I suppose it’s embarrassingly trite and predictable to love on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in mid-January, to praise him and claim him as a personal hero. But I’m going to do it anyway. Because it’s his birthday and he deserves to be remembered. And I deserve to go back and pour over his precious words, to be reminded that there is a better way, a way of eloquence and love and dignity. We all deserve that.
Reading his (long) Letter from a Brimingham Jail – a letter that far exceeds the word and character count for most social media platforms — made me wonder how MLK would fare in the age of facebook. Would he get an encouraging number of “likes” and “shares”? And if he didn’t, would he post baby animal videos or shout-outs to his favorite lunch spots? Or would he just keep posting deep-thinking-inspirational-call-to-action stuff until all but his most dedicated activist “friends” unfollowed him?
MLK is popular… now. His vision, his character, his carefully chosen words — it’s all stood the test of time. But in 1966 (according to a Gallup poll that year), 63 percent of Americans had a negative view of MLK.
In 2018, mainstream folks gather together around breakfast and luncheon tables set with real silverware and cloth napkins to honor him. University presidents and Chamber of Commerce members and pastors and elected officials — everybody shows up to hear speeches about unity. That’s a good thing. Bring on the speeches about unity. Bring on the quotes about light driving out darkness. Bring on the broad themes of equality and harmony. It’ll feed our hungry souls.
The sweeping concepts are easy: “‘Love,’ why, YES, of course we cheer for ‘love’!!” and “‘Justice,’ who wouldn’t want ‘justice’?”
Then there’s the tricky part. You know, connecting the grand notions to here-and-now policies. Calling on an audience to think through what a modern-day MLK might look like in their own community. What moral demands might he make of us? What, for instance, would be his message to Elkhart County Commissioners as they contemplate a for-profit immigration detention center (that’s a rhetorical question because you already know the answer)?
What would MLK say about granting property tax breaks to highly profitable companies whose CEOs are paid hundreds of times what some of their employees are paid (again, rhetorical)?
If he lived here in Goshen, would he be appointed to our Community Relations Commission? Would he be willing to serve?
Would he run for office? Would he win? I would hope so.
MLK was courage incarnate. He stood up to the most powerful interests in the most powerful country in the world. He showed up and called out injustice and inequity whenever and wherever he saw it — but always with a clear intent to uplift. Never to degrade. Never to debase.
He was resistance and persistence wrapped in grace. And for his elegance and strength… he was criticized, jailed, surveilled and finally killed.
It’ s never been easy to push society towards its best self, to question the status quo, or to stand for the underdog. It will always be challenging and it will always be risky.
As much as anything, MLK lamented the silence of good people in the midst of injustice, and the white “moderate” who valued “order” over justice (the irony of today might be that “order” is slipping through all our fingers, and we may not have as much of it to lose as we imagine).
MLK is a hero not only because he was strong enough to greet violence with nonviolence, but because he was able to withstand Disapproval — to shake its limp hand, see its raised eyebrows and treat it like a gentleman anyway. Because, frankly, most people are more afraid of being socially ostracized than of being punched in the gut.
The truth is, Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday is hard. I always experience it as a serious lesson in humility, as a reminder of my own human frailty, and of our collective imperfection. It comes around each January like a failed New Year’s resolution (Ugh! AGAIN I didn’t spread compassion and human rights like wildfire!).
So it’s here. The annual reminder that I (and you) have work to do.
Julia, in this time when we so much need “a way of eloquence and love and dignity”, thank you for reminding us of MLK’s commitment to justice for all. This is the kind of courage we need from our elected officials at every level:
“MLK was courage incarnate. He stood up to the most powerful interests in the most powerful country in the world. He showed up and called out injustice and inequity whenever and wherever he saw it — but always with a clear intent to uplift. Never to degrade. Never to debase.”
Thank you for your thoughts, Eileen. Yes, we definitely need courage at every level. I see a tendency for people to focus “up” and out into the distance, as though the work elsewhere is always more pressing. Maybe it’s easier to “call out” far away strangers than it is to call out our own friends and acquaintances…(?)
Very true. Thanks for your courageous and uplifting leadership.