“I would even come up to the early thirties, and see a man grappling with the problems of the bankruptcy of his nation. And come with an eloquent cry that we have nothing to fear but “fear itself.” But I wouldn’t stop there. Strangely enough, I would turn to the Almighty, and say, “If you allow me to live just a few years in the second half of the 20th century, I will be happy.”
Now that’s a strange statement to make, because the world is all messed up. The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land; confusion all around. That’s a strange statement. But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. And I see God working in this period of the twentieth century in a way that men, in some strange way, are responding. Something is happening in our world. The masses of people are rising up. And wherever they are assembled today, whether they are in Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya; Accra, Ghana; New York City; Atlanta, Georgia; Jackson, Mississippi; or Memphis, Tennessee—the cry is always the same: “We want to be free.”
And another reason that I’m happy to live in this period is that we have been forced to a point where we are going to have to grapple with the problems that men have been trying to grapple with through history, but the demands didn’t force them to do it. Survival demands that we grapple with them. Men, for years now, have been talking about war and peace. But now, no longer can they just talk about it. It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world; it’s nonviolence or nonexistence. That is where we are today.
And also in the human rights revolution, if something isn’t done, and done in a hurry, to bring the colored peoples of the world out of their long years of poverty, their long years of hurt and neglect, the whole world is doomed. Now, I’m just happy that God has allowed me to live in this period to see what is unfolding. And I’m happy that He’s allowed me to be in Memphis.
I can remember—I can remember when Negroes were just going around as Ralph has said, so often, scratching where they didn’t itch, and laughing when they were not tickled. But that day is all over. We mean business now, and we are determined to gain our rightful place in God’s world.
And that’s all this whole thing is about. We aren’t engaged in any negative protest and in any negative arguments with anybody. We are saying that we are determined to be men. We are determined to be people. We are saying—We are saying that we are God’s children. And that we are God’s children, we don’t have to live like we are forced to live.
Now, what does all of this mean in this great period of history? It means that we’ve got to stay together. We’ve got to stay together and maintain unity. You know, whenever Pharaoh wanted to prolong the period of slavery in Egypt, he had a favorite, favorite formula for doing it. What was that? He kept the slaves fighting among themselves. But whenever the slaves get together, something happens in Pharaoh’s court, and he cannot hold the slaves in slavery. When the slaves get together, that’s the beginning of getting out of slavery. Now let us maintain unity.
Secondly, let us keep the issues where they are. The issue is injustice. The issue is the refusal of Memphis to be fair and honest in its dealings with its public servants, who happen to be sanitation workers. Now, we’ve got to keep attention on that. That’s always the problem with a little violence. You know what happened the other day, and the press dealt only with the window-breaking. I read the articles. They very seldom got around to mentioning the fact that one thousand, three hundred sanitation workers are on strike, and that Memphis is not being fair to them, and that Mayor Loeb is in dire need of a doctor. They didn’t get around to that.
Now we’re going to march again, and we’ve got to march again, in order to put the issue where it is supposed to be—and force everybody to see that there are thirteen hundred of God’s children here suffering, sometimes going hungry, going through dark and dreary nights wondering how this thing is going to come out. That’s the issue. And we’ve got to say to the nation: We know how it’s coming out. For when people get caught up with that which is right and they are willing to sacrifice for it, there is no stopping point short of victory. We aren’t going to let any mace stop us. We are masters in our nonviolent movement in disarming police forces; they don’t know what to do. I’ve seen them so often. I remember in Birmingham, Alabama, when we were in that majestic struggle there, we would move out of the 16th Street Baptist Church day after day; by the hundreds we would move out. And Bull Connor would tell them to send the dogs forth, and they did come; but we just went before the dogs singing, “Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me around.”
–Martin Luther King, Jr., April 3, 1968, Mason Temple, Memphis.
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Fifty-three years later his words are as relevant as they were the day he spoke them.
The nation is sick. Literally, bodies crumpled and lost; figuratively, with far more than medicine can name.
Shadow forces send out their mercenaries to find the smallest of fissures between us, widening the cracks, exploiting our fragility, fear, and shame until our screaming at each other across a manufactured chasm is so deafening no one can hear. Our malaise shifts shape and form, fluid until the moment it solidifies into the crack of a gun shot and another of us is gone. Trouble is in the land.
The pain of it is in my joints, my head, my heart, the air, the earth, the sea. Everywhere.
We have arrived on a precipice, and we do not yet know which way we will go. Can we trust our elected leaders to work for the common good? Will our democratic norms and processes hold up to the baser authoritarian impulses living in and among us? Will I have enough to feed my child this month, next month, next year? At what cost to our other basic needs? Confusion all around. Why, in such deep darkness, have we let go of one another?
I reach out my hand. Will I find you?
It is so, so dark sometimes, and all I know to do to get through is to feel the pull of gravity against the back of my skull, my shoulder blades, my pelvis, my heels as I lie still and quiet. But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. There is tile and concrete still between me and the earth, yet here on the floor is grounding enough for me to find the will to rise up and propel my body out of the house, into the world, to you. In this dark, I find you, 100 million billion points of lights, fireworks. In this dark, I find you, the singular point of expansion, the vastness of the universe, everything that ever was or will be. In this dark, we come together, stars forming the most beautiful earth-bound constellation on the ground, dancing with the constellations above.
Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me around.
You came to the park for habitat restoration because of him, for him. Something is happening in this world. You are happening in this world, and thank you for that, for your care and compassion, for you. May his memory, and its call to action, be eternal.
May we keep happening together.