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Watershed Year: Words Across the Decades
By Bruce | March 26, 2008
Forty years ago next week. In a quick, rifle-shot of a second, America entered into a new age. A time not unlike right now.
The year 2008 reflects brightly off a four-decades-old mirror. Martin Luther King Jr. was in Memphis, Tenn., to lend support to the city’s sanitation workers, who’d gone on strike two months before. In the early evening of April 4, 1968, the 39-year-old King was shot and killed on the balcony outside his room at the Lorraine Motel.
The night before, King had delivered his now-famous “I’ve been to the mountain top” speech — an inspired, most-prophetic, emotionally-charged set of words: Strong in faith, but not of this world. He sensed the time was coming, but most-likely not coming less than 24 hours away.
- “Well, 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. And so I’m happy tonight; I’m not worried about anything; I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”
Bobby Kennedy had entered the 1968 presidential race after the New Hampshire primary, announcing his intentions just a couple of weeks earlier, on March 18. He was in Indianapolis, Indiana, on April 4 to attend a planned campaign rally.
After receiving news of King’s murder upon his arrival, he decided to go anyway, although police advised against it.
The rally was mostly African-Americans (the word “black” was slowly replacing the word “Negro” in early 1968) and a good-sized gathering.
According to published reports on the event, Kennedy found the crowd upbeat and not aware of King’s death. In the dim light of early evening, Kennedy then proceeded to give one of the most-peaceful-peacemaker, heartfelt-speeches, maybe of all time.
- “Ladies and Gentlemen – I’m only going to talk to you just for a minute or so this evening. Because…
I have some very sad news for all of you, and I think sad news for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world, and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee.
For those of you who are black – considering the evidence evidently is that there were white people who were responsible – you can be filled with bitterness, and with hatred, and a desire for revenge.
So I ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King, yeah that’s true, but more importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love – a prayer for understanding and that compassion of which I spoke. We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times. We’ve had difficult times in the past. And we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; and it’s not the end of disorder.
But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings that abide in our land.
Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.
Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.
Thank you very much.”
Actually, Kennedy spoke a bit over six minutes, interrupted twice by applause. In viewing old, black-and-white video of the event, I’m astounded by the quiet decorum of the audience. Odd too, how calm Indianapolis as the rest of America’s urban centers exploded upon news of King’s death, including huge street riots in Chicago, Denver, Washington, D.C., among others.
Sadly, two months and a day later, Kennedy himself was dead, shot and killed after winning the California primary — most likely stopped cold on his way to the White House.
Now four decades later, America is faced with a whole shitload of different problems, albeit a few this time might prove fatal, but the bottom line is boiled-down again to race and war.
Last week, Barack Obama gave a couple of speeches of note, the first with much fanfare from Philadelephia, the ”race speech,” and another a day later with it’s topic the Iraq war.
Obama has a flair for blending history together. This from his speech at the groundbreaking ceremony at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial, Nov. 13, 2006:
- “Like Moses before him, he would never live to see the Promised Land. But from the mountain top, he pointed the way for us – a land no longer torn asunder with racial hatred and ethnic strife, a land that measured itself by how it treats the least of these, a land in which strength is defined not simply by the capacity to wage war but by the determination to forge peace – a land in which all of God’s children might come together in a spirit of brotherhood.”
And the “race” speech from America’s historical, constitutional heart hit the right racial notes — paraphrasing Jon Stewart, Obama ’talked about race like we were adults’ — which bridges reality with unity, its merits much in common with Kennedy’s brief words on King’s death. Despite the differences, despite the history, Obama says, now is the time to blend it all together:
- “…For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina – or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.
We can do that.
But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.
That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can’t learn; that those kids who don’t look like us are somebody else’s problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.
In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well…”
Black baby boomers, I’m sure, view life a lot differently than white baby boomers. Obama knows that and applies a kind of truism to everyday life in America. The speech hit a lot of chords with Americans and received much play in the press, most of it very good.
On the Iraqi war, Obama again blended history with a realistic look at a different future. One nugget stands out in the speech he gave March 20 at the University of Charleston:
- “So we know what this war has cost us – in blood and in treasure. But in the words of Robert Kennedy, “past error is no excuse for its own perpetuation.” And yet, John McCain refuses to learn from the failures of the Bush years. Instead of offering an exit strategy for Iraq, he’s offering us a 100-year occupation. Instead of offering an economic plan that works for working Americans, he’s supporting tax cuts for the wealthiest among us who don’t need them and aren’t asking for them. Senator McCain is embracing the failed policies of the past, but America is ready to embrace the future.”
As this watershed of a year continues, who truly comprehends when the past is dead and buried?
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