America’s legacy of racial oppression and slavery reached out and took the life of one of our greatest leaders. Lincoln was the rarest of individuals, one that’s come along perhaps once or twice in a century. So was MLK, who embarked on a mission he must have known could one day could cost him his life. But his message wasn’t about personal greatness.
Certainly Dr. King knew it was almost certain when he spoke at Riverside Church fifty-seven years ago in New York, and announced his opposition and condemnation of the Vietnam War. Revolutionary courage comes from facing and accepting the possibility of your own death.
Reverend King’s courage and power did not grow out of the barrel of a gun. . .
. . . It was speaking truth to power.
Pushing the gun aside with it. It is on this day as well as on his birthday that we should not only remember his life but his message of non-violence and efforts to organize both the white and black masses for social and economic justice.
I must admit that at the time I supported his work in 1968, I was skeptical that his goals could ever be accomplished peacefully. Much later I realized that he was right. Social and economic justice must indeed be fought for, but will not come about through mass violence and murder.
King also Judged Himself during his Riverside Sermon
Dr. King gave up both any semblance of personal safety as well as his presidential influence with LBJ by taking a stand against the Vietnam War. As we begin the final months of struggle to save America from Donald Trump, a 21st Century Version of George Wallace on steroids, we can take courage from the life of Dr. King to make what turned out to be his last Speech, when he was in Memphis to support the all black sanitation workers strike and struggle.
He died for all of us. He died for America.