We recently commemorated the 50thanniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) He was gunned down on April 4, 1968 while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis Tennessee.
Martin Luther King Jr. is one of my all-time heroes. The soaring rhetoric of his “I Have A Dream” speech lifts my spirit. His closing words embody all my hopes and dreams for the world:
“When we allow freedom to ring-when we let it ring from every city 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, Great God a-mighty, we are free at last.'”
Unfortunately Dr. King's life had no fairytale ending. He realized that the struggle for justice was broader than seeking equal opportunities for black Americans in the south. The struggle encompassed all people who experienced discrimination and oppression.
For these reasons, Dr. King decided - against the strong opposition of those in his inner circle - to give a speech on April 4, 1967 at Riverside Church in New York City. In this speech he stated his opposition to the US promotion of the war in Viet Nam.iHe did so in the strongest of language saying:
“As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked, and rightly so, "What about Vietnam?" They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.”
With these words MLK signed his death warrant and guaranteed that president Lyndon B. Johnson and FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, would do all in their power to discredit him and his efforts.
Dr. King was acting faithfully as a Christian pastor. He was following in the steps of Jesus who decided to journey to Jerusalem to challenge the religio-political leaders of his nation, thus assuring his own execution as an enemy of the state.
The issue for Dr. King was not winning at any cost. To do so would be playing into the very dynamics of the domination systems which he condemned. He, like Gandhi, understood that nonviolent resistance was not merely a tactic. He, like Buddha, realized that we cannot live out our deep humanity unless we grow in compassion and wisdom. For Dr. King, the struggle was literally for the soul of America,
This brings me to the core of this reflection. I am convinced that those of us who struggle for justice must resign ourselves to suffering. This is not the suffering of heroic sacrifice for a cause; noble as that may be. This is not the suffering experienced by those oppressed by unjust social structures, war, or accidents of nature; tragic as those may be. No, this is the suffering of those who who are bound to others by the invisible strings of love and compassion. This is the suffering of a parent who is unable to stop a child from engaging in destructive acts. This is the suffering of one who grieves for family members who are destroying one another through back-biting and other hateful dynamics.
Dr. King suffered in this way for America. He said:
The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, ... in 1957, a sensitive American official overseas said that it seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side of a world revolution. During the past ten years we have seen emerge a pattern of suppression which has now justified the presence of U.S. military advisors in Venezuela. This need to maintain social stability for our investment accounts for the counter-revolutionary action of American forces in Guatemala. It tells why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Cambodia and why American napalm and Green Beret forces have already been active against rebels in Peru.
It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken: the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments. I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.ii
It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken: the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments. I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.ii
It is a terrible thing to be afflicted with this kind of compassion. It makes one vulnerable; susceptible to experiencing the pain of others. When we are afflicted by compassion, it is impossible to wall ourselves off. We can no longer ignore the suffering of others. When we are afflicted by compassion, we can no longer maintain the fiction that we are in control of our destinies.
I experienced a bit of this suffering when Jean and I took our daughter and grandson to St. Louis. We traveled there to visit the Arch and other tourist spots while reminiscing about our graduate school days. While there, we asked Siri to guide us to a public park where my grandson could play. She led us into the northern edges of the city. The further north we traveled, the more the neighborhoods deteriorated. It was clear that our grandson would not play in the park to which Siri was guiding us.
As we turned back, I was able to look around. Unlike the ghettos of many large cities, this was not an area of densely packed low income apartment buildings. There were open areas with few trees. It was more like the war zones of the Middle East. I saw high rises partially destroyed and other buildings with gaping wounds. Even so, people went about their daily business. Two young girls walked along the street returning home from school. People entered a grocery store. At one time, it was part of a chain. It was now a decrepit store front.
As we moved further downtown, the landscape changed – no more half destroyed high rises. There were more traditional single family homes. In these neighborhoods, half the homes were either boarded up or burned out. Interspersed with these were houses in reasonably good shape.
I imagined trying maintain a semi-normal home life in the midst of this decay. For me, these folks were no longer part of a nameless group of poor black people. They were unique individuals with names, histories, hopes and desires. I ached for them. I realized I must continue to devote myself to the struggle for justice. This was not only for their sake, but for the sake of my own humanity.
My thoughts turned back to Dr. King. What must it have been like for him? He identified with the African American people in the south. But compassion made him vulnerable to the suffering of others. Afflicted by compassion, he suffered with oppressed people of all races in the United States and globally. He could not help but challenge racism in the North. He was compelled to speak out against the horrors visited by the United States military on the peasants of Viet Nam, Cambodia and Thailand.
For Dr. King, nonviolent resistance was more than a strategy. It was at the core of his being.
Today we face circumstances not too different from those in the 1960's. Racism is alive and well in this country, as Donald Trump and his allies play on our fears and prejudices. “America First” means “Wealthy White America First.” It means advocating a foreign policy that promotes gains for Americans with wealth and power at the expense of middle and low income people.iiiIt means sacrificing our fragile ecosystem for short term gains. It means employing our vast military, technological and economic power to dominate the rest of the world.
Dr. King's warnings at Riverside Church 1967 are as relevant today as they were fifty years ago. The United States continues to be on the wrong side of a world revolution. Our nation is making peaceful revolution impossible. We refuse to give up the privileges and pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments. We are fueling a pandemic much more dangerous than that threatened by the Ebola virus. By normalizing the use of power to satisfy our unbounded greed, we threaten the global economic order, our ecosystem and our species.
It is patently obvious that the way of domination and violence is not working. We are destroying what makes us human. We are like alcoholics who return over and over to alcohol to provide happiness and a sense of self worth. Only our drug of choice is power and domination.
Buddha, it is said, passed a man on the road soon after his enlightenment. The man was struck by the Buddha’s extraordinary radiance and peaceful presence, his compassion and wisdom. The man stopped and asked, “My friend, what are you? Are you a celestial being or a god?” “No,” said the Buddha. “Well, then, are you some kind of magician or wizard? Again the Buddha answered, “No.”“Are you a man?” “No.” “Well, my friend, then what are you?” The Buddha replied, “I am awake.”
We must “Wake Up.” Gandhi and MLK were effective because they were motivated by compassion and love.
MLK stated:
“Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.”
I hope and pray that you will join the movement to promote the values of compassion, love and wisdom in our society even as we struggle for justice and equality for all people.
i https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/beyond-vietnam
iii 82 percent of the global wealth generated in 2017 went to the world's richest 1 percent. Also 42 people hold the same wealth as half the world's population (poorest 3.7 Billion people)- https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2018/jan/22/inequality-gap-widens-as-42-people-hold-same-wealth-as-37bn-poorest
