience, how to not be a victim, how
to be overcomers, and to not be overcome by the
circumstances that they were dealing with to help Black America
really rise up into prominence for us to enhance the
quality of living for Black American people. And so I

(04:47):
appreciate his voice and his writings. I see so many
remnants of zero victim thinking in the life of doctor
Martin Luther King Junior, going through the civil rights movements
in the sixties, call calling for nonviolence, calling for peace,
really using a biblical foundation concerning what justice is. He attempted.

(05:08):
Although not a perfect man, he wasn't flawless in any way,
but I really think he did a great job of
helping to lead our nation and what I call a
zero victim perspective of not seeing you know himself as
a victim, but really speaking and calling for biblical justice,
and not just a cultural perspective of justice, but really

(05:29):
calling for justice from God's perspective, based upon the truth
of God's word. And so I like to say that
doctor King was also a predecessor in the zero victim thinking,
you know, in the zero victim school of thought. And
I tell folks today, doctor King had a dream. We
have a vision now we really want to see and
we can use his mode of thinking and facing off

(05:50):
with some of the things that we're dealing with today,
with some of the socio political and racial challenges that
we see in America. I still think that there's there's
a tremendous benefit the mindset of a booker T. Washington
and a doctor Martin Luther King Junior and dealing with
some of the challenges that we're facing off with in
today's society.

Speaker 1 (06:10):
And a great job on the editing and production of
that piece by Greg Hengler, and a special thanks to
James Ward. His book Zero Victim, Overcoming Injustice with a
New Attitude is available on Amazon and all the usual suspects,
and it's great and fun to listen to a hero
talk about his heroes. And by the way, none of
these people are perfect people. We always have to say

(06:32):
that because too often in this world we're judging people
by their flaws and not by what they've overcome and
what they've contributed. And this is a real failure in
American life right now, to judge a person by their
worst day. It's a terrible thing. And my goodness, look
up Booker T. Washington his life, My goodness, we need
to know more and have more stories told about him.

(06:52):
And the same with Reverend King, who can call him
doctor King that always remember he was a reverend and
he loved the Bible and the Lord. The stories of
MLK and Booker T. Washington as told by James E.
Ward here on our American Stories Folks, if you love

(07:31):
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(07:52):
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