I have just completed a six day pilgrimage to the civil
rights sites in the Mississippi Delta and environs. These are my reflections.
Entering Into History
I remember that night vividly. There was initially the shock
as the news spread around the stadium where the track meet I was participating
in was occurring. Then the rage as the parking lot where our bus was parked
filled with angry young men who would pepper our bus with rocks and bottles as
we sped away, the track meet left unfinished. There was much more important
business that night to attend to. Then, the next day, there was the grief, my Black
female classmate collapsing to the floor sobbing when her sadistic white classmate
pointed his fingers at her and said, “Bang, bang, you’re dead.” And then
the numbness, the disbelief, the trying to make sense of the senselessness that
had taken one of America’s finest minds and deepest souls from us leaving so
many of us wondering if the America we loved even deserved such a prophetic
voice.
There is a wreath on the balcony where King’s colleagues
pointed to the building across the alley from whence had come the fatal shot. I
found myself breathless, a knot forming in the pit of my stomach. I knew the
story. But here we were to confront the reality.
The sign on the outside of the museum said it all: You are
at a sacred place. Indeed. And simultaneously grateful for this encounter and
soul sick knowing the truth about America it reveals.
The Bottom Line: “I am a Man!”
I believe it is not an accident that Martin Luther King was
slain in the midst of the Memphis Garbageman Strike. His words “I am a Man!”
reflected a vehement insistence that the humanity of these men must be
recognized and respected. King knew this was fundamental, a bottom line in the
entire movement he led. Until the humanity of those Jesus called “the least of
these” was recognized, nothing else would matter.
Their work was grueling, dehumanizing, dangerous. Their
strike was inspired by a malfunctioning garbage truck which had caused two
workers who had gotten into the scoop to escape a rainstorm only to be crushed
to death. The workers asked for a living wage and safe working conditions. The
mayor refused to even talk to the union representatives. And it was this
desperation and determination that would draw Martin Luther King, Jr. to
Memphis.
At the Clayborn Temple where much of the organizing for the
strike occurred, a stainless steel sculpture gleams in front of this ruined
sanctuary recently gutted by a mysterious fire. Reading “I AM A MAN,” the
sculpture contains the names of all the striking garbage workers whose courage
and tenacity ultimately won the day in Memphis. Its message was then and
remains now the bottom line.
There is a lesson in this for all of us in these very
troubling times.
(My thanks to the National Civil Rights Museum for these images)
The Brainchild of the Movement
The Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel provided an
excellent historical overview of the movement starting with the Plessy v.
Ferguson decision that gave the green light to Southern states to erect
a pernicious system of Jim Crow.
One of unsung heroes of the movement was Bayard Rustin. He
had been raised in a Quaker tradition where he had learned to respect the
divine spark within every living being and the duty to speak truth to power.
Rustin would spend time in India learning Ghandi’s nonviolent resistance
methods which he brought back to America and which then became infused in the
movement. The values he helped inculcate there were simplicity, peace,
integrity, community, equality and caring for others.
Rustin was as brilliant strategically as he was deep
intellectually and spiritually. A forerunner of Marshall McLuhan, he knew the
medium is the message, that music, art and symbols convey messages that words
alone cannot. He also recognized that while a passionate speech evoke immediate
emotional responses, a well-crafted essay can provoke in-depth analysis and
reflection
Rustin was always in the background of the movement. A
closeted gay man, his sexuality was seen as a liability to the movement.
Stonewall was still years away even as the liberatory impulse the civil rights
movement would unleash would eventually come even to the queers (current self
designation). America is in the debt of this unsung heroes whose story I
came to know better on my visit to the Civil Rights Museum.
(My thanks to the National Civil Rights Museum for these
insights and images)
The night before Martin Luther King, Jr. was slain, he gave
perhaps his most famous sermon known as “The Mountaintop Speech.” Referencing
the Hebrew Scripture story of Moses nearing the Promised Land, King said he,
too, stood on the mountaintop seeing a new tomorrow for America. Presciently,
he would say “I might not get there with you,” much like the Moses YHWH
held back as the Israelites, ending their Exodus, poured into a new land.
Within hours, King would be dead.
It was perhaps his best speech and it almost did not happen.
A crowd had gathered at the Mason Temple that night in the midst of the Garbage
Man Strike. They were expecting to hear King but he had had remained at the
Loraine Motel to work on some items he felt were pressing.
A terrific storm had arisen that night. But that did not
deter the folks of Memphis from coming to hear King. The Mason Temple was full.
So King’s associates called him at the Motel and begged King came to the Temple
to honor the dedication and devotion of the people who had come to hear him
speak.
He had no prepared remarks, speaking extemporaneously,
delivering one of America’s most beloved sermons. Today as we stood in front of
that Temple, I gave thanks for the brilliance, courage and dedication of
America’s prophet.
(My thanks to the National Civil Rights Museum for the
photo on the right)
When Prophets Become Safe
It’s a lot easier to love saints once we have killed them.
We can sanitize them, take the edge off their prophetic words and deeds, reduce
them to noble maxims, erect striking sculptures, celebrate designated feast
days. We can put them in their place and require them to stay there. At a very
fundamental level, we can put them out of our misery.
Out of our guilt, we will idolize them even as our best
idolatry can never atone for our sins. But beneath it all, the spirit of the
prophet remains, ready to rise in those who take the time to read their
impassioned cries for our better angels to make their appearance once again.
At the end our first day on pilgrimage we stood in front of
the ruins of the Clayborn Temple, victim of a recent fire of suspicious
origins, and heard Valada Flewellyn, our resident poet, read the words of Carl
Wendell Hines, Jr. It was a fitting way to end this first day of
pilgrimage.
A Dead Man's Dream
Let us praise him.
Build monuments to his glory.
Sing Hosannas to his name.
Dead men make such convenient heroes.
For they cannot rise to challenge the images That we might fashion from their lives.
It is easier to build monuments Than to build a better world.
So now that he is safely dead, We, with eased consciences will
Teach our children that he was a great man, Knowing that the cause for which he Lived is still a cause
And the dream for which he died is still a dream.
A dead man's dream.
[All images by author except as otherwise noted]
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Harry Scott Coverston
Orlando, Florida
If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an
unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding.
Most things worth considering do not come in sound bites.
Those who believe religion and politics aren't connected
don't understand either. – Mahatma Gandhi
For what does G-d require of you but to do justice, and
to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your G-d? - Micah
6:8, Hebrew Scriptures
Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief.
Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly now. You are not obligated to
complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it. - Rabbi Rami
Shapiro, Wisdom of the Jewish Sages (1993)
© Harry Coverston, 2025
No comments:
Post a Comment