“Man has strayed to the far
countries of secularism, materialism, sexuality, and racial injustice. His
journey has brought a moral and spiritual famine in Western civilization. But it is not too late to return home. Martin
Luther King, Jr. Strength To Love
(1963; p. 92)
Those of us who would wish to commemorate the life, the
struggle, the death – in essence, the reality – of Martin Luther King, Jr., might
make a commitment to read more than a few paragraphs of the “I Have a Dream”
speech as part of our engaging in any public gathering on either the federal
holiday honoring his birth or the day in April when we are confronted by his
death. For far too long we have allowed
several generations of young people to become reflexively bored with “MLK
Events” and in some measure their (and, truth be told, our) disengagement with
the man and the rituals in his honor might be due to a misreading of the
usually quoted words in “I Have a Dream.”
If we do not understand the old songs, as has been mentioned before,
then we will no longer wish to sing them. If we do not live with all the
significant texts and contexts of King’s thought, we risk losing him
altogether.
Why did he need to dream, and why did he need to exhort
others to dream on that day in 1963? The speech is constructed as a model of
black ritual. The great black sermonic tradition produces texts that are often
conservative; simultaneously comforting and challenging; and effective in
capturing the imagination of the listeners into seeing hope where previously
there had been only the “shadow of the valley of death.” Beginning with marking
the place where his congregation was gathered as being holy ground -- The
Lincoln Monument, the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, the pilgrims
becoming the multitudes marching into Zion: King evokes all of these necessary
images at the outset of his remarks. And because, in his own wilderness
encounter with the cries of the oppressed and crushed, he accepted the call to
return to the city and proclaim what he had seen and heard, he uses Pentecostal
rhetorical strategies to capture the attention of the entire world – which was
listening that day; and since.
With very little warning, we are told that one hundred years
after “emancipation,” “the Negro still is not free.” King lays out his vision of the valley of
oppression by enumerating the broken promises of a republic that denies full
citizenship to men and women who had (and have) as much claim to the land as
any other inhabitants. He indicts those
who use violence, legal manipulations and economic exploitation to maintain
privilege over the victims left in the “dark and desolate valley” of
segregation and indifference. But, in
keeping with his reflections in Strength
To Love, King will not allow the perpetrators of injustice to continue
unchecked and he does not allow the victims of oppression to justify taking up
the tools of the oppressors:
“But there is something I must say
to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of
justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of
wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking
from the cup of bitterness and hatred…..Again and again we must rise to the
majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.”
Black Theology is liberation theology, grounded in the
experience of the believers and confirmed by the truth of scripture. Martin Luther King, Jr., knows that one must
dream, not on the mountain top, not on the “majestic heights”, but in the very
basement of darkness and near despair.
“I know my wings are gonna fit me well/ I tried them on at the gates of
Hell.” Identifying with both Jacob’s
children enslaved in Egypt and with the heroes like Moses, Joshua, Daniel, and
David, those King called “my people” would return to police brutality, mob
violence (both daylight public and night-time anonymous) and more years of
nearly impregnable resistance to all calls for justice, freedom and respect for
human rights.
The universality of King’s vision is rooted in the genius of
Black Theology, among other sources. Those who claimed kinship with the Hebrew
Children used their voices to become agents of their own liberation and added
their voices to the prophetic choir of the Bible. Needing only the truth of their experience
and the power of the Spirit to proclaim the liberating truth of their visions,
the elders of the hush harbors did something that receives far too little
attention today. Motherless children could nevertheless shout, “True Believer.”
Those who felt that no one could
possibly understand the trouble they had seen, nevertheless found deep within
them a “Glory, Hallelujah!” to open yet another tomorrow. Those who spent many
grief-filled nights abandoned and abused could still taste the banquet they
would receive from the Welcome Table. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLR31UyuFP0]
But most importantly, they had the audacious confidence to
supply what was lacking in the Covenant Statement of Exodus. God told the Israelites that they must
embrace with compassion, mercy and remembrance all those who are the “widow,
the orphan, the stranger” in their midst.
Every time one of the old songs is sung, the singers become the strangers, the orphans, the
widows, privileged by the attention of God. “A long ways from home.” A
motherless child.” “Went into the valley
and I couldn't hear nobody pray…” No,
they tell us: you will bow down in grief, but you will not be broken by it. You
will be called everything but a child of God. But you better live the truth as
it has been revealed to you. You “been in the storm so long,” we know. But the
Old Ship of Zion has room enough for all.
Use whatever it takes to get your head back up into the
air. Even if it means dreaming that the
children of the woman who just spit in your face and called you a nigger will
someday clasp your children’s hands in friendship. Dream if you need a reason
to walk up the rough side of the mountain; and dream that those who set the
dogs upon you in the streets of Birmingham and Macon will someday join you in
singing, “Free at Last” because they have found that your freedom brought
freedom to their frightened and desiccated souls.
Dream, Martin. Because you had been beaten, imprisoned,
shadowed, threatened and slandered – sometimes by those you would call brother
and sister. Dream, Martin, because you knew that if you let your soul take
flight while you stood high above the crowd, you would find the strength to
walk among those who sought to slay the dreamer before too long. Dream, Martin,
that those who hear your voice only faintly will find in the stillness after
the storm they must endure, the hope that is built on the truth. I only feel
like a motherless child…sometimes. Sometimes I feel like I can go on. And do.
Martin Luther King, Jr., means nothing to us if we do not
understand that, even in his loneliest and most isolated moment, he knew that he had been the dream of those who long
ago had looked over Jordan, and hoped for him. And it was never his dream
alone. Can we tell our children we need them to be our dreams? And tell the
world that we will never let them be anything less?
