COLUMN: Remembering the real MLK Jr.
On Monday, we as a nation properly celebrated one of the greatest Americans of the 20th Century — Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King. His accomplishments are some of the noblest in our history. Yet, I fear we did not know or honor the real King. Let me tell you why.
In the fall of 1953 King and his family went to Montgomery, Ala., so he could pastor a large African American church. He was, at that time, an ABD — all-but-dissertation — in philosophical theology from Boston University. His career plan was to eventually become a professor, teaching ministers to be at a place like Boston University School of Theology. But he wisely reasoned that teaching pastors-to-be without ever having been one was a bit like becoming a law professor by being the smartest person in law school without ever having practiced law.
So it was that Reverend King, who by now had a Ph.D. in hand, was in Montgomery in the fall of 1955 when the late and esteemed Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus and one of the opening salvos in the struggle for equal rights for all Americans began. The African American community soon turned to a charismatic young minister with a prestigious northern education for a leader. But a leader in that place, at that time, for that cause, was the target of hate and death threats. At this point, I quote from King’s first book “Stride Toward Freedom” — the story of the Montgomery bus boycott:
“One night toward the end of January I settled into bed late after a strenuous day. Coretta had already fallen asleep and just as I was about to doze off the telephone rang. An angry voice said, ‘Listen nigger, we’ve taken all we want from you ; before next week you’ll be sorry you ever came to Montgomery.’ I hung up but I couldn’t sleep. It seemed that all of my fears had come down on me at once. I had reached the saturation point.
I got out of bed and began to walk the floor. Finally I went to the kitchen and heated a pot of coffee. I was ready to give up. With my cup of coffee sitting untouched before me I tried to think of a way to move out of the picture without appearing a coward. In this state of exhaustion, when my courage was all but gone I decided to take my problem to God. With my head in my hands I bowed over the kitchen table and prayed aloud. The words I spoke to God that midnight are still vivid in my memory. “I am here taking a stand for what I believe is right. But now I am afraid. The people are looking to me for leadership and if I stand before them without strength and courage, they too will falter. I am at the end of my powers. I have nothing left. I’ve come to the point where I can’t face it alone.
At that moment I experienced the presence of the Divine as I had never experienced Him before. It seemed as though I could hear the quiet assurance of an inner voice saying: ‘Stand up for righteousness, stand up for truth and God will be at your side forever’ Almost at once my fears began to go. My uncertainty disappeared. I was ready to face anything.”
He then reports that while at a meeting three days later he received word that his house was bombed. Seventy-two hours earlier he and his family would have fled into the night. But not now. Martin Luther King knew he had been called to be the Moses of his people. His career path changed over a small kitchen table in the middle of the night in a deeply racist time and place. I have told this story many times to classes large and small over many years at USU. Invariably every student knows who Martin Luther King was and regards him as a noble American. But also, invariably few students have heard of this story.
Yet to know King is to know this story. When police dogs and water cannons were turned on him and his followers, when civil rights workers were killed in Mississippi and Alabama, and when he was personally hit with rocks and bricks when he marched into Chicago supporting racially desegregated housing, what kept him going forward when many would have given up? You cannot answer that question without knowing the real King, the one we do not know. There is an old gospel song with a line that states,
“Who made the mountain / Who made the tree / Who made the river flow to the sea / And who hung the moon in the starry sky / Somebody bigger than you and I.”
Over a meager kitchen table in the middle of the night, Martin Luther King came to know in the most personal way that his destiny, and the destiny of that cause for which he and so many others gave their last full measure of devotion, was ultimately in the hands of “Somebody bigger than you and I.”
This is the real King. This is the King who changed America for the better. In this age when many are concerned about mixing deep faith and politics, this is a lesson we should all remember.