When one heard Dr. King speak, and I stood in line for a very long time that night to shake his hand. And he was gracious, and he was kind to lean over to shake the hand of a 14-year-old girl from the from the suburbs of Chicago, who went to an all-White church and an all-White school, and lived in an all-White suburb. But he didn’t ask me, as I reached out my hand, where do you live, what is your experience? He just took it and looked in my face and thanked me for coming.

That Dr. King had such a profound and lasting impact on a young White girl, that he had that kind of impact on millions of people of all colors, faiths, ages and walks of life, tells us something about the reach and power of his vision. It was a vision big enough and bold enough and grace-filled enough to embrace every last one of us. And when he came here to Memphis to speak out on behalf of workers, he wasn’t only speaking for those sanitation workers who were denied their rights, who had seen two of their fellow workers die in a cascade of garbage a few weeks before. He was speaking out for all workers everywhere who are exploited and abused and denied their basic rights.

When Dr. King protested the Vietnam War, he wasn’t just speaking on behalf of Black soldiers, but all soldiers and civilians—Vietnamese and Americans alike. When he worked on behalf of the poor here in America and around the world, he wasn’t just speaking for the poor he knew, that he could see with his own eyes, but the poor who knew no boundaries of geography or color. And when he stood against discrimination, he wasn’t just seeking to free African Americans from the shackles of slavery and the past that had been shaped by that abomination; he was seeking to break the shackles of hatred on the hearts of us all. He yearned for our country to fulfill the ideals that it had given lip service to, that were embodied in our founding documents. In his last speech here, he took us on a tour of history, but showed us the unfinished business and unrealized promises of America.

Dr. King understood our constitution better than most of us. He knew it was crafted to expand as our hearts expanded. It was not a constricted document from one place in time, but an expansive proclamation of what America could become if we had the courage to do so. Slavery was written onto that document, but so was the potential for equality. He waged that revolution, but not just to change our laws, as I heard Bishop Blake talking about, but to change our hearts and behaviors. He reminded us that those who signed our founding documents were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir; the promise of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In the end he asked nothing more than that we redeem that promise, each in our own way through faith-based institutions, through our businesses, our labor unions, through our political and public service. And even though as originally drafted we did not include Dr. King or me either, women and African Americans were left out of America’s founding promises, but he never gave up and neither should we.

His faith in America animated and sustained his journey. Like with any faith, there were dark moments when one doubts, when one is on the brink of giving up and throwing in the towel. But he would always come back from those dark places and so must we. The tenacity of Dr. King’s faith is all the more extraordinary when we think of the ways it was tested. By all the critics and the media attacking his work, by the death threats, the bombings, the beatings, the stabbings, the murder, the grinding hard work day after day of just getting up and moving on, even the speech he gave here at this great complex wasn’t supposed to be delivered. The crowd demanded it. And he came. He always answered the call. For those who are clergy, you know that it sometimes tests one’s constitution and one’s faith to constantly be asked to do more to reach out to keep going.

Someone of lesser heart and lesser faith might have grown weary doing good, might have given up, but he persisted in the struggle. And we know the results. So much has changed. I look at the young people standing in the back of this room. And it may be hard for you to imagine what you read in the history books, what your parents and your grandparents tell you. Jim Crow is now something you read about. The people in this room lived under it. Because of Dr. King, these young people, my daughter’s generation, grew up taking for granted that children of all colors could attend school together. Because of him, after 219 years and 43 presidents who have been white men, this next generation will grow up taking for granted that a woman or an African American can be President of the United States of America.

But as far as we’ve come, we know the journey is far from over. Some days when you open up the newspaper and you read the headlines, it feels like we tumbled right back down that mountain top, doesn’t it? Some days it’s amazing how deep the valley can be. At times like those I think of what Dr. King said in his last speech, how he acknowledged we are living in a time of turmoil and upheaval, but then admonished us to remember only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. Dr. King saw the darkness of a nation torn apart by petty human differences, but he imagined one knit back together by our shared humanity. He saw so many going hungry in a land of plenty, but he envisioned an America where our prosperity was shared. He saw America embroiled in an endless war, but imagined a principled peace. While our problems were grave, he never stopped believing that our promise was greater. He saw us not as we were, but as we could and should be. Isn’t it about time we started seeing ourselves as Dr. King saw us?

Published in : Op-Ed, Op-Ed