Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. lived in a time when the wretched echoes of America’s half-slave, half-free past still wore heavy upon the nation. Generations after our brothers and sisters had been unshackled from physical chains, our society had not finished its work to liberate it’s heart from old prejudices. Insults to dignity were commonplace. Langston Hughes’ righteous accusation “America never was America to me” was still tragically valid.
I cannot imagine what it would be like to be denied a seat at a lunch counter or told to use a different water fountain. I cannot imagine being so relentlessly beleaguered and not having my spirit warped. Dr. King was neither bitter nor angry. He did not incite, he inspired. He could have inflamed justifiable fury of the oppressed. Instead he spoke to the charity of those whose prejudice or neglect created the atmosphere. The great power of his words were that they could quicken virtue in the most indifferent soul. His words were imbued with divine power because they carefully and intentionally reflected the way of God and His holy work to make hearts of stone into hearts of flesh.
King’s tragic end was an act of supreme wickedness. At the time it seemed an obvious and final victory for evil. At the time many thought that Memphis had seen the death stroke to the dream where we all “will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” This was not God’s plan.
It is said living well is the best revenge. Those who cursed King and the aggrieved he championed never imagined our day when men and women once denied the simple dignity of a seat on a bus would see their children and grandchildren routinely attain the highest offices. In a generation the offspring of these heroes would have for themselves the mundane but once unthinkable affordance of being an accepted and welcome neighbor, scholar and co-worker. These achievements great and ordinary of our once-oppressed neighbors is a testament to the lie that our difference was anything more than skin deep. Certainly this is sweet.
Sweeter still is that so many of those who cursed their neighbors or were indifferent to their suffering would repent and turn away from their grievous sin. The best known address given by Dr. King is the “I have a Dream” speech delivered at the Lincoln Memorial. Lincoln said that the best way to destroy an enemy is to make them your friend. King’s words are the very prototype of how to make Lincoln’s challenge to replace animus and disdain with love and community. Surely to inspire a man to repent of evil and embrace good is the most divine victory of all. Dr. King rallied countless numbers of such victories, and continues to do so long after his passage to that golden shore. For my part this is the greatest aspect of King’s legacy and the thing that best glorified the Almighty whom Dr. King so faithfully served.
Ed Martin
