Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr – What we must never forget about the man and his resounding message
Website design By BotEap.comAuthor’s program note. Only one song would do for this of all articles, the iconic anthem of the United States Civil Rights Movement, “We Shall Overcome.”
Website design By BotEap.comIt was not so much a song as it was a declaration of purpose and a profound resolve, not merely declaring and celebrating destiny… but a collective promise, renewed with each song, that adherents were united in mind, body and purpose. ; because they would need all of that, and more, as they moved toward the inspiring goal of equality, where people who were divided by tradition finally forged unity out of division.
Website design By BotEap.com“We Shall Overcome” is a protest song. The lyrics are derived from the chorus of a gospel song by Charles Albert Tindley. It was first published in the People’s Song Bulletin, a publication of People’s Songs, an organization of which Pete Seeger was the director. The song became associated with the Civil Rights Movement beginning in 1959, when Guy Carawan released it as the movement’s most famous, motivational, and ultimately elegiac song; their lofty battle hymn. It was what oppressed people, their adherents, and their determined opponents heard as fire hoses were thrown at them, dogs were ordered to growl and bite, and harassed pilgrims were beaten with truncheons.
Website design By BotEap.comThere were many heroes in those days, but there was still no hero who would rise above the rest and become the heartbeat of the movement, its public face and voice to the world.
Website design By BotEap.comThat man had yet to emerge, but his first big moment was yet to come…in Birmingham, Alabama, where from a prison cell he was about to instruct his followers, his opponents, and a world oppressed by a panoply of civilians. . rights abuses in what a man who believes in justice should do.
Website design By BotEap.comConsider this man now, on the threshold of history. He is mortal, frail, frail, with deep doubts, hesitations, and an acute awareness of his inadequacies. He, like so many Heroes, hoped he didn’t have to be what he was in the process of becoming; he expected others to bear a substantial part of the burden. But history is infallible. He saw, as the individual did not, that this man could rise above his own demons and limitations… to become what the movement must have to be successful: a moral compass, a higher purpose, a complete humanity and the ability to be hit, bitten, spit on, bruised and beaten again, and yet love his tormentors, direct the wrath of his people towards a benign purpose, and always rise up…showing that violence, any violence, does not could stop it. .and so he wouldn’t stop moving either. This was sublime! This was what man was meant to do on this planet… though he still didn’t quite know it.
Website design By BotEap.comAnd so it went to the most intolerant city in America, probably the most segregated, the least hospitable to its black people, the city that taught the nation how to insult, patronize, intimidate, and all too often kill people of color. color. for being born and being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was the capital of all forms of finely manipulated and exquisite segregation, and enemies of all kinds looked first to Birmingham as the citadel of their bitter beliefs, the fortress for age-old hatred that all black citizens knew only too well.
Website design By BotEap.comAnd so Martin Luther King, Jr. went to Birmingham as he traveled to so many fateful destinations…because it was necessary, because it was the right thing to do, because the people needed succor and relief and he had that to give and to spare.
Website design By BotEap.comThe Birmingham event was a planned non-violent protest by the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights and King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference against racial segregation by the Birmingham city government and downtown retailers. He was one of the first to be arrested… the first to be brought harshly and insistently to his “suite” in the Birmingham City Jail. He had to be a shock, a shock, a contempt, an insult, a humiliation for this man who loved life and the pleasures of life so much, more accustomed to the Word of God than to the execration of man.
Website design By BotEap.comBut he had something to say, something he had clearly been thinking about for some time, because he wrote without hesitation his profound message of importance to the entire world and its oppressed.
Website design By BotEap.comKing responds to eight white clergymen from Alabama who objected to his visit to Birmingham.
Website design By BotEap.comOn that spring day, eight local clergymen offered Dr. King the benefit of their fellowship and a desire to defuse the anxious situation and rescue the endangered status quo. These church leaders did what so many have done throughout the centuries. Devoid of courage, clouded in vision, and wanting to safeguard their own positions and pulpits, they wrote to Dr. King to leave… to keep things on track… to stop the violence and be patient. … would be, they were quite clear, much better this way. They didn’t have to say that it would be better for them…
Website design By BotEap.comDr. King was bruised in body and spirit when he arrived at the city jail. He must have wondered how he got there and if against so much hatred he could achieve his goal. He must also have wondered how many people already trusted him…and the terrible sacrifices he might ask them to make, even to death itself. At such a moment a man, any man, might wonder and reflect.
Website design By BotEap.comBut then he read the sentiments of these local clergymen about his mission to Birmingham, criticizing it as “reckless and ill-timed”. He read these words, and knew immediately what he must do…and so the words of high goalkeeper and unequivocal conviction came quickly.
Website design By BotEap.comHe began his response the way any disagreeing minister would have addressed a colleague, professionally, directly and deliberately. But this was not intended to be such a letter among Christian clergy of different views. He had a higher purpose, and it soon became apparent. He intended to remind (if they knew), to teach (if they did not) his fellow clergymen a fundamental precept of his ministries. His goal was to show them, once and for all, clearly, that justice was his business, the very heart of his business, and he wanted his message to be severe, unequivocal, a bell that would summon everyone to recognize their profound duties.
Website design By BotEap.comHe first reminded these southern clergymen, with their regional blindness, that the problem was not Southern, but American: “Anyone who lives in the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its borders.” In short, what was happening in Birmingham and what made the demonstration necessary was not simply a Birmingham problem or a Southern problem…it was an American problem (not to mention, by rapid extension, a universal problem of humanity that suffered for a long time).
Website design By BotEap.comAnd so he built his case for action now point by point irrefutable, making the considered advice of the local clergy seem what it was, a self-serving argument that kept blacks in their place, patient in the face of intimidation, outrage, and a white rage ready to explode into legally sanctioned outrages against black citizens at any moment.
Website design By BotEap.comThus King found the voice of moral certainty, the voice that freed so many and resulted in time in the sacrifice of his own life, taken by those who came to know him as the feared prophet of black liberation, and so necessary to destroy .
Website design By BotEap.com“Injustice,” he trumpeted, “anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” The haters, the entrenched segregationists, the racial purists, the purveyors of unjust laws and terrorism and legal abuse, despite writing volumes in support of their untenable views, have never uttered a phrase as powerful as this… a phrase that showed just where the right was and a better future. He signed his soon to be world famous “Letter from Birmingham City Jail” “Yours for the Cause of Peace and Brotherhood” and smuggled it out in a tube of toothpaste to avoid security guards. the jail.
Website design By BotEap.comNow this man has been transformed into mythology with a great civic temple for his celebrations. Chinese artist-architect Lei Yixin has been criticized for his work. No matter. The work and vision of any architect would have met with censure in the eyes of zealous others who were not selected. But the truth is that this monument will soon be among the most popular, even though the great monuments to Jefferson, Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt are within easy reach.
Website design By BotEap.com“Now,” to borrow Edward Stanton’s words about Lincoln, King “belongs to the ages.” Here his greatest challenge will be to inspire those who follow in his footsteps so much that his timeless message remains valid and is not forgotten by all those so indebted to the man who is now enshrined among the worthy of the Great Republic. .