"MLK"

 “MLK”

Many years ago I had a discussion with my longtime friend Ed Loring about influences on our lives.  I asked him what historical figure had been most important in his development, and he replied “Dorothy Day.”  He asked me, and I replied “Martin Luther King, Jr.” I went on to note that my opinion of Dr. King had vacillated all over the graph of my life.  When I first came to consciousness of MLK in my early teens, I saw him as a communist who was a grave threat to American life, or perhaps a charlatan who was just trying to get money from unsuspecting supporters.

Yet, something about Dr. King was nagging at my soul.  As I have written previously, I decided to listen to Dr. King’s speech at the March on Washington in August, 1963 (60 years ago!).  I listened to it by myself, because I did not want any of my friends to know that I might be interested in hearing him.  I wasn’t sure that I did, but I wanted to hear from him for myself.  I was stunned by all the people who attended that gathering, and I was impressed by his eloquence and his vision.  I wasn’t convinced yet, but Dr. King opened a window in my consciousness that day.  He seemed to be promoting the American dream by seeking to expand it to include those who had been excluded.  Far from demeaning the ideas of America, he upheld them, and he even suggested that the vision of America was far stronger than many of us thought that it was.

As I began to gain a bit of liberation from my captivity to white supremacy, I watched Dr. King more closely, and I was impressed with his vision and willingness to take action and to go to jail for his beliefs.  I began to shift dramatically in my approach and began to work in justice movements in college.  King’s emphasis on nonviolence began to ring hollow to me and my friends, who saw white supremacy as so entrenched and so violent that only the threat of violence could change it.  I worked in the sanitation workers’ strike in Memphis in 1968 in my senior year in college, and by that time, I had gone to the other extreme with Dr. King’s views.  Where once I had considered him to be a communist subversive, now I considered him to be irrelevant.  I wrote a column online for The Atlantic on this journey, and if you want to know more about it, here’s the link: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/doubting-mlk-during-a-strike-in-memphis/550118/

As we celebrate his remarkable legacy once more this weekend, it is hard to recall anyone who made such a difference in American life.  As the great organizer Bob Moses put it, Dr. King was part of an ocean of people who made such a difference in the civil rights movement.  Dr. King was a huge wave on that ocean, mainly because he had such a strong vision of the American idea of equality and because he had the courage and willingness to work so that idea would apply to everyone.  

Despite all the resistance that those of us classified as “white” gave to him, Dr. King never gave up on the idea that we are all siblings, that human life is a circle of humanity rather than a hierarchy of races.  He demanded that all of us expand and deepen our imaginations so that we could build this idea of equality, this idea that all of us are created as children of God.  We tend to sanitize him now, but in his day, he was seen as one of the most dangerous people in the country, because his vision was so clear, and his courage was so deep.  

In what I take to be his greatest published sermon, he gave his own obituary in his powerful “The Drum Major Instinct,” preached at his beloved Ebenezer Church on February 4, 1968, two months before he was assassinated.  Here’s part of what he said:

“If any of you are around when I have to meet my day, I don’t want a long funeral. And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy, tell them not to talk too long. (Yes) And every now and then I wonder what I want them to say. Tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace Prize—that isn’t important. Tell them not to mention that I have three or four hundred other awards—that’s not important. Tell them not to mention where I went to school. 

 I'd like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to give his life serving others. I'd like for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to love somebody. I want you to say that day that I tried to be right on the war question.  I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to feed the hungry.  And I want you to be able to say that day that I did try in my life to clothe those who were naked. I want you to say on that day that I did try in my life to visit those who were in prison.  I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity.  

Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice.  Say that I was a drum major for peace.  I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter.  I won't have any money to leave behind. I won't have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind.”