Martin Luther King Jr.: January 19, 1929 – April 4, 1968
When the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. quoted the Declaration of Independence 45 ½ years ago, he did so in a way few people understand.
In that speech, whose name has become synonymous with so much good in this country, so much still bad in this country and so much so many of us are trying to change while others struggle against us, King was summarizing thought that began with Sir Isaac Newton, infused the writing of Voltaire and Hume, was John Locke's life and purpose, suckled Jefferson and led two rebellions, both successful.
King was saying, and people have been saying since Galileo, after a fashion, that freedom lives absent, despite and irrespective of any other dynamic. Freedom exists, to whatever degree stifled, no matter what one man does to another man. You can take away a woman's right to speak, but you cannot take her right to know she is right to speak. You can take my life, but you can't take how I've changed lives. King was shot 44 years ago today, but try to tell me millions of people do not yet live with him in their hearts, their words, their dreams.
Two hundred thirty-one years and nine months ago, an aspiring rebel, borrowing from the Enlightenment tradition and with a hat-tip to John Locke, quill in hand, dared to write the following with self-evident authority:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
We so often skip past the first clause in that sentence in favor of the second and the last. I think this is the biggest mistake we could possibly make. Here's why:
Saying things are self-evident means it doesn't matter what anyone else says. They exist, for those to whom they are self-evident, independent of all else that is. Res ipsa loquitur: the things themselves speak; to hell with what anyone else says. These things are true, and that's the ballgame.
When Jefferson wrote those words, he was basically plagiarizing John Locke (though plagiarism as it's thought of today basically didn't exist back then). Locke held that every human had the right to life, liberty and property, which is the 18th century equivalent of Jefferson's trio of fundamental life truths.
So if Jefferson was saying "Freedom for all, and that's the end of it," King was addending, "So let's get with the program and stop playing around, guys." Only ... a touch more eloquently — though if you watch the speech closely and know what you're looking for, the specifics (geographical invocations, etc.) are impromptu. He pauses, as if to think of a way of artfully putting what everyone so badly needs to hear.
And notice one other thing: the science in the rhetoric of what King said. Yes, mountains and hills are high places, and living in a valley connotes poverty, while living on top of a hill has a certain biblical and cultural significance to it.
But on top of all that, consider this: A ringing sound, when generated by a heavy, cast bell (like the Liberty Bell), has a very deep and resonant sound and vibration to it. It'll carry most anywhere, but when rung on a mountaintop, the bell's sound waves will bounce off the mountainside and the valley walls for quite some distance.
What you get, very quickly, is one bell chime becoming several. The chime ripples. Ring a bell several times and you get a ring that before long is forever cresting.
Ignore that. Try. Try to act as you were before while there's this bell whose echoes are occupying your brain in place of whatever was there before.
Freedom's ring won't let you do what you were doing before. You HAVE to stop. Determination, nothing. And while that bell keeps going, you're powerless.
You have to let freedom ring.
(Rest in peace, Dr. King. Your work and your fearlessness remain unforgotten and unforgettable.)