Simon asked this morning how many U.S. bloggers would reflect on Martin Luther King on this national holiday in honor of him. We agreed to ponder the question, and to look around to see what happens.
I don’t remember ever having crossed paths with King — I was getting socially-conscious in the mid-to-late sixties, so we could have marched in the same place at the same time — but what I definitely remember is his authority. Enemies could snipe at him, slander him (and here I8’m not entering arguments about his private life, I’m talking about the sort of character assassination that has since migrated to fair-and-balanced talking heads on television), they could threaten him, his family, and those around him, and he maintained a majesty that quite thrilled me. At the time, the leaders who held my admiration, who seemed so powerfully to speak for necessary, positive, healing changes in our social structures, embodied a states[person]ship (I’m thinking of Shirley Chisholm here) that nobody in public office approaches. Am I just getting old and cranky, or may this have some relation to the stasis into which civil rights has fallen?
Whatever — I will always remember the figures of pride and determination, of non-violence and steadfastness, of grandeur and eloquence who together moved the land in which I live from grim bigotry to the sense that our public behavior ought to be race-blind in just a few years. Without intending a slight to Dr. King, I honor especially the people who marched around the wide-eyed white kid, teaching him about solidarity and testimony (preparing him to understand the communion of saints). A long column of witnesses, with a brilliant, handsome, determined, eloquent King at the head of the line — and now, so much left for us to do.
Posted by AKMA at January 19, 2004 10:22 PM | TrackBackWhen I was in Switzerland participating in the Caux Scholars Program (program based on learning non-violent conflict transformation and peacekeeping tactics/strategies for employment on the personal to international levels - www.cauxscholars.org) I was surrounded by a group of people who dumbfounded me. These were folks, in my age range for the most part, who hard survived such adversity and terror, yet still trudged on and had the courage and steadfastness to want to learn how they could do more. Before I left, I got all their autographs in my little notebook, because I think someday, maybe a long time from now, when someone discovers that notebook in an attic, they will think to themselves, "I can hardly believe all these people were once in the same room!" I saw about twenty-two potential Martin Luther King's there. So, I'm not gonna argue that civil rights (internationally as well as nationally) has not fallen into a stasis, but I will say that there are a lot of folks out there doing the right thing for the greater good, and that I am proud to know them. So, it is not so grim, just a bit cloudy...
-R
Posted by: Ryan Whitley at January 19, 2004 10:37 PMSurprised you don't remember. He came to Brunswick to speak at the Cong. church. We watched from the rise the church is on as every feeder street we could see was just a mass of walking citizens coming to hear him. One of my "magical moments."
Posted by: NTA at January 20, 2004 06:18 AMThanks for the encouraging word, Ryan.
Mom, I had a lingering feeling about that. I can’t call the event to mind, but of course you’re right, and the family memory of that day must have inspired my hedging on the issue of whether I had ever seen him.
I wish the address had marked my recollection as vividly as it has yours; that would be a precious memory indeed.
Posted by: AKMA at January 20, 2004 09:30 AMI do not understand how anyone could comment that they might have marched with Dr. King and not known or remembered it. You were perhaps a bit too young. Anyone by the mid-1960's at the latest would have known most definitely if they were marching with him because he would have been out front leading the march. Possibly you expressed yourself in a way not intended but it was really hard to be involved in the civil rights or peace marches or demonstrations and not be aware of his presence. He was a singular personality in American history, and certainly one in my generation, and a great loss to us all as was JFK and RFK in the 1960's, a turbulent time when this nation struggled to understand itself.
Posted by: Steve at January 21, 2004 09:12 AMSteve, I meant no disrespect; just stating plainly that I don’t remember the occasion my mother describes, at which (thanks to my Google-Queen bride) I know to have taken place in 1964, when I was six and a half years old (I don’t remember participating in any civil rights marches when we lived in Maine). When in subsequent years I took a more active part in marches, demonstrations, and classroom agitation, Dr. King probably was not present, as that period mostly corresponds to years after his assassination. There’s an overlap of a year or two, after I began marching, etc., when he might have been at a march in which I took part, but if so, I wasn’t anywhere near him, and I was more vividly impressed with the people among who I was walking.
Dr. King’s legacy includes the sense in which he, as a political figure, shouldn’t be important to our work toward freedom. “I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land.” When I remember King, I remember his effect on people around me, people for whom he provided an occasion for courage and an inspiration for steadfastness. I hope I don’t diminish his singularity by looking not only at him, but also around him to the people whose collective power he catalyzed.
Posted by: AKMA at January 21, 2004 03:30 PM