Welcome to February, a hallowed time for all Americans in which we pause to reflect upon the contributions of blacks to not only the United States of America, but the world. Just two weeks ago many people paused to write, post, share something honoring Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. Seeing those posts from friends and famous people with quotations and pictures of Dr. King is always inspirational, but it feels more like lip service. My favorite show “The Simpsons” adequately illustrated the point, “Today we remember Martin Luther King. Tomorrow we don’t.” He is more than a day, more than a monument; he is our better angel and we do his legacy a disservice if we are not actually willing to live in his truth and advance his ideals.
History has a funny way of whitewashing history to make it palatable for the masses. However, if we were to take a closer look at Dr. King’s message — we would realize he was a true patriot who loved the United States of America so much that he gave his life for it. In his final speech, the day before being assassinated, he stated “The masses of our people are rising up. And wherever they are assembled today,… the cry is always the same — ‘We want to be free’.” In that same speech, he mentioned the media’s penchant for focusing on the wrong things when dealing with unrest, “…the press dealt only with the window-breaking.” The injustices that created the environment in which people found no other recourse but to riot were largely ignored. He was there in Memphis fighting for the labor rights of sanitation workers. His messages in the final years of his life had evolved to advocate beyond the Civil Rights for just black Americans, but for all Americans. In truth — his message was always about lifting up everyone through an equal and just society; one free of war, economic exploitation, and civil disenfranchisement. Through Dr. King’s journey in the Civil Rights movement, he knew it would not be an easy road, and on this day, Martin Luther King, Jr. prophetically proclaimed, “I’ve been to the mountaintop…And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But…we, as a people, will get to the promised land.” Less than 24 hours later, he was dead.
Today, there is a towering, classic and befitting ode to his message commanding an audience on the National Mall, just as he did in 1963. It serves as a reminder that the work is not yet done, America still needs to mend. Unfortunately, there are those who would sanctimoniously pimp his image and likeness to further their disingenuous agenda. One that sticks out like a sore thumb is the meme of Dr. King leading the five-day, 54-mile march for voting rights in 1965, from Selma, Alabama, to Montgomery. There are those who love to post this picture with text that reads, “Never burned one building. Never robbed one store. Never destroyed one town. Changed the world.” This well-circulated misdirection seems to suggest Civil Rights gains in America were achieved without violence or bloodshed. The notion is laughable at best, infuriating at worst. Black folks in Tulsa were minding their own business when an angry white mob bombed a black neighborhood into oblivion. Emmett Till was only 14 when white men dragged from his relatives’ home, gouged his eye out, shot him in the head and then threw his body, tied to a cotton-gin fan with barbed wire, to the bottom of a river. Black folks were under such attack that a lynching report was published biannually by sociologist Monroe Work. A sitting state governor defiantly and loudly proclaimed, “Segregation now! Segregation forever!” Black children were sprayed with fire hoses while they protested the daily injustices levied upon them and their families by the Jim Crow South while a recalcitrant United States Federal Government sat idly by. The pursuit of Civil Rights was stained with the blood of its participants who wanted just and fair treatment in American Society. Black folks were marching across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in peace until their peaceful protest became “Bloody Sunday,” and the whole world saw in black and white how the United States allowed for the brutalization of its black populace. Throughout his short life, Dr. King was arrested, beaten, threatened, and terrorized by every day citizens, local law enforcement, and the federal government. While imprisoned in a Birmingham jail, Dr. King felt compelled to respond to his fellow clergymen who felt his peaceful protests were “unwise and untimely.” People thought what Dr. King was a trouble maker who was asking for too much, too soon. So allow me to digress from my usual didactic and make plain my sentiments on this misappropriated meme: Evade me with your cow excrement.
So let us look at his words and see how revolutionary yet poignant they were in the 1950s and 1960s, and how they still ring true for the unresolved problems we face today.
“We have sometimes given our white brothers the feeling that we liked the way we were being treated. But we come here tonight to be saved from that patience that makes us patient with anything less than freedom and justice.” You cannot be patient when you are forced to endure pain and humiliation at the mercy of unjust laws and unjust men. Dr. King spent half his life educating America on its failure to fulfill its promissory note and provided a clear prescription as to how the United States could remedy its most egregious malady. He was thrust upon the scene as the face of a movement during the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott which garnered a victory handed down by the Supreme Court that local transportation could not be segregated.
“White backlash is nothing new; it is a surfacing of old prejudices, hostilities, and ambivalences that has always been there. It was caused neither by the cry of black power nor by the unfortunate recent wave of riots in our cities. The white backlash of today is rooted in the same problem that has characterized America ever since the black man landed in chains on the shores of this nation.” — Does it sound familiar? After the 2016 elections, Van Jones described the results as a “whitelash,” a vitriolic response to the black and brown voices that were raised across the country bringing attention to the injustices of that day.
“You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes. It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city’s white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative.” “This does not imply that all white Americans are racist. Racism can well be that corrosive evil that would bring down the curtain on western civilization. [America] failed to respond creatively to the challenge to banish racism.” — Comfort for the majority while the minority suffers is not progress. It is not an example to hold up to the world as a beacon of human rights and inclusion. One may think if something does not impact them, that problem cannot be of any import. However, the Bible says, “Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”
“We got our gains…at bargain rates. It didn’t cost them anything…We can’t get out of slums or poverty without it costing the nation something.” — When commenting on the gains of the Civil Rights movement, there were triumphs to be celebrated, but at what cost? It cost America nothing to make good on its promise to enact laws that forced itself to codify equal treatment of all its citizens. It cost nothing to do the right thing, to do what was written into the ethos of the nation. Once basic human rights were built into law, it was then a moral imperative to ensure that a rising tide would indeed lift all ships, building a bridge over that rushing river of hopelessness and despair.
“Integration at its best is the opportunity to participate in the beauty of diversity.” — Now stop. Go back. And read that again. The beauty of diversity; it is the ability to embrace how we are different and celebrate how that diversity can make a people stronger. E pluribus unum. The United States was built on and continued to thrive through its embrace of diversity, not in spite of it.
“There must be a revolution of values in our country. What advantage is there being integrated into a burning house?” — While Dr. King sought integration as a means of reaping the benefits of diversity and continued American prosperity, he very well knew that hearts and minds had to evolve as well. Core beliefs and values had to change; we were and still are in a battle for the soul of the nation. “Again” is not an option, Darwin made it clear that at its most basic premise: evolution was the only way to survive.
“There was a certain kind of fire that no water could put out… We’ve got to give ourselves to this struggle until the end. Nothing would be more tragic than to stop at this point…” — Sadly we are still fighting the same fight, but as Dr. King said, this fight cannot stop. We cannot stop raising our voices for what is moral and right; often the tragedy is in the failure to act.
As I reflect on Dr King’s life, I am now a few months older than he when he was assassinated. What an impact; a man who (on the shoulders of centuries of struggle) rose up to be a voice and agent for change, fighting for the soul of America.
I have a dream…
That you will remember Dr. King for more than a speech he made in DC.
That you will remember Dr. King for more than being assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis Tennessee on 4th April, 1968.
That you will remember Dr. King was labeled a terrorist in his own country while being terrorized by those in power.
That you will remember Dr. King for more than winning a Nobel Peace Prize.
That you will remember Dr. King and countless others were beaten and jailed for believing in equality.
That you will remember “Lift Every Voice and Sing” is not just a beautiful and uplifting Negro anthem, but a call to ensure that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness apply to all of God’s children.
That you will remember that YOU can make a difference and leave a positive mark upon this world.
That you will remember those who came before you, so you could stand where you are today.
That you will remember that all of this isn’t about The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr., this is about US.
I have a dream…
