A Meditation on Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 2020)

Each year around this time I make it a point to re-read some of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s essays and speeches. Over the years his words have healed me, stirred me, and challenged me. His words always arrive right on time:

• when I am least inclined to care about anything that does not directly impact me;
• when I do not want to hear about yet one more social injustice or planetary crisis;
• when I am most likely to blame someone for their suffering;
• when I am unwilling to consider how I benefit from others’ suffering;
• when I want to burn the words “privilege” and “oppression” at the stake;
• when I am most proud to be self-righteous — ever the critic.

Over and over again, King somehow gets me to care; his words pull me out of my solipsistic hole, reminding me that individual and community well-being are connected. I find myself re-enchanted by his vision of the beloved community.

In 1957, King delivered a speech at the NAACP rally at Big Bethel AME Church in Atlanta, Georgia. The rally marked the ninety-fourth anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation — with seven thousand people “overpacked, standing on the sidewalks and the basement of the church and the corridors and every available place,” according to Atlanta police.

Entitled “Facing the Challenge of a New Age,” King’s speech exhorted veteran civil rights workers and newcomers alike to understand the unique challenges of the moment and ready themselves to address them. He worked to give them a compelling vision for which to strive and a sense of their own agency to make real change. And nothing is more alluring than freedom, particularly for an audience intimately acquainted with bondage. On my view, King’s speech is an extended meditation on the nature of freedom: what does it mean to seek freedom in its fullness and what does it mean to live freely on the way there? How might freedom both in means and ends, both inner and outer freedom, be brought together in a seamless whole? Fitting questions to be asked at a gathering to commemorate the abolition of slavery.

Here is an excerpt from King’s speech:

The old order is passing away, and the new order is coming into being. We are witnessing in our day the birth of a new age, with a new structure of freedom and justice. … First, we are challenged to rise above the narrow confines of our individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity. The new world is a world of geographical togetherness. This means that no individual or nation can live alone. We must all learn to live together, or we will be forced to die together. This new world of geographical togetherness has been brought about, to a great extent, by man’s scientific and technological genius. Man through his scientific genius has been able to dwarf distance and place time in chains; he has been able to carve highways through the stratosphere. … Through our scientific genius we have made of the world a neighborhood; now through our moral and spiritual genius we must make of it a brotherhood. We are all involved in the single process. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. We are all links in the great chain of humanity.

In re-reading King’s words, I was struck by the notion that we could begin today to live more freely than we have in the past. We do not need to wait for wider social change. We do not need to wait for the powers that be to be converted. We can make change today. We can be the change today. What if I approached my daily life with this frame of reference in mind? What if I practiced care and concern for my neighbor, though they may face different challenges than I do? Though they may look or believe differently than I do? Though I may not — indeed cannot — fully understand their experiences? What if I paused to listen to them, to seek out their perspectives, to be curious about their stories? What if I made room for their voices, views, identities, cultures, and bodies? What if I reached for compassion before judgement? Stretching across the proverbial aisle rather than recoiling in fear or disgust? Emerging from my cocoon of indifference and of “THIS has nothing to do with me” responses? What if I actually cared? Would not the world be a fuller, kinder, altogether more beautiful and delicious place to be? Our personal, in-the-moment choices matter. What we say and what we do matter. In our schools and classrooms. In the hallways. In student clubs and organizations. On athletic teams. In the Cafeteria. In our sacred spaces. On text messages. Online.

We can begin to lead lives unfettered by selfishness and indifference. Whereas apathy drains us of life-giving energy, empathy oxygenates the human heart. We come alive when we care. There is freedom in living compassionately. There is freedom in honoring the connections between us. A world marked by empathy and compassion can begin now, here, in this moment, in us, between us.