Martin
Luther King, Jr. struggles
The
time was the 1960s and the world seemed in turmoil. The country was gearing up for a war it did
not want, poverty was staggering in the United States amidst one of the richest
countries in the world and Black citizens were still treated as second-class
citizens...especially in the South. 1954
had brought a Supreme Court decision that was to end school segregation, but
that edict had not been heeded by those in the South.
John
Fraser Hart wrote in 1967 in his book "The Southeastern Untied States,
"The attitude of most Southerners, when they contemplated the future of
their region, was compounded with hope and fear. Their hope was for rapid industrial development
that would change the retarded rural South to modern cities. Their fear was the necessity of accepting the
practice of racial equality. These hopes
and fears were both interrelated, for cities are centers of change, and the
growth of cities would bring increased pressures for integration."
So
on August 28, 1963 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stood in front of the Lincoln
Memorial in Washington, DC to deliver his "I Have a Dream" speech
where he said the promises that had been given a hundred years before had been
broken. He said, "But one hundred years later, the Negro
still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still
sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination.
One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the
midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the
Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself
an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful
condition."
Dr. King's call for justice
continued. His insight had come from
personal experience through the suffering of injustice and broken
promises. He continued, "In a sense
we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our
republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of
Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was
to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as
white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of
"Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today
that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of
color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given
the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked
"insufficient funds."
Echoing that call for justice much evidence had been laid on the
foundation of the "defaulted promissory note" Dr. King had
described. Jona Hannah, author of "Public
Education," 1964, issued a Staff Report, in which Hanna "indicated
that with the close of the 1963-64 school year, ten years after the Supreme
Court’s decision in the School Segregation Cases, just a small portion over
nine percent of the Negro children in the Southern and Border States were
attending public schools with White students.”
Hanna continued, “In the year 1963-64, there were 181 school
districts in the 17 States which admitted Negro pupils to White schools for the
first time, the largest number added in any year since 1956-57, the third
school year after the Supreme Court’s decision.
On a regional basis, 19.7 percent of the school districts in the 11
Southern States had started the desegregation process, whereas 92.4 percent of
the school districts in the Border States were desegregated in some
degree. Two states, South Carolina and
Alabama, experienced their first desegregation below the college level when
schools opened in September 1963.
Mississippi was the only state maintaining completely segregated elementary
and secondary schools in 1963-64.”
One
Governor, George Wallace in Alabama was defiant toward integration. Robert Sherrill, author of "Gothic
Politics in the Deep South, (1969)," had quoted George Wallace in 1962: "I shall refuse to abide by any illegal
federal court order, even to the point of standing at the schoolhouse door in
person.” Of course everyone now knows
that is exactly what he did.
On
September 9, 1963, President Kennedy issued a statement in which he accused the
Governor (Wallace) of trying to provoke Federal Government intervention. The President charged that the Governor’s
actions were motivated by personal and political reasons. He said the Governor knew that the United States
Government must carry out court orders, and that most citizens of the four
cities involved were
willing to face the difficult transition with the same courage and
respect for law shown by communities in neighboring states. President Kennedy said that the government
would do whatever was necessary to see that Federal orders to desegregate
public schools were carried out in Alabama, but added his hope that the
Governor would allow local officials and communities to meet their responsibilities
in this regard.
Robert Sherrill, author of "Gothic
Politics in the Deep South, 1969" wrote, "The stage was set at the
University of Alabama. Sherrill painted
a perfect picture of a political George Wallace at work. Reporting in Sherrill’s Gothic Politics...,
“George Wallace was given a podium and microphone to make his speech, in front
of the television cameras. As Deputy
Attorney General Katzenbach approached, Wallace held up his hand like a traffic
cop, the Governor and Katzenbach began to talk.
Later, the temporarily federalized National Guard general stepped in, as
Wallace saluted him, and announced it was his ‘sad duty’ to have to take over
from the Governor. Wallace, at that
point, consoled him by saying, ‘I know this is a bitter pill....’ At that point,
Wallace stepped aside to surrender, not to the federal government, but to a
Southern soldier acting under duress.’”
These were the politics of George Wallace.
This was the segregation that existed in the Southern
schools. The attitudes of the leaders of
the South, and the people who lived there, was to keep the South
segregated. They wanted regional growth,
and larger cities with more industry, but they feared integration.
Dr. King encountered pressures and opposition from many
sources. The opposition even came from
fellow preachers and pastors. They were
complaining that he was moving too fast in trying to gain equality, justice and
integration. From his perspective the
country had moved too slowly. From his jail
cell in the city of Birmingham, Alabama Dr. King wrote, "We know through painful experience
that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded
by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign
that was 'well timed' in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from
the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word 'Wait!' It
rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This 'Wait' has
almost always meant 'Never.' We must come to see, with one of our distinguished
jurists, that 'justice too long delayed is justice denied.'" (Martin Luther King, Jr., April 16, 1963,
"Letter from a Birmingham Jail")
As Dr. King stood amidst
that giant crowd in Washington, DC that day, his mind may have gone back to the
leaders of the Church who had pierced his efforts with criticism and cries to
"wait." He continued his
speech, "There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights,
'When will you be satisfied?' We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is
the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be
satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain
lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot
be satisfied as long as the negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to
a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of
their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: 'For Whites
Only.' We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and
a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are
not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until 'justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.'" (This quote from the Bible; Amos 5:24,
American Standard Version)
Our remembrance of Dr.
King rings in our ears and echoes in our minds each time we remember the man
and his work. With all the struggles he
faced as he delivered the check to America to cash it in for all Americans who
want to be free, his legacy remains forever embedded in our collective memory
as we rehearse the monumental work he did for all humanity. It can be summed up by his own words as he
ended his speech in Washington. Read
those words again and remember a great man, his struggles and his dreams.
"Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.
And so even though we face the
difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply
rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this
nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold
these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the
red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave
owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the
state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering
with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and
justice.
I have a dream that my four little
children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the
color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day, down in
Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping
with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" --
one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able
to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day every
valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the
rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight;
"and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it
together." (Isaiah
40:4-5, KJV)
This is our hope, and this is the
faith that I go back to the South with.
With this faith, we will be able to
hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be
able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony
of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray
together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom
together, knowing that we will be free one day.
And this will be the day -- this
will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new
meaning:
My country 'tis of thee, sweet land
of liberty, of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died, land of
the Pilgrim's pride,
From every mountainside, let freedom
ring!
And if America is to be a great
nation, this must become true.
And so let freedom ring from the
prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.
Let freedom ring from the mighty
mountains of New York.
Let freedom ring from the
heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.
Let freedom ring from the
snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous
slopes of California.
But not only that:
Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain
of Georgia.
Let freedom ring from Lookout
Mountain of Tennessee.
Let freedom ring from every hill and
molehill of Mississippi.
From every mountainside, let freedom
ring.
And when this happens, and when we
allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet,
from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all
of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and
Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro
spiritual:
Free at last! Free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!
(Martin
Luther King, Jr., "I Have a Dream," August 28, 1963, Washington, DC)
Jim
Killebrew
