Nearly 40 years ago, gunfire snuffed out Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s life of selflessness and courage.

But I’m pretty sure he didn’t expect for future generations of black men to wind up dying, rather than living, the way that he did.

Yet that’s exactly what’s happening.

Each year, as we celebrate the life of King, a man whose dreams and whose determination inspired black people to endure German shepherd bites and bruising from high-pressure hoses to shake down segregation, I think about how much the violence that is defining too much of our culture not only dishonors his life, but what black people were able to accomplish by following him.

I think about how, for a time, the black people who King led were the faces of toughness; how they were determined to take on the Jim Crow social order by using non-violence resistance to expose its immorality, not play into the stereotypical trap that it had set for them by resorting to violence.

What they did earned them their freedom. But what scores of young black males are doing today is only saddling them with labels. Or prison time. Or death.

No victories there.

And yet the statistics drone on like a funeral chant. In post-King America, black males 18 to 24 years old have the highest rates of becoming homicide victims, according to U.S. Justice Department statistics.

They also have the highest rates of becoming killers.

Violence is also disproportionately plaguing inner-cities. In Philadelphia, which now has the highest murder rate among the 10 largest U.S. cities, police and black community leaders have taken to the streets to plead for volunteers to help stop the bloodshed – most of which is being spilled by young black men.

That’s some kind of macabre turnaround.

Of course, it’s not that hard to see why this has happened. Back in King’s day the barriers were obvious. It was the white and colored signs and the back of the bus; the dilapidated schools and the lunch counters and amusement parks that were off-limits to black people. All of those indignities converged to create a universal “dis” that had to be dealt with sooner or later.

But the black youths that King led understood that strategy was a better weapon than raw reaction. They knew who the enemy was, what that enemy’s low expectations were and what to do to not play into that. But most of all, their definition of victory was about winning access to opportunity and dignity, not merely having material things.

That’s all changed now.

The violence that is claiming far too many black men’s lives now aren’t casualties of directly confronting an unjust system. These killings are happening because too many young black people have allowed themselves to be defined by the shallow materialism and egotism that the culture now glorifies.

There’s the kid who kills another kid for his starter jacket or sneakers. There’s the crack dealer who kills another dealer over territory or over being badmouthed. Then, there’s the collateral damage; the child who is caught in the crossfire.

Of course, many young black males have legitimate frustrations with a system that still devalues them. But instead of getting the intellectual tools to confront it, they use tools of violence to turn on each other.

Perhaps some of this is the fault of older generation blacks like me. Perhaps people like me haven’t done enough to remind struggling black youths that violence makes for a poor life strategy.

That needs to change.

Which is why now, more than ever, MLK commemorations shouldn’t just be about recalling his dream, but reminding young black people -- and young black males especially -- that he eschewed violence so that they could get the chance to live in a better world.

Not die in it too soon.