The first live broadcast I can remember watching on television was the Reverend Dr Martin Luther King, Jr's funeral on April 9, 1968. Some 50,000 mourners filled the streets of Atlanta on the 4-mile procession from Ebenezer Baptist Church where both Dr King and his father had served as senior pastor to Morehouse College where Dr King took his BA degree.
Two mules pulled a green farm wagon carrying Dr King's casket that day. The wagon was identical to the one my maternal grandmother had and to the one on which my own mother's casket was laid 50 years later. Dr King's paternal grandparents were sharecroppers in Henry County, Georgia, where I grew up. My paternal grandparents were sharecroppers in Butts County, the next county south.
These days we have primarily sanitized and softened memories of Dr King. In the state of Georgia in which both of us were born, across the South, and, in truth, in many places in the US, Dr King is much more popular and revered in death than he was in life. In addition to speaking of his importance in respectful tones, we need also to remember the clarion call to justice that Dr King sounded over and over throughout the days of the Civil Rights Movement.
Dr King did indeed say, "I have decided to stick with love; hate is too great a burden to bear." The evening after Rosa Parks was arrested in December 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama for refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white passenger, Dr King, himself arrested 29 times, also said, "Justice is love correcting that which revolts against love."
The kind of love to which Dr King bore witness and with which he lived was an active, decisive moral force for justice and right and for the dignity for all persons. He would not let go of a vision of love removing everything that isn't love. Neither should we.
Come be part of a celebration of Dr King's life and legacy on the 95th anniversary of his birth, at 9 AM, Monday, January 15, 2024. It's the 14th annual MLK Day Scholarship Prayer Breakfast sponsored by the Interfaith Ministerial Alliance (IMA) and will take place in the St Paul's parish hall. Tickets are $25 and are available at the door or in advance from me on Sunday. All proceeds go to IMA scholarships for Key West High School students.
In the last 13 years, some $30,000 raised by the breakfast has been awarded to KWHS students from lower-income households, many of whom are first-generation college students in their families. If you can't attend in person but would like to contribute to the scholarship fund, you can make a check payable to the IMA or give through St Paul's giving portal at www.stpaulskeywest.org/give and choose MLK Scholarship Breakfast from the pull-down menu.
I hope to see you Sunday morning and Monday morning, too. Sending Epiphany blessings to all.
Login To Leave Comment