Who We Mourn When We Mourn Dr. King: Remembering the Women Who Raised Us
I remember where I was when I learned that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had been killed. I was sitting cross-legged on the floor in the den of my parents suburban New York home. There, on a cool linoleum floor my siblings and I were ensconced, as we were on many afternoons, before the big box of a black and white television that brought us afternoon cartoons and comedies.
A news bulletin interrupted our routine viewing. And I’m a bit embarrassed to say that my nine year old self only half tuned in to the broadcaster’s words. The gravity of what was being reported only became clear when my grandmother, visiting from her home in Greensboro, North Carolina, asked what I had heard. A “king” had been shot, I told her. Her face conveyed the rest of what I needed to understand. She called my mother in from the kitchen and the two women — one black and one white — clutched one another. Our world had turned, and I did not need words to understand that no one knew how far or in what direction.
Yesterday we marked 50 years — a half-century — since that day. I followed the goings-on at conference and seminars, celebrations and commemorations all of which recalled Dr. King’s death, and his life. I had little appetite for it, even if I couldn’t say precisely why. Perhaps I am too much of a student of Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s Silencing the Past when it comes to rituals of public memory. Worried that events might veer too far into myth or commodification, I am more likely to sit on the sidelines. Still, I shared in the sense that we need Dr. King in 2018 as much as we had in 1968, if only to better equip us for the struggles of our own hard times.
My Wednesday calendar was filled with lots of routine, including getting my car serviced. Back and forth some distance to the dealer, and circling my block for the right parking spot might not sound like a respectful way to honor Dr. King. But something odd happened. As I turned on my sound system, there was his voice filling the car. I have to explain that my car/phone interface has what I have long thought of as a glitch. Sometimes, by no conscious act on my part, the sound system plays the only “album” downloaded to my phone: a collection of Dr. King’s speeches. I don’t know why this happens on some days and not others. But when it happened yesterday, on April 4, 2018, it seemed just right.
The “Ultimate Collection” of speeches by Dr. King includes 32 recording that total 17 hours. Take a listen to just a few and you will be variously inspired, awed, amused, and ultimately better informed about Dr. King’s political evolution, grasp of history, and gift for oratory. My husband, who rode along on some of my errands, pointed out how we could hear the crowds and their rhythms of call and response. Some years ago, I worked with Clayborne and Susan Carson at Stanford University’s Martin Luther King Papers Project. I was reminded of our days spent transcribing Dr. King’s speeches and how his facility with language included an ability to create new words when standard English would not suffice. By evening, the act of listening began to feel just right. I sat in the car longer than needed just to indulge in my own mourning ritual. More than anything, I felt a sadness.
Many commentators, more expert on Dr. King than am I, have explained the meaning of his loss for the nation. My reflection is more personal, if only because I keep returning to that scene of my mother and grandmother clutching one another in front of the television. An act of brutality took Dr. King too soon, in his 39th year. But today, 50 years later, my mother and my grandmother are also gone. Generations have passed on since that fateful day in 1968. Their hope, courage, optimism and resolve are ours only in memory. Theirs were the generations that instilled in me an indelible commitment to social justice, an unchangeable belief in the value of every human life, and the requirement that I live a life of purpose. Their values will never fade. Still, I mourn the loss of their loving hands, their soft words, and their steely examples. Today, I mourn the loss of the women who raised me, perhaps as much as I do the loss of Dr. King.
