Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Most of the parades
and festivals occurred over the weekend. There’s not a lot to do on this rather
cool day here in Central Florida but simply reflect.
I was both fascinated as well as terrified by King during
my childhood. Terrified because so many around me found him threatening. Everything
about our entire “way of life“ seemed in jeopardy to hear folks my parents’ age
talk.
But even then I was already questioning whether that “way
of life” was worth preserving. And here is where King fascinated me. He spoke
deliberately, choosing his words with care. He endured abuse that I don’t think
I could endure even now. He was eloquent. He was passionate. His words made me
think. And the crowds he drew suggested he was hitting a nerve in the very soul
of an America just starting to come to grips with its malevolent love affair
with racism.
By the time I got to high school, King had broadened his
vision to include the injustices of the Vietnam War. Now he had become public
enemy number one, well beyond the racist backwoods and bayous of the South.
King was tackling the behemoth of the military-industrial complex of which Eisenhower,
a military man himself, had warned us. He was calling us on the lies we told
ourselves about falling dominos and protecting democracy. He knew that the
profits of the chemical and munitions companies were being paid in blood of Southeast
Asian peasants and American teenagers, teenaged boys like me who were looking
at the draft.
King could not stand it. He boldly said, Enough!”
And so they killed him, putting him out of our misery.
A Smoldering Pot Erupts
The news of his assassination traveled quickly around the
track meet at Groveland that dark night in April 1968. Groveland had long been
the site of racist strife which a mere 19 years previously had erupted into
riot that nearly destroyed its black section on the east side of town across
the tracks. Before it was over, four young black men falsely accused of raping
a white woman would be railroaded into prison, only three of whom would survive
to see even a modicum of justice.
By coincidence, my Father happened to be in Groveland the night of those
riots. He had come up SR 33 from Polk City to Groveland on his way back to Gainesville
where he was a graduate student at the University of Florida only to be greeted by Sheriff Willis
McCall, himself a Klansman, his deputies and national guardsmen who had been
called in to restore the peace (though not the justice). My Dad often recalled
how terrifying it had been to come face to face with soldiers manning a machine
gun in the middle of the street and being ordered to turn his car around and
head back the direction from which he had come. Groveland was under martial
law, the soldiers told him.
My Father did not question their decree, turning his car
around to head back the 27 miles to Polk City. He’d need to find a new route back to Gainesville that night.
When news of King’s murder filtered around the stadium that
night in Groveland, the tensions that smoldered there on a good day had
exploded into outrage. Bands of young men began gathering, picking up rocks,
sticks and bottles as they went. Our coach ordered all of us to our bus immediately.
The track meet was over.
Thereafter occurred one of the most terrifying moments of
my life. The young boys blocked the entrance to the gated parking lot, sticks,
bottles and rocks in hand. Our coach, a white man, screamed at us to get down
on the floor of the bus and cover our heads. He then screamed out the window “Get
out of the way or I’ll run your fucking asses over!”
And then he gunned the engine.
The bus lurched toward the narrow opening in the fence. At
the last moment, the young men scattered. But not before launching a volley of
bottles, rocks and sticks at the bus, breaking a number of windows. Rocks and
bottles came flying through open windows into the bus and onto the floor where
we lay huddled. But no one was hurt badly. No one was run over. And suddenly we
were free of the confrontation and on our way home.
It was a very quiet half hour bus ride back to our school
that night.
This would be the prelude for Days of Rage that would erupt
across the country. Entire black business districts of inner cities would be
put to the torch. And the repercussions of this angry response would be the exodus
of many white residents from the inner cities of our country. The interior of many
cities still bear the scars of this moment in our country’s history.
I cannot imagine Martin Luther King, Jr. would have felt
honored by this response. But I have no doubt he would have understood it. “Justice
delayed is justice denied,” he often said. And his slaying in Memphis so many
years ago was simply one point along a seemingly endless line of ongoing justice denied.
The next day at school a young black girl would collapse on
the floor in tears when a callous white male classmate came up to her, pointed
his fingers at her like a gun, and said “Bang, bang. You’re dead.” We had no
riots at our school then though a couple of years later racial tensions would
come to a boil over our school mascot, the Rebels, and school song, Dixie.
But that day, I felt very little, numb with disbelief and overwhelmed by a very heavy sadness.
Come So Far, So Far Yet to Go
I look back on those tense days of so long ago and sigh. In
many ways, we have come so far from the days of segregation and Jim Crow. In
other ways, we have so far to go. We live in a time when racism – both that
which is unrecognized and disowned by so many as well as that gladly celebrated
in this age of Trumpism with its calling of our national Shadow out to play –
seems to be making a comeback. In some ways, the journey toward justice feels
like it is in reverse.
The hopes so many of us held that America was gradually
coming to grips with its original sins of slavery and the Conquest have been
dimmed by marches in Charlottesville and a president who legitimizes white
supremacists as “nice people.” The legacy of an ongoing diet of thinly veiled
dog whistles and blatant appeals to violence against those designated as enemies
has been an explosion of hate crimes across a wide spectrum of non-WASP targets
from immigrant children on our borders to mosques and synagogues in our nation’s
cities.
I continue to believe that love always wins. But I know it
will not just happen on its own. We will not be delivered of our fear and loathing
by a deity who swoops down to intervene in our history of racism, doing our
hard work for us. If we are to come to grips with our Shadow, we are going to have
to look it directly in the eyes. And we don’t have to look far to find it; it
resides within the confines of every human soul.
This day I give thanks for the prophetic life and witness
of Martin Luther King, Jr. All these years later, he continues to fascinate me though
he no longer terrifies me. What does terrify me is the fear driven responses that
continue to be evoked by his call for justice, a call that will not and cannot
ever go away, no matter how ignored, denied or suppressed it may become. The
only way past these fears is through them.
The arc of the moral universe may be long, indeed, but I
continue to believe it bends toward justice. This day I pledge to continue
doing my part in that struggle.
Happy Birthday, ferocious gentle prophet.
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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.
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, 2020
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1 comment:
.thank you Harry, from a Brit, we don't seem to have moved very far along the road, in UK the divide is huge, and seems to widen every day. Our call to walk. humbly do justice and love our neighbour does not change, we can't wriggle out of the call because it is hard. We don't do it alone. Many blessings Harry
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