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That Fantastic Dream
I am sorry, sometimes, that the entire Civil Rights movement, all of Black-American history, the tragedies of racism and the triumphs of progress, the gates thrown open for me and mine--I am sometimes a little sorry that these things get only one day in our national calendar, and headlined under only one name. But it's a pretty great name, and if I had to pick one, I guess I too would pick Dr. King.
In these dark times, and our first observation of the holiday without the help of Coretta Scott King, it's hard to viscerally understand how much better things are. I think it's vitally important to spend a little time and meditate on the profound progress American society saw between the 1930s and the 1970s. That is not to diminish how bad things might be now, but to remind ourselves that positive change is possible.
People love railing against the deification of Dr. King. They point to various personal flaws, some quite real. I agree that those should not be painted over. But I do not think they are any cause for lessening our memorial celebration--quite the contrary. They are reminder to all of us that we need not attain Buddha-like personal perfection to jump into the fray and do that which is right and necessary. And as I said, I also wish there was more to our celebrations than the focus on one man. That is because the tapestry as a whole is more inspiring, and more likely to show us where we could have fit in, and where we might fit in today. But a person is a useful anchor point--you can start with him and see who connected with him, and read their stories, and then see who connected with them, and read their stories. Eventually we will find someone who is like us and say, "Ah yes, I'd like to do something like that. I could do something like that. What's like that which needs doing today?"
For example last year Joel Pomerantz wrote a beautiful open letter in memory of Coretta Scott King (Coretta the Insurrectionist), and I bet that some people will identify more with her story than her husband's, and might get that same inspiration he thanks her for. (My God, what an amazing woman.)
The shadow of war that swirled around Dr. King's death swirls around us still. Over at Tiny Revolution Jonathan Schwarz points out that "every year since 1967 we've been blowing up somebody," and links to Dr. King's Break the Silence speech. In these blogospheric times, silence is perhaps the last thing we have, but in our actions the silence continues. We just have to keep trying to make that dream a reality, I guess.
Comments (3)
Oh hey! His "A Time to Break the Silence" speech quotes James Russell Lowell, the guy my high school was named after!
Posted on Jan-15-2007 | Link
Inspired by your post, I added a pile of information to the Wikipedia article, especially the section about Coretta's education.
Posted on Jan-16-2007 | Link
I like reading these news. They are very interesting and give me big portion of information.
Posted on Jan-02-2012 | Link