The following is the closing remarks in a speech called "Our God is Marching On." It was delivered on March 25, 1965 in Montgomery, Alabama.
As I think about the struggle for social justice in 2007, the thing that comes to mind is how much Martin Luther King, Jr, who was a radical for his time has become the mainstream. That is a good thing and a bad thing. It is a good thing in that we have somewhat internalized the values that King stood for and a bad thing in the sense that we have forgotten those values expressed by King that are not at the immediate forefront of our collective consciousness in mass media depictions of King.
People forget that King fought against poverty for all people because he understood that you could not have social justice if you divided poor white men from poor black men. And that is exactly what we have done. King fought against war because war traps those unable to escape its grasp. War begets only hatred and never love.
The words of Martin Luther King, Jr uttered in 1965 seem to me as radical today as they did over 40 years ago.
His were always words of optimism and hope. How long will this struggle last--not long he says. Why? Because we have collectively been instilled with a sense of justice and righteousness.
It is that unyielding faith in God and faith in human destiny that imbibes the entire civil rights experience. A few years back I read David Halberstam's "The Children" which chronicled some of the lesser known civil rights activists including John Lewis who was nearly killed on the bridge to Selma and who is now among the ranking Democrats in Congress. It was their sense of faith and conviction that allowed them to turn the other cheek as they were beaten and to love their enemy as their adversary tried to break them down and destroy their spirit. And it is the ultimate story of redemption when John Lewis' oppressor in Selma comes back to him years later in Lewis' congressional office and the two grown men break down in tears because words could not express the passions of the moment.
It is this sense of faith and hope that empowers the message in ways that modern and contemporary political discourse just fall well short.
King was a man of profound optimism, faith, and love and those traits carried him through at the worst times and the best times.
And yet as we look upon our world in 2007, we see not much room for optimism. Poverty still plagues humanity. Global warming and pollution are killing the planet. War still rages. Racism and hate still thrive.
How would Martin Luther King respond to our modern condition--with a message of hope and faith? A message of encouragement? A note of progress? And a word about the struggle to come?
We go back another 100 years for a message about struggle from Frederick Douglass:
In 2007 the struggle continues. The struggle for the hearts and the minds and the souls of well-intentioned people will continue this year and into the future. We can only hope to shed light where there is darkness and hope where all seems hopeless.
---Doug Paul Davis reporting
How long? Not long, because "no lie can live forever."The vast majority of the people who talk about Martin Luther King and his legacy will focus on the "I have a Dream" Speech. That is a speech that is by now familiar to all Americans. It remains a work that embodied the civil rights struggle and placed the common person into the shoes of the African American. Some remember nothing more than the call for a color blind society--mistaking the statement "judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character" as opposition to affirmative action. King in fact long favored affirmative action.
How long? Not long, because "you shall reap what you sow."
How long? Not long:
Truth forever on the scaffold,
Wrong forever on the throne,
Yet that scaffold sways the future,
And, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow,
Keeping watch above his own.
How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.
How long? Not long, because:
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He has loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword;
His truth is marching on.
He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat.
O, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! Be jubilant my feet!
Our God is marching on.
As I think about the struggle for social justice in 2007, the thing that comes to mind is how much Martin Luther King, Jr, who was a radical for his time has become the mainstream. That is a good thing and a bad thing. It is a good thing in that we have somewhat internalized the values that King stood for and a bad thing in the sense that we have forgotten those values expressed by King that are not at the immediate forefront of our collective consciousness in mass media depictions of King.
People forget that King fought against poverty for all people because he understood that you could not have social justice if you divided poor white men from poor black men. And that is exactly what we have done. King fought against war because war traps those unable to escape its grasp. War begets only hatred and never love.
The words of Martin Luther King, Jr uttered in 1965 seem to me as radical today as they did over 40 years ago.
His were always words of optimism and hope. How long will this struggle last--not long he says. Why? Because we have collectively been instilled with a sense of justice and righteousness.
It is that unyielding faith in God and faith in human destiny that imbibes the entire civil rights experience. A few years back I read David Halberstam's "The Children" which chronicled some of the lesser known civil rights activists including John Lewis who was nearly killed on the bridge to Selma and who is now among the ranking Democrats in Congress. It was their sense of faith and conviction that allowed them to turn the other cheek as they were beaten and to love their enemy as their adversary tried to break them down and destroy their spirit. And it is the ultimate story of redemption when John Lewis' oppressor in Selma comes back to him years later in Lewis' congressional office and the two grown men break down in tears because words could not express the passions of the moment.
It is this sense of faith and hope that empowers the message in ways that modern and contemporary political discourse just fall well short.
King was a man of profound optimism, faith, and love and those traits carried him through at the worst times and the best times.
And yet as we look upon our world in 2007, we see not much room for optimism. Poverty still plagues humanity. Global warming and pollution are killing the planet. War still rages. Racism and hate still thrive.
How would Martin Luther King respond to our modern condition--with a message of hope and faith? A message of encouragement? A note of progress? And a word about the struggle to come?
We go back another 100 years for a message about struggle from Frederick Douglass:
"If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will..."During difficult times every person questions themselves. Why am I fighting for justice? Shouldn't someone else carry that torch? Will I win? The words of Douglass ring out to me like a beacon of hope. He was calling out for agitation. It was a necessary condition for progress. We do not achieve progress by playing it safe. We do not achieve progress by sitting down in the back of the bus. And we do not achieve progress by failing to speak out and help the least of our neighbors. We do not achieve progress by simply showing up to the polls on Tuesday and hoping against hope that someone else has done it for us.
In 2007 the struggle continues. The struggle for the hearts and the minds and the souls of well-intentioned people will continue this year and into the future. We can only hope to shed light where there is darkness and hope where all seems hopeless.
---Doug Paul Davis reporting
