Or, as it seems to me…
It has been the long Martin Luther King weekend; a wonderful holiday, coming shortly after Christmas, an opportunity to gather strength for the months ahead, while we are mired in the depths of winter. As I write this, I am curled up cozily in the cottage, classical music playing, laptop on my lap, having listened all afternoon to reports of another storm descending on the region. When I arrived home on Friday, two fresh feet of snow were on my deck and young Nick arrived on Saturday to dig me out. The cold was deeper than usual and it was good to be home, a small fire in the Franklin stove, the lights of the Christmas tree twinkling, reflected in the great sliding doors to the deck. Indulgently, I left the tree up feeling as if I was not yet finished with my joy in it.
Like many, my thoughts over the weekend went to Martin Luther King whose assassination when I was a teenager was another coda in the violent symphonies that were the 1960’s. The year he died, 1968, was the year both he and Robert F. Kennedy were killed by an assassin’s bullets. When he died, I was shocked and saddened, like many, most others. I do not remember how his death was noted at school. I do remember that I asked myself the same question then that I asked myself when John F. Kennedy had been shot five years earlier: what kind of country are we? It was the question I asked myself later that year when RFK was shot and killed in California.
And, of course, it is the question I have asked myself since the shootings in Tucson a week ago. What kind of country are we? I didn’t have an answer in my adolescence when the Kennedys and King were killed and I don’t have an answer now.
I know some things about what makes this country tick, observations gathered from now more years than once I could have imagined. We are a good people. We are violent people. We have our fair share of crackpots, quacks and just plain crazy folks – the man who shot Representative Gifford and eighteen other people, killing six, seems to be just plain crazy, a young man who demonstrated enough evidence of trouble that his school called in his parents to tell them he must have help or he could not attend school. He didn’t get help; he dropped out of school to avoid it and I don’t know what his parents did to respond but now they will live with his actions for the rest of their lives. The photos of him leave me feeling unhinged.
In the shocking aftermath of the killings and the woundings, there has been a quiet that has come across the land. Representative Gifford was the apparent target of the man and her near death has resulted in all sides of the political spectrum to ratchet down the volume of their voices while standing united behind one of their own, whether or not they shared her beliefs.
A billboard in Tucson that described Rush Limbaugh as a “straight shooter” has been taken down. And, once again, the gun laws are being debated while the gun used in the shootings, a Glock, seems to have become very popular, notoriety not a bad thing for sales. The number of requests for gun permits has bumped since then, a result of some fearing that gun laws would become tougher. [Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s going to happen.]
Sarah Palin made a speech; I didn’t listen. But some pundits think it may have done her in as a Presidential hopeful. Obama made a speech in Tucson that has caused his approval rating to spike – and for some to remember his glowing oratory of the 2008 campaign with Democrats hoping this is the moment he returns to focus.
Perhaps Tucson is another coda, a finishing of another symphony in our history. But like others, it must be filled with prayers for victims, living and dead.
Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter From New York 01 19 15 Thoughts on MLK Day…
January 19, 2015The sun is setting in New York City, the world outside turning grey and dark. I am back at the apartment for the first time in a week, settling in for a few days in the city.
It is Martin Luther King Day and I came into the city to have lunch with my old friend Kevin, as well as John, his traveling companion. It was a long, leisurely lunch at one of my favorite spots, the café above the Fairway Market on 74th and Broadway.
After lunch, not quite finished visiting, we went to the Starbucks across the street, where I have always found a seat but today it was crammed to the gills and we wandered into the Viand Café across the street. Kevin wasn’t surprised it was full – after all, it was a holiday.
And, yes, it is, a holiday set aside to remember one of the most remarkable men of the 20th Century. As I was sitting, thinking about what I might do for today’s blog, I found myself back in 1968 when I was a teenager and heard that Martin Luther King was dead. I don’t remember where I was, exactly, as I did when JFK was shot but I remember the dread I felt when I heard he was dead.
As I felt when JFK was shot, as I felt when RFK was assassinated, I felt something good had gone out of the world, forcibly and wrongly and before his time. For all the ‘60’s were a swinging time, they also were dark and violent, a time when all our best hopes seem to be taken from us by madmen with guns.
Today in Mobile, hundreds marched; in Philadelphia, there were thousands. The last Freedom Train ran today, sold out, in California.
It is nearly fifty years since his death but Martin Luther King stands as an example for us all. As I was thinking about what to write today, I read an article on The Daily Kos about the real legacy of Martin Luther King. This writer posited that what MLK really did was to end the terror of living in the South, that by facing and experiencing their worst fears, black men and women learned to live without fear.
Not only did he give great speeches and lead marches, he led men and women to an interior place they had never known.
The world in which he grew up is nearly incomprehensible to me. I never experienced it. I barely knew anyone of color. In my Catholic boys high school, there was one African-American, and two Asians out of 1600. Of those, only one graduated with us, one of the Asians. We had no neighbors of color. I lived in a very white bread world and didn’t even realize it until I was older.
But growing up, I was aware of the sea change that was coming to the country. On the nightly news there were the horrific scenes of human beings being bashed and sprayed by water hoses.
Television made it impossible to hide the reality of what was happening, contributing to changes. The whole world was changing before my young eyes. Viet Nam was the first war that was televised and hundreds of thousands marched against that. There was a feeling that nothing would ever be the same again.
Civil rights were part of the changes being wrought.
Today’s march in Philadelphia found many carrying signs that said: Black Lives Matter. The deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner have called into question how far we actually have come. The questions of fifty years ago still have to be asked it seems.
We have come a long way. We still have a ways to go.
It is right to pay honor to Martin Luther King and the best way of paying honor is to continue to work to achieve his goals. His dream has been partly realized. Let us hope the next fifty years sees the completion of that dream, with hopes it will not take so long.
Tags:Eric Garner, Martin Luther King, Mathew Tombers, Michael Brown, MLK, Mobile, Philadelphia, Viet Name
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