By Michael Swanger
Let’s continue King’s
conversation of unity
I am not a speechmaker. Nor am
I an expert on civil rights. But
I believe to my soul that in the
words of Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr., “We must learn to live together
as brothers or perish together
as fools.”
Unity, scripture tells us, helped
shake the walls of Jericho. It
can also help heal the wounds
of racial divide if we as a people
are prepared to have a serious
conversation about it.
Friday, April 4, marks the 40th
anniversary of King’s assassination,
and is as good as any day to start
having that conversation.
King, like anyone, was imperfect.
But his struggle for humanity,
civil rights, non-violence and
justice for all Americans was
ideal.
Raised in the church, he followed
in his father’s footsteps to the
altar of Ebenezer Baptist Church
in Atlanta. He led the Montgomery
Bus Boycott in 1955-56 and the
March on Washington in 1963, where
he delivered his famous “I Have
A Dream” speech. He had the ears
of Presidents Kennedy and Johnson
during a time when the modern
civil rights era was at its most
volatile point. He was jailed
in Mississippi, and spoke at the
funeral of three of the four little
girls that were bombed at a Birmingham,
Ala., church in 1963. A year later,
he became the youngest person
to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
And in 1968, the tumultuous year
for our country in which I was
born, he reached the “Mountaintop”
in Memphis, Tenn., hours before
being cut down by an assassin’s
bullet on the balcony of the Lorraine
Motel.
Two months ago, while visiting
the National Civil Rights Museum
in Memphis [the connecting Lorraine
Motel is part of the museum],
I was reminded how much King had
accomplished by the age of 39
— my age. Looking at the hotel
room where he spent his final
moments and the balcony on which
he was murdered, my thoughts turned
to family — King’s and my own
— and how much he missed
with his wife, his children and
his community. You think of such
things when you’re a husband and
a father.
There is no telling how things
might have been had King lived
longer. This much, however, I
do know: They would not be as
good as they are now, relatively
speaking, if he had never lived.
Still, there is more work to
be done as we reflect on the ground
that has been broken.
Ralph Rosenberg, executive director
of the Iowa Civil Rights Commission,
said 2008 is a significant year
for human and civil rights anniversaries.
Not only does it mark the 40th
anniversary of King’s death, but
it celebrates the 15th anniversary
of the Family Medical Leave Act,
the 40th anniversary of the Fair
Housing Act, the 45th anniversary
of the Equal Pay Act, the 60th
anniversary of Executive Order
9981 banning racial segregation
in the armed forces, the 140th
anniversary of the 14th Amendment
which grants due process and defined
citizenship and the 145th anniversary
of the Emancipation Proclamation.
If Sen. Barack Obama — who frequently
quotes King in saying “Unity is
the great need of the hour” —
wins the Democratic nomination
and the presidential election
this fall, 2008 would also commemorate
the first time our country will
have elected a black president.
“Regardless of one’s politics,”
Rosenberg, said, “Obama has opened
a window for dialogue about race.”
Judging by the way Iowans voted
in the 2008 caucuses, we might
be ready for that conversation.
In Iowa, this year also marks
the 60th anniversary of the Edna
Griffin case and the 140th anniversary
of our state’s Equal Suffrage
Referendum that gave African-Americans
the right to vote. In 1948, Griffin
decided to sit at a whites-only
lunch counter in downtown Des
Moines and refused to leave, predating
by seven years Rosa Parks’ well-documented
refusal to give up her bus seat
to a white passenger in Alabama.
Though Iowa is a predominantly
white state, it does not excuse
us from our responsibilities of
teaching future generations how
to better live together. If morality
doesn’t motivate you, then perhaps
statistics will. In the next 30
years, experts say, whites in
America will be the minority.
When King was alive, the ratio
of whites to non-whites was 9-1.
Today, it’s 1.5-1.
“We can’t afford to lose the
contributions of anyone,” Rosenberg
said. “Everyone should have an
opportunity.”
I don’t know if I will live
long enough to see this country’s
racial divide healed. I hope I
do. Overt incidents of racism
still occur, but just as dangerous
are those behind closed doors.
The offenders don’t understand
that their freedoms are bound
to the freedoms of others.
Re-reading his “Mountaintop”
speech, King said that he was
happy to live in a period where
people were forced to have to
grapple with the problems that
men had been trying to wrestle
with through history, “but the
demands didn’t force them to do
it.”
In the spirit of King, let’s
dare to dream that this could
be the year we begin to meet those
demands. CV
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