Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. touched me again this week during the groundbreaking ceremony for his national Memorial on the Mall.
It was as if his powerful and protective arm of leadership and fatherly concern was around me more securely, holding me to him. Though I picture him as lofty and on a pedestal, I never think of him as alone; always in relationship to those of us who need him, and those who don’t think they do. For he never left us behind, in his glory or in his death.
The realization of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial was a sweet victory for a mighty communicator. And for those of us ever in need of compassion and justice.
In 1964 I heard him preach at Riverside Church in New York. I was so awed by his presence that the pulpit in that dimly lit church seemed twenty feet high. Like an obedient daughter, I was called by the resonant majesty of his voice and the urgency of his message.
Four years later I was fleeing the riots in Washington DC following his assassination. National Geographic – where I worked - had let us out early and, since the buses weren’t running, I walked home to Arlington, Virginia. The streets were eerie. Liquor stores were being looted, the presence of the National Guard not as visible as when I would return to work on Monday morning. On Key Bridge, I stopped and stared in disbelief at smoke from fires started by looters. The skyline was reacting in grief, as I was, to the loss of a great man: our one true leader that spoke for all people. As I walked up Lee Highway to my apartment, I wondered what would happen to our ’soulless’ nation now that its cornerstone of justice, equality and freedom was gone.
Has anyone called us to compassion with the same validity since? I can think of no one with Dr. King’s charisma or scholasticism. I’ve found comfort in Andrew Young and John Lewis, Nelson Mandela, and Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar but they haven’t been anchors for me or moved me to action. Dr. King’s grip on me is stronger. He still captures my heart, my conscience and my devotion.
We are each needed to carry on his message. Too many cries remain unanswered, now more numerous than when he was alive. Too many people are still in need of health insurance, a decent minimum wage and affordable housing.
Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy empowers us to stand up to the injustices we encounter. We do not need to be great communicators or skilled in stirring hearts like he was but he has shown us that the way to stand against inequality and hatred is through vision, compassion and courage.
We all deserve the same rights, the same freedoms, and the same respect. To find it, we have to create it by taking one step at a time, one person at a time. Planting tolerance is like planting trees. The seedlings must be planted everywhere, even in barren soil. Dr. King taught us about hope and faith.
In no way is the Memorial a final milestone, or proof that justice has finally been attained. We must teach new generations, our own children and grandchildren, and those that have lost their way.
I now speak up every time I hear a discriminatory remark. But I didn’t always. I had to be provoked in such a way that I couldn’t remain silent any longer.
That moment came the weekend after Dr. King’s assassination when my husband and I decided to accept an invitation from one of his law school classmates to visit his apple farm on the Rappahannock River in Virginia despite our grief, despite our need to be quiet at home and watch the news. So we drove to the countryside, away from the riots. That farmland was some of the most magnificent land I ever laid my eyes on. But what happened there was anything but picturesque.
While our host and I were working on a project in the front yard of the farmhouse, he let all his feelings on race relations fly in the midst of an announcement that he was moving to South Africa. Too numb with shock and grief to respond, all I felt was horror. I believe he deliberately picked what he figured was a vulnerable time to drive his ideals home. It was torture to listen to him speak and to feel the hatred in his body language. Those days of civil rights were days of fear for some, like our host, but for others, like me, they were saturated with indescribably deep sadness.
Witnessing that kind of racism was unbearable. It was a lesson not only in the importance of taking a stand against intolerance but also in the difficulty of discerning how one can take a stand without “fighting,” even if it is in fighting for justice. Dr. King believed in resisting, not fighting. But how does one resist – turn the other cheek - at the same time one advocates love, or ‘corrects’ abusive action?
The next time racist views were debated in my presence, I didn’t shy away. I took a stand, literally. Again the source was a friend of my husband’s. I knew I was being baited in both these instances because I didn’t tolerate segregation. I knew these men felt threatened not only by Dr. King but by anyone who believed differently than they did, anyone who didn’t live in fear, and I fit that bill. They thought they could make me miserable because I was sensitive. (Folks who are miserable like company.) But they didn’t understand that sensitive is not the same as fragile. No one should underestimate the courage of sensitive people; they know more strongly that something must be done to overturn injustice.
The encounter that led to my taking a stand occurred at a dinner party at this friend’s home. The host began by talking about politics, launching into mean-spirited and bigoted remarks against African-Americans. The more I defended tolerance and justice, the more I succeeded in fueling some sort of deep seated anger. I warned him I was uncomfortable and when he didn’t let up, I calmly got up from the table and walked out of his house, leaving my husband still sitting, because I couldn’t support his position or his anger. The next day, I smoothed things over with his wife without attacking the actions of her husband or backing down on my beliefs. He has not forgiven me and it has been several decades.
Though it is difficult to love individuals like those ‘friends,’ my experience is that people basically treat everyone the same way. They either have it in their hearts to reach out and embrace other points of view, and the people expressing those viewpoints, or they shut themselves off from the crowd in coldness and fear. But fear is no excuse.
It took me a while to discover I had no choice but to speak up every time I heard a person or ideal attacked. I learned to make myself heard in intimate settings, by articulating how such remarks made me feel rather than attacking the person for saying them. No one listens when the tone is accusatory.
Before I learned how important it is to take a stand one on one, in small groups when folks assume you agree with them and they feel safe to talk in prejudiced tones, I learned how easy and invigorating it is to advocate publicly for human rights. My preacher Dad used to send telegrams to the White House in favor of open housing. I had him as a role model along with Dr. King who taught that to remain silent is to be guilty of apathy. And so I participated in civil rights marches and other gatherings, marching in New York against the deaths of Schwerner, Goodman and Chaney that same summer of 1964, and later in Atlanta. I attended the funeral of Dr. King’s mother at Spelman and was turned away from Coretta Scott King’ s funeral. I’ve always wished I’d joined the Freedom Riders but I had my sights on helping children in the Lower East Side of New York that summer instead. The one stance I’m most proud of is having helped to lead a movement against a religious discrimination policy at a private school. It took three years but we won. It’s very possible for justice to win. But first we have to be stirred to action and get grounded in our faith that things can be better. The foundation for learning to speak up is in those terribly distressing and upsetting moments when hatred is exposed, when we know that the right thing to do is to stand up for the rights of all and not let fear of criticism inhibit our sense of fairness. There are many folks that hesitate to start a movement but they will climb on the bandwagon when invited.
And so we must address every remark against equality we hear, from our neighbors, our friends, our family and our President who chooses now to divide our nation instead of unifying it.
We must inspire one another by reaching out to those that disappoint us, by inviting strangers to our table before our own needs have been met, and by discovering how good it feels to help others achieve their dreams.
Because Martin Luther King, Jr. paved the way to freedom for each of us, it is our responsibility to support others in realizing their dreams. We can start by emulating his heart.
Will you join me in taking a stand for justice and by making a gift to the King Memorial in Washington ( http://www.mlkmemorial.org ) or to the King Collection of papers housed at Clark-Atlanta University ( http://www.atlcf.org ) ?
Is compassion an ideal that you cherish, too?
