40 Years Later, Will Dr. King's 'Promised Land' Become Reality?
By Eric L. Hinton. Date Posted: April 04, 2008
Today marks the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Over the course of those four decades, the nation has transformed itself from one of grainy images of Blacks being hosed in the streets and attacked by dogs for daring to sit at lunch counters to a nation where the very real possibility of a Black man becoming president of the United States exists.
Without Dr. King, Barack Obama would not now have a shot at the White House. Indeed, without his will, initiative and ultimate sacrifice, it's frightening to think what our nation would look like today. Rev. Gilbert H. Caldwell first met Dr. King at Boston University School of Theology, their graduate-school alma mater, in 1958. He was with King in the Selma to Montgomery March in 1965. He also attended the March on Washington and marched next to Dr. King in Boston in April of 1965.
On this solemn anniversary, Rev. Caldwell, now a retired United Methodist minister living in Asbury Park, N.J., with his wife, Grace, shares his remembrances of Dr. King with DiversityInc:
'I See the Promised Land'
On the night of April 3, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his last sermon in Memphis, Tenn. As he concluded the sermon, he said; "I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land."
On April 3 of 1968, I was in Chicago attending a meeting of the National Committee of Black Church men, a group of African-American clergy organized to foster empowerment and responsibility as institutions in the United States integrated, racially. On the night of April 4, 1968, we received the news of the assassination of Dr. King. That which we had long feared had happened to him; he was killed because he challenged the status quo. We adjourned our meeting and returned to our respective cities and towns with a mixture of sadness and anger. I returned to Boston and with my colleagues there and sought to re-direct the anger that had become violence on Boston's streets.
Forty years after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., all of us, regardless of our differences in race, gender, disability, sexual orientation, etc., ought to offer our thanks for Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement that he led. Because of him and "The Movement," all of us "as a people will get to the promised land."
I remember hearing Martin Luther King speak words that I paraphrase: "Segregation is dead, it is just a matter of how long and costly some will want to make the funeral." Each day, despite the bumps on the road to the "Promised Land" of access, equality and affirmation for all of us, there are signs that authentic equality and diversity are becoming the "order of the day." I offer the following as we on April 4, 2008, remember the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
1. Had there not been the Civil Rights Movement, the candidacies of Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party this year would not have been a reality.
2. The speech on race given by Sen. Barack Obama in Philadelphia was an "equal-opportunity" speech in that he was able to describe the pain and anger that racial insensitivity and racism in the nation has caused African Americans of my generation. But, he was also able to acknowledge the resentment of white people and other people toward efforts to correct wrongs for which they are not responsible. It is only through candid conversation that we will be able to acknowledge the pain, resentment and anger that stand in the way of our "creating a more perfect union." May we remember Dr. King by a willingness to embrace the diversity of our different journeys and in the process discover the joy of inclusion rather the pain of exclusion.
3. Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement were about more than an effort to right the wrongs of racial segregation in the United States. The Civil Rights Movement, I have felt, created a vision of a "national vegetable soup" that is made possible by the inclusion of the rich human diversity of the country. Each person and each group contributes to the "soup" by providing the unique essence of their differentness. Slowly but surely, we are beginning to experience the wonderful smell and taste of a national soup that is not bland because of its sameness. Rather, we are discovering the rich quality of diversity that is always better in smell and taste than uniformity.
We owe a debt of gratitude to the life and memory of Martin Luther King Jr. for that!
Dr. King is also the subject of a new book by bestselling author Michael Eric Dyson called April 4, 1968 -- Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Death and How It Changed America. In the following excerpts, Dyson recounts King's tremendous impact and legacy:
"King urged his listeners to believe in the moral beauty of their fight for justice. Death could not derail such a movement. 'I want it to be known the length and breadth of this land that if I am stopped, this movement will not stop. If I am stopped, our work will not stop. For what we are doing is right, what we are doing is just,' King declared, 'If anything happens to me, there will be others to take my place.'
"It was a shrewd appeal to his listeners' religious beliefs. He also reinforced the virtues of non-violence and underscored his humility as a leader. And he situated, and thereby downplayed the effect of, his possible death in a broader movement that was impossible to stop. It was the perfect fusion of truth and art."
Dyson also underscores King's emphasis on finding concrete ways to combat poverty:
"King was motivated by more than compassion for the poor; he brought ideas and analysis along in the fight against poverty. He believed that poverty was in part the weakened blood flow of resources into the arteries of deprived and vulnerable communities. Those arteries are clogged with failed political will and severely diminished belief that poverty could be destroyed. King believed the problem could be solved--by guaranteeing the poor an annual income (progressive economist John Kenneth Gallbraith said it could be done for $20 billion a year and even conservative economist Milton Friedman supported the idea through a form of negative income tax); by diverting resources from the war back into domestic social programs; by raising the minimum wage; by full employment (so that the negro could be 'freed from the smothering prison of poverty that stifles him generation after generation'); and by restructuring social and economic relations through 'a revolution of values.'"
But Dyson points out how King's ideas about destroying poverty did not contradict his belief in personal responsibility.
"King wasn't opposed to personal initiative and responsibility; he simply redefined it in political terms. It's most clear when he called black folk to account for the failure to exercise the franchise once they got the chance to vote. 'And the tragedy is that even after we register in many instances, we don't even go out and vote. Now we must get up; we must rise up from out stools of do-nothingness and complacency and do something for ourselves. And in doing something for ourselves, we'll do something for the nation.' But he consistently refused to offer a self-help prescription while ignoring the structural forces that punished poor people."
Dyson's observations are just the latest in an enormous wave of reflections on how the life and ultimate sacrifice of Martin Luther King Jr. changed the face of the nation around us. On this 40th anniversary of his assassination, would it be asking too much that each of us take a moment to reflect on how, in ways both big and small, we might further help to make his dream become reality?
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