Remembering a great dreamer

40 years doesn't sound like a round number, but 40th anniversaries are key. Many times it is the last big anniversary where the majority of the players in an event are still alive. So today, we stop to remember a man and an era that forever changed our history: the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King.

You can still visit the spot. At Christmas, I went to see my parents in Memphis and I took my brother and our respective fiance(e)s on a trip through the historic sites of the city. The Lorraine Motel - now the National Civil Rights Museum - was a must see even though the museum was closed (it was Christmas Eve).

Without a doubt, it is one of the eeriest museums I have ever visited. Just south of all the new construction and development downtown is a relic. Time appears to have stopped at April 4, 1968. It's got the same aqua colored doors and the same model cars that were parked out front. the only thing new is a giant wreath in front of room 306, marking the spot where the Civil Rights leader was slain.

All around the motel life has moved forward, but this place always remembers and tries to shout above the nearby clubs, restaurants and galleries: Something important happened here! Please remember and don't let it die here!

Whether we have fulfilled that mission is a topic for another day. But I'll let history speak for itself, and maybe call you to remember through these images and the following excerpt from Rev. King's "Mountaintop" speech. (Complete audio and text can be found here)

"If I were standing at the beginning of time, with the possibility of taking a kind of general and panoramic view of the whole of human history up to now, and the Almighty said to me, "Martin Luther King, which age would you like to live in?" ...

Strangely enough, I would turn to the Almighty, and say, "If you allow me to live just a few years in the second half of the 20th century, I will be happy."

Now that's a strange statement to make, because the world is all messed up. The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land; confusion all around. That's a strange statement. But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. And I see God working in this period of the twentieth century in a way that men, in some strange way, are responding.

Something is happening in our world. The masses of people are rising up. And wherever they are assembled today, whether they are in Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya; Accra, Ghana; New York City; Atlanta, Georgia; Jackson, Mississippi; or Memphis, Tennessee -- the cry is always the same: "We want to be free."

And another reason that I'm happy to live in this period is that we have been forced to a point where we are going to have to grapple with the problems that men have been trying to grapple with through history, but the demands didn't force them to do it. Survival demands that we grapple with them. Men, for years now, have been talking about war and peace. But now, no longer can they just talk about it. It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world; it's nonviolence or nonexistence. That is where we are today.

And also in the human rights revolution, if something isn't done, and done in a hurry, to bring the colored peoples of the world out of their long years of poverty, their long years of hurt and neglect, the whole world is doomed. Now, I'm just happy that God has allowed me to live in this period to see what is unfolding. And I'm happy that He's allowed me to be in Memphis....

Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation....

I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop.

And I don't mind.

Like anybody, 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! "

Beyond the dream

Across the city, I'm sure plenty of people will be quoting the Rev. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. It's a wonderful piece of oratory, but King had a lot more to say. Here's some excerpts from sermons he gave throughout the years, many of which address theological and moral questions that are just as relevant today....

Feb. 28, 1954 "Rediscovering Lost Values":

"There are moral laws of the universe just as abiding as the physical laws. I'm not so sure we all believe that. We never doubt that there are physical laws of the universe that we must obey. We never doubt that. And so we just don't jump out of airplanes or jump off of high buildings for the fun of it—we don't do that. Because we unconsciously know that there is a final law of gravitation, and if you disobey it you'll suffer the consequences—we know that. ... But I'm not so sure if we know that there are moral laws just as abiding as the physical law. I'm not so sure about that. I'm not so sure if we really believe that there is a law of love in this universe, and that if you disobey it you'll suffer the consequences. I'm not so sure if we really believe that."

July 4, 1965. "The American Dream" delivered at Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta:

"Each of us has certain basic rights that are neither derived from or conferred by the state. In order to discover where they came from, it is necessary to move back behind the dim mist of eternity. They are God-given, gifts from His hands. Never before in the history of the world has a sociopolitical document expressed in such profound, eloquent, and unequivocal language the dignity and the worth of human personality. The American dream reminds us, and we should think about it anew on this Independence Day, that every man is an heir of the legacy of dignity and worth."

March 31, 1968, "Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution" delivered at the National Cathedral, Washington, D.C.:

"One day we will have to stand before the God of history and we will talk in terms of things we’ve done. Yes, we will be able to say we built gargantuan bridges to span the seas, we built gigantic buildings to kiss the skies. Yes, we made our submarines to penetrate oceanic depths. We brought into being many other things with our scientific and technological power.

It seems that I can hear the God of history saying, "That was not enough! But I was hungry, and ye fed me not. I was naked, and ye clothed me not. I was devoid of a decent sanitary house to live in, and ye provided no shelter for me. And consequently, you cannot enter the kingdom of greatness. If ye do it unto the least of these, my brethren, ye do it unto me." That’s the question facing America today."