This day back in 1968 Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Over the last few years, I\u2019ve learned so much more than I ever did in school. I remember the sorrow my parents felt, my mom especially, just days before my youngest sister was born. My dad rarely showed any emotion, was a little quieter than normal. I can\u2019t remember for sure, but I bet he went to work the next day. At six, I had no idea what the Civil Rights Movement meant. In hindsight, I was sheltered from blatant racism. Our next-door neighbors were white, there was rioting less than a mile away in the streets of Chicago, but my neighborhood was untouched. It happened on a Thursday, and I had just started school as part of the first fully integrated class to matriculate through the Evanston Public School system. I couldn\u2019t tell you whether we went to school on Friday or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was sheltered, suburban, middle class. I\u2019m sure I did a book report or two on Dr. King but couldn\u2019t tell you which books. In 7th grade I recited the I Have A Dream speech during what was then Black History Week in 1975. I listened to the speech over and over again trying to match Dr. King\u2019s cadence. I delivered the speech so well that the Black teachers had tears in their eyes. I went on a mini speaking tour at my own church and another local church, reciting Dr. King\u2019s words. I understood the power of the speech, but at thirteen I was not mature enough to understand the meaning. At 63, I understand that if I could go back and talk to the 13-year-old me, or the 23-year-old me, 43, and maybe even the 53-year-old version of myself, I would tell them to reread and remember the last speech Dr. King gave on April 3rd, 1968.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dubbed the Mountaintop speech, Dr. King ended with the now-famous words, but few even bother to read and sit with the full speech. I did again today, equipped with a new lens built with tools I didn\u2019t have before\u2014access to Black scholars like Dr. Greg Carr, listening to hosts on Urban View who challenge us to look beyond the boundaries of American history, and the ongoing evolution of my full Black self.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr. King starts with an opportunity from the Almighty to visit a different age and time: \u201cMartin Luther King, which age would you like to live in?\u201d Dr. King didn\u2019t just pick one. Beginning in Egypt, to see God\u2019s children trek from there to the Promised Land, he says, \u201cbut I wouldn\u2019t stop there.\u201d He would travel to Greece to watch Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Euripides, and Aristophanes discuss the great and eternal issues of reality. Moving on to 1863, to watch \u201ca vacillating President by the name of Abraham Lincoln finally come to the conclusion that he had to sign the Emancipation Proclamation.\u201d He would keep going to the 1930s to see Franklin D. Roosevelt trying to give hope to a bankrupt America, telling the country, \u201cWe have nothing to fear but fear itself.\u201d Finally, he would end up in his own time period, telling the Almighty, \u201cIf you allow me to live just a few years in the second half of the Twentieth Century, I will be happy.\u201d Dr. King name-checked nations and cities all in the middle of the same fight\u2014Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya; Accra, Ghana; New York City; Atlanta, Georgia; Jackson, Mississippi; and Memphis, Tennessee\u2014the cry is always the same: \u201cWe want to be free!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today, do we want anything different? As the Supreme Court contemplates birthright citizenship and the word \u201cdomicile\u201d takes on a different meaning for most of us, was the intent of our ancestors to one day go back home when they were \u201cfreed\u201d? Were we granted citizenship because white people felt like we deserved it? For those of you playing at home, the answer is NO. So if domicile is the intention to stay instead of going back home, and that is the litmus test for citizenship, who gets to determine your intent?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr. King went on to talk about violence vs. nonviolence. He said, \u201cIt is no longer the choice between violence and nonviolence in this world; it\u2019s nonviolence or nonexistence. That is where we are today.\u201d And also, in the human rights revolution, \u201cif something isn\u2019t done, and done in a hurry to bring the colored peoples of the world out of their long years of poverty, their long years of hurt and neglect, the whole world is doomed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Global Majority is the tip of the spear for human rights, specifically Blacks in America. The Civil Rights Movement set the table for everybody else. The battles we won, the ones they have been trying to dismantle since 1965, gave every other discriminated group the toolbox and blueprints to fight. You\u2019re welcome. Malcolm X addressed his views on nonviolence and ultimately landed on being nonviolent as long as the other side is nonviolent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Is the continual oppression of Black and brown people Dr. King\u2019s warning\u2014his \u201cLet my people go\u201d declaration? The empire will fall if you don\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr. King was in Memphis to support the striking sanitation workers, primarily Black men asking for fairness and job safety. There is a moment when he calls out mainstream media for doing what they still do today: \u201cThey very seldom got around to mentioning the fact that one thousand three hundred sanitation workers are on strike, and that Memphis is not being fair to them, and that Mayor Loeb is in dire need of a doctor. They didn’t get around to that.\u201d The press was more concerned with a few broken windows than the actual issues. The squirrel, as Lurie would say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He called for a march again. This was when marching was effective, not a parade of costumes and nifty slogans. The signs simply read\u2014I AM A MAN. There was no threat of mace and dogs at the No Kings marches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The most significant part of his speech was his call to action: \u201cGo out and tell your neighbors not to buy Coca-Cola in Memphis. Go by and tell them not to buy Sealtest milk\u2026 tell them not to buy\u2014what is the other bread?\u2014Wonder Bread\u2026 What is the other bread, Brother Jesse? Tell them not to buy Hart\u2019s bread.\u201d Target may have been crippled a bit, but fundamentally they didn\u2019t make any concessions after bowing to the current administration\u2019s DEI elimination. Memphis was the first showing of collective Black economic power. All three companies felt the pressure locally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The blueprint is there. We just need to stay focused. I heard somebody say if all the Black people in the world stomped at the same time, it would knock the world off its axis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr. King addressed a fear that keeps many of us silent today: \u201cIf I stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to my job?\u201d Dr. King provided a better question: \u201cIf I do not stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to them?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On this Easter Sunday eve\u2014what would Jesus do?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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