In Honor of Martin Luther King Jr.

My roots and Southern soil are irrevocably entwined. Atlanta is where my mom was born, seven years before Martin Luther King Jr. came into the world in that same city, which has grown so wide since those days. I never saw the strange fruit on the trees but the ghosts of it were around. I think they're still around, glimpses, hints, muffled sounds.
But today, I want to express my gratitude, from that girl from the South, and from this woman and mother, now in the North, to Martin Luther King Jr. and all those who marched with him, and all whose shoulders they stood upon.

The sound of Martin Luther King's voice made me feel proud and at home, a well-educated Black man speaking with the cadence, the intelligence and the intensity of my People. His eyes, those striking deep black pools, could envision the bold, the need for justice to keep rising up to find its place, to insist. His eyes, onyx gems, could witness the brutality and offer his vulnerability as strength. With his voice, his vision and his actions he inspired others to bring forward their power to resist injustice, to use what they had, their feet, their bodies. I didn't like that he led people into being beaten. Malcolm's stance appealed to me much more, yet I respected King for his unwillingness to wait and his courage.

They are faceless, the women and men who walked miles to work day in and out, refusing a degrading bus ride. But because of them, I ride Metro North and no white person can tell me to give up my seat when the crowded train does not afford them one. I thank those Montgomery elders. I thank everyone who walked in fear, in terror, holding onto each other and faith in bringing about change, Black and White. But I am especially indebted to the Blacks because for the most part they lived in that Southern belly, and most of the Whites came from elsewhere. They could leave, though Goodman, Schwerner, and Viola did not. But the local Blacks who marched had to keep breathing through the terror that went on after the marching and voter registration. Sadly, the names of those Birmingham girls bombed to death are not committed to memory even though Spike has remembered them in film. But I thank them and their families for the sacrifice they did not offer but made. To Emmett and his mother, who insisted the world see what happened to her son, I say the same.

I thank all those who surrounded Martin Luther King, his inner circle of Jessie, Andrew, Ralph, Coretta, John and any others who held him up. I thank all those who lost jobs, their minds, their lives in the face of the Civil Rights movement, and their descendants who bear this legacy.

At the time of his murder, Martin Luther King had begun to broaden his focus to challenge economic injustice and war in addition to racial oppression. In one of his not well-known speeches he began to conceive of ghettos as colonies. He had to die. But I thank you Martin for standing up and aspiring to bring living at the highest level of humanity into being.

MLK Jr. - reflections on the anniversary of his murder

I can remember this day forty-two years ago like it was yesterday. I was in my high-rise dorm room when the voice of my friend Jimmy Mac, a cool dude with wire-rim glasses from Harlem, came through the phone. "They did it," he said. "What?" I said. "They killed him." "Who are you talking about?" "Martin Luther King." "WHAT? They KILLED HIM? They KILLED him!" That gentle giant with black eyes like that of a doe, willing to get his and others' heads bashed in in the name of love and turning the cheek. I could not take it in, but told Mac I'd be downstairs in a few minutes to join him and others who were going downtown (Boston) to be together with other Black students in the area.

I am still not over it. The issue of race took on a new philosophy and role in my life. But that's another blog.

What I didn't appreciate at the time was how radical Martin Luther King Jr. was, not just in terms of his non-violence stance (which truthfully didn't seem that radical to me at the time), but when he began to address the immorality of Vietnam and of class oppression, and suggested that the ghetto was a colony. This progression in his thinking, his voice, his actions doesn't get much play, and he had just started to support the Black sanitation workers on strike in Memphis when he was shot down. Bill Moyers recently did a show on PBS about King and the state of class and race nowadays. He and Michael Winship also did a piece in Salon.com http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/feature/2010/04/02/martin_luther_king_assassination_anniversary_ext2010/index.html King lost a lot of support when he widened his lens and protest, including flak from the N.A.A.C.P. So sad. It reminds me again of how lonely it can be to take a stand against injustice, and yet as he said "There comes a time when silence is a betrayal."

Not long ago, there was concern that the sculpture of him for the memorial being built in Washington looked too forceful (my word). Or is it that it looked 'angry'? His face, his hands needed to be toned down, smoothed over. This is what society wants to do over time with social justice heroes, render them innocuous teddy bears so they can be loved. I think about this not only with Martin Luther King but Muhammad Ali. These Black men did not go gently against injustice, and they were willing to risk status and lifestyle in taking their stands. Muhammad Ali gave up his heavyweight title, his ability to make a living in is profession for years, and Martin Luther King gave us his life. These men had the courage and integrity to speak up and lose the support of many.

The cost of integrity can be high. This post-modern notion that everything can be negotiated pleasantly with appropriate empathy and good will is itself a sanded-down notion. There is sacrifice, burning, and heartbreak in speaking truth to Power.

I give thanks to these brothers and others who bear witness to such strength. Though I cannot be them, they hold me up in the little steps I take to speak up at times when silence is preferred and well cultivated.