Thank you all. I am deeply honored to be here today on this very important commemoration and for this significant gathering. I want to thank Bishop Blake for his leadership here at home and around the world, particularly in Africa. His personal commitment to the people and children of Africa has resounded so profoundly beyond his church and beyond our shores. It sets a good example and it issues a challenge for so many others. I thank you Bishop.

This is a very distinguished gathering here. I want to recognize my long time friend Ambassador Charles Stith who did superb work in Tanzania and has continued with his innovative and unique commitment at Boston University to creating an archive for the papers and memory of African leaders. That will be part of our history. It will not be lost. It will be there for generations to come. One thinks about Dr. King studying at that great university and those who would follow in his footsteps or in any other’s will now have a much broader and richer historical scholarship record to learn from.

I want to thank my friends and another great leader, Reverend Eugene Rivers, for his commitment over many, many years to helping young people and providing alternatives in a way that keeps faith with our faith. But which puts aside the trappings of church and religion and goes into the streets. That has made such a difference to so many over such a long time.

We are also honored to be with the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee in the House of Representatives, Congressman John Conyers, who has led with such prophetic commitment as well to what is right. And now is in a position to influence the future of our country. It will be a good day, Mr. Chairman, when you don’t have to be investigating all of the abuses of power of a president any longer. And we’ll be able to come together around a positive agenda.

Congressman Steve Cohen, I’m grateful for his leadership. My dear friend, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, who just came in, who is, I would say peripatetic, in that she has more miles logged than anyone I know. I talked to Sheila from Iraq, from Africa, from Texas, New York, Washington, D.C., because she is a woman on the move. I’m so pleased that she is here as well.

Mayor Willie Herenton, one of the great long-time committed mayors of this city, and is helping to oversee its renaissance. Memphis is on the way back, mayor and that has a lot to do with your spirit and your love of this city. Mayor Wharton of Shelby County, your partner in such activities. One of the reasons I wanted to be here today was not only to honor the memory, the legacy and the challenges left to us by Dr. King, but also to support Memphis and to support what you are trying to do to really seize the future with confidence and optimism.

Bishop Brooks, Bishop Macking, other distinguished clergy who are here. I am not sure if all of us are aware of the coming together in Memphis today of so many from so many different groups to find common cause. Now we must leave Memphis united and committed to the changes that await our actions.

Ruth Davis, the head of Memphis Sanitation Workers, that is such an important person to recognize because in a very real way we would not be here if it were not for that strike and that demand in for human rights and justice that happened 40 years ago. Secretary Rodney Slater, it is always an honor to be anywhere with my long-time friend from Arkansas.

Some weeks ago I was with Reverend Billy Kyles at his church. As anyone who knows Reverend Kyles can attest, he has spent the last 40 years witnessing—witnessing to Dr. King’s life and death, because he was a witness. A witness who has taken the horror and tragedy of that day and channeled it into a mission to reach out wherever anyone who would listen to what was at stake, and still is, in our country and around the world.

It is hard to believe that it has been 40 years. And it is also heart-breaking to know that Dr. King has been gone from this earth longer than he was here. When one thinks of his life—such a short life—going by in just a moment of time, but having such a profound and lasting impact on all of us. As a young woman, I was privileged to be taken to hear Dr. King speak by a youth minister who opened my eyes and ears and my horizons. Dr. King’s call to action that evening in Chicago led me to confront a world bigger and broader than the one I inhabited. He had a way of doing that, of pushing us outside our own comfort zone, of making it clear that we had to be part of the revolution that was going on. It wasn’t a revolution of guns. It was a revolution of hearts and minds, of attitudes and actions.

Published in : Op-Ed, Op-Ed