My talk of bombs in the last entry seemed hopeless. I talked how evil can evoke a more convincing response in a community than good actions and deeds. All that talk was silenced on MLK Day. I got Martin Luther King’s Autobiography (I know he never wrote one). This book was approved by his estate to be called his autobiography (as it is almost entirely his writings).
Here’s an excerpt to reflect on when those evil acts seem so looming and defeating. “All methods have failed. Nonviolence is a good starting point. Those of us who believe in this method can be voices of reason, sanity, and understanding amid the voices of violence, hatred, and emotion… Racial injustice around the world. Poverty. War. When man solves these three great problems he will have squared his moral progress with scientific progress. And, more importantly, he will have learned the practical art of living in harmony” This was in the Nobel Peace prize chapter.
In Memphis, I went to where Martin Luther King was gunned down on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel. The motel has become the National Civil Rights Museum. Martin was in Memphis for a sanitation worker’s strike promoting his Southern Christian Leadership Conference focus on what was called The Poor People’s Campaign. This was a push to bring the poor to Washington, to force the government to address the jobless and secure income for all. By now most the civil rights violations had already been deemed unconstitutional.
Martin lived for Christ. He went to jail constantly. Insults and beatings happened often. He was stabbed in Harlem. His house got bombed, He’s arguably the best speechwriter and presenter in American history. Was he ever despondent to the calling of the Holy Spirit? Not a bone of Jonah in him it seems. Many things about the museum seared the civil rights movement on my heart and mind. The museum was intense. There were people that would just pull up to the motel parking lot, get out, touch the motel, share a moment of silence and leave. There was a protestor that had been in a tarp tent just off the property of the museum ever since the motel got converted into a museum.
The museum was set up in stages. One of the stages was how might it feel to be a non-violent protestor amid someone attacking you. Another was the phases of the movement: bus strikes, lunch counter sit-ins, marches, and overflowing the jail system. From city to city little things would change a different aspect of the law would be tested. Montgomery, Atlanta, Greensboro, Albany, Birmingham, March on Washington, St. Augustine, Selma, Los Angeles-Watts, Chicago, and Memphis.
Martin faced violent enemies but also he tried, (prayed no doubt) that his movement would not turn violent from his side. In LA it sure did, in Albany GA also. This mad him angry because he insisted that this country had a moral compass and would react to Non-violence philosophy. Some of his best speeches are the ones in these towns where he is uncompromising in sharing God and nonviolence practice with the movement. After the violence in Albany, Dr. King called for a day of prayer for atoning the breach of non-violence. That day concluded at city hall where he held a prayer vigil and got arrested. In jail he rarely ever posted bail, keep in mind the jail conditions were horrible and hot. He went where people asked him to go. His writings often say stuff like: “I had to stay with them.” or “Our faith seems to be vindicated.”
By now the museum turns to the act of murder. I’ve made to the glass-encased room with the balcony door open and the famous pointing picture near by. The insane injustice, the act of evil really put a gulp in my throat. Seeing that room makes me think of how we as Christians have no home in this world.
Dr. King’s famous “letter from a Birmingham Jail” is to clergy that asked him to reconsider all he’s doing. They claimed the Reverend’s actions to be too much law breaking. All and all they called his actions “Unwise and untimely.”
The other building that is part of the museum is about 200 feet away. I passed through a dark tunnel and went up the stairs and into the room where the gunman shot and killed Martin Luther King. I looked out the same window as the gunman… The room I was in now preserved the act, the autopsy, the gunman’s bio and the investigation. This perch was a highly contrasting moment to the museum. It gave me a feeling of empty, evil, senselessness (a large contrast from the Lorraine Motel that is filled with meaning, strength and prevailing justice).
In juxtaposing Dr. King’s “I have a dream” speech with the next to last speech in the autobiography, I found this fitting quote from Dr. King at the end of the book: “The Apostle Paul talked one day about wanting to go to Spain. It was Paul’s greatest dream to go to Spain, to carry the gospel there. Paul never got to Spain. He ended up in a prison cell in Rome. This is the story of life… So many of our forebears used to sing about freedom. And they dreamed of the day that they would be able to get out of the bosom of slavery, the long night of injustice.”
All that being said, go to Memphis and read the works of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I’ve only read a sprinkle but the civil rights movement, his walk with Christ, and nonviolent philosophy are all unforgettable to me.
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