Speed Up the Day to Freedom

After my last “letter” to you–the one that covered the rioting and looting in cities across the U.S.–I received a multitude of e-mails supporting my wish that we unite as Americans, regardless of color or creed, with the goals of enlightenment and resolution and peace. 

In addition to those who appreciated my feelings, however, there were four individuals who permanently unsubscribed from my blog; additionally, another reader who had been a subscriber for many years wrote in to say that he found what I had written to be offensive. When you speak out on a topic which is provocative you must be prepared for some blowback, and I counted myself lucky to have only five dissenters. 

In the three weeks that ensued between the publication of that letter and the writing of this one, several new types of destruction shoved their way onto the stage of our newspapers, televisions and computers. These were of the sort made by forces other than man: a rage of wildfires soaring to record heights in California; Hurricane Laura pounding the Gulf Coast into oblivion; the Pandemic, continuing to haunt us, state by state and mask by mask. 

However, as I sit writing to you today, destruction created by man also continues: the rioting and looting across America has not stopped; fires still burn in Portland, Kenosha, Seattle, Minneapolis, L.A., D.C., Chicago, Richmond, Atlanta, Seattle, Columbus, and more.  I pray that by the time this letter arrives in your inbox on Wednesday of next week, much of it will have ceased. 

When I read the newspaper this morning, I realized that today, August 28th, is the anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech. Surely everyone knows this iconic piece of oratory from 1963. To many of us it still feels as fresh and powerful as it did when the Reverend loosed it from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial–right into a crowd of a quarter million civil rights supporters, who stood quietly on the Mall, packed shoulder-to-shoulder in the heat of a D.C. summer. 

The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom brought together our country’s most prominent civil rights leaders with our ordinary citizens; joining hands,  both pressed the U.S. government for equality with their sheer presence. Dr. King’s words were the culmination of the event, a triumph crowning this vast “managed protest.” Today we do not seem to be doing well at managing our protests. Perhaps it would behoove us all to listen to at least part of his speech again: 

In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. 

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

[…] 

When we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!” 

To make his point, the Reverend Dr. King did not need to wield a stick. Or throw a stone. Or light even a single match. As a result of both his and his followers’ faith, determination, and hard work, much did change–and yet we know, well and fully, that still more change must come.

I close my eyes and imagine him looking down on a world wherein a black woman stands hand in hand with a white man as they make a bid for the presidency of these same United States. Would Dr. King recognize us at all? 

He had a dream and I share it: let us speed up the day to freedom. And may we do so, as he decreed, by using our hearts and our minds rather than our fists.

Yours,