Translator: Tanya Cushman Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
Greetings.
So like a lot of the other people that have been speaking with you today,
I've had the great privilege of sharing my life's passion
with the communities that I'm a part of.
And for me, that starts at home with my children.
I've tried to teach my children
about the causes that give meaning to my life,
and that includes the American Civil Rights Movement,
any movement that tries to bring together
the commitment to love and a commitment to justice.
So imagine my shock and my horror a few years ago
when I'm talking with my then 10-year-old son
about somebody that has been such a significant part of my life,
Dr. King,
and my son says to me,
"Daddy, I think Dr. King is kind of boring."
And I'm shocked and horrified, and I said to him,
"Boring? Boring?
The Martin who says,
'I'm going to stick with love
because hate is too heavy a burden to bear'?
That's boring?
The Martin that says,
'I cannot be who I ought to be unless you be who you ought to be'?
That's boring?"
And he's like, "Yup, bo-o-o-ring."
(Laughter)
You know, to a dad, like boring is like #worstthingever.
(Laughter)
It's like my kryptonite. How do I -
And so I want to ask my son,
"Who made him boring to you?"
And so I ask my son,
"So, son, have you seen Martin's Riverside Church speech?"
And he's like, "What?"
And I said,
"What do you know about Martin?"
And he's like, "Well, the only thing I've ever been shown of him
is the 'I have a dream' speech.
You know, the March on Washington, 1963.
The one that our teachers show us every single year."
I'm like "Uh huh, uh huh.
But they don't show you Riverside?"
He's like, "No, I don't even know what that is."
I'm like, "Do you know that Martin stood in a church,
and he spoke out not just against one war
but against all wars?"
And he's like, "Nope."
"Do you know that Martin said
that the suffering of our people here
is connected to the suffering of people there?"
And I can see his eyes getting a little bigger,
and he's like, "No, they never told me that."
So the last 10 years, I've traveled around this country
and I've talked with people,
and I've come to see that it's not just my son
who hasn't been shown the full range of Martin
but almost all of us.
Not only that,
I noticed that we've done something really dangerous to Martin.
Martin comes out of this tradition, this prophetic tradition,
that calls us out.
He's intended to make every single one of us
feel uncomfortable.
Because he comes out of this prophetic tradition
that goes back to the Bible,
goes back to the Jesus of Nazareth,
goes back to Muhammad.
The prophet doesn't come to make you feel good.
Every prophet comes to disturb you and unsettle you
by shining a bright light
into the dark spaces of injustice.
The prophet comes never to say,
"Keep doing what you're doing."
(Laughter)
"Steady as she goes."
(Laughter)
"Change not a thing," said no prophet ever.
(Laughter)
Martin should be disturbing and unsettling to all of us,
and that's why he's a statue.
We have done to Martin
what we do to those people
who challenge us morally, religiously, politically and economically.
We've turned him into an icon.
We elevate them if we have to.
We venerate them.
Anything and everything other than face them face-to-face,
than confront them for the full challenge that they represent to us.
What I want to do in this talk is to get back to that Martin
not as an icon but as a revolutionary Christian,
somebody who comes out of the prophetic tradition.
We're used to honoring Martin in the March on Washington.
The March on Washington makes us feel good.
We just celebrated 50th anniversary of it.
We like to think
that this is when we as a nation began to heal the wounds of racism.
But how often have we ever paused to think about the fact
that it wasn't Martin Luther King's March on Washington;
it was the March for Jobs and Freedom.
March for jobs because we marched in 1963
to say that every person who works
should earn a living wage as a minimum.
In today's dollars, that would mean something around $13 for minimum wage.
We're not there yet.
We marched for freedom,
the freedoms that are ours and not to be taken away.
When you take a look at Martin as a prophet standing with his people,
what are they marching for?
They're marching for bringing an end to segregated public accommodation,
bringing an end to segregated public schools.
What does this tradition have to tell us today in 2014 America?
Take a look.
Our schools are failing,
our public housing is falling apart,
our schools are resegregating
and our public accommodations are already segregated.
Martin would tell us we've got a lot of work to do.
And yet he didn't stop in Washington.
He kept on marching, and he kept on growing.
Four years after the March in Washington,
he ends up here.
Martin ends up in Riverside Church
in New York.
And this is the Martin that my son hadn't heard about
and, I'm willing to bet, most of us have never studied fully.
This is a Martin that keeps growing and keeps expanding his horizon,
keeps expanding his circle of concern
until he begins to connect the dots
between the struggle against racism and poverty here at home
and the struggle against colonialism at war over there.
This is the Martin that goes to Riverside Church
and begins by saying,
"I have come to this magnificent house of worship
because my conscience no longer permits me to remain silent.
A time comes when silence is betrayal, and for us, that time is now."
And he's a preacher, and he names names.
He says, "The soul of America is sick today."
It's under attack from what he calls a "giant triplet of evil."
And what is it?
Racism - always racism -
materialism and militarism.
How did people receive his talk?
Not so well. Not so well.
The FBI calls Martin "the most dangerous man in America."
72% of all Americans disapprove of him.
And the Washington Post says
that he has outlived his usefulness to his people and to his nation.
A prophet is always without honor.
I want to figure out what this challenging Martin
has to say to us today.
I'm going to make three little points.
One, Martin grows from '63 to Riverside
because you all, pardon me, y'all made him grow.
You pushed him - and by you, I'm talking about young people.
You young folk have the power
to transform this world for the good
if but you're willing to cease it.
Young people in the '60s formed an organization called SNCC -
Students Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
They pushed Martin to come out against the Vietnam War.
You as young folks never underestimate your power to redeem this world.
Two, if part of the prophetic tradition is designed to hold up a mirror to us
so that we can see what we're actually doing,
then the prophetic tradition tells us today
that we as Americans are in deep trouble.
Our soul is sick,
and you know so
based on the way that we're treating the most vulnerable people in our midst.
Racism is still with us,
there is a rolling back of voting rights,
there's an assault on women's rights, gays and lesbians, immigrants,
you name it.
Here we are, the richest nation in the history of the planet,
and we've got about half of us living at or below the poverty line.
We've got wealth hemorrhaging at the top
with the top 1% clutching on to 42% of the wealth in America.
Martin would say something's wrong with us.
Go to your politicians and tell them:
We demand quality public housing.
We demand public schools that work.
We demand universal health care.
We demand care for the elderly and for our babies.
And in every case, they'll tell you, "Sorry, son, can't afford it."
But somehow, we seem to be able to afford these wars of choice
that send our young people
and thousands of billions of dollars overseas,
somehow we seem to be able to put 2.5 million people in prison.
Something's wrong with us.
(Applause)
The last thing that Martin would tell us
is that the story of America is the story of Star Wars:
America the republic has become America the empire.
We spend $680 billion a year on our military.
That's more than the next 12 countries combined.
We're holding up hundreds of people in Guantanamo Bay
without giving them a chance to come up for a fair trial.
And we,
the country that is based on life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,
has dropped hundreds of bombs from drones, killing thousands of people.
Martin would say there's something wrong with us.
But the Martin tradition, the prophetic tradition, always says
if we speak from a position of great disappointment,
it's because we love this place too much
to go silent.
And I urge you all to be participants
in the redemption of the American experiment.
Connect together the twin weapons of love and justice -
and all we mean by justice is love when it's in public.
Remember the mission of Martin.
He says, "Don't iconize me. Walk with me. Work with me."
Be true to the meaning of your own creed.
Read the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States:
"We the people of the United States,
in order to form a more perfect union and establish justice."
If what you want is a more perfect union -
and we do -
then we the people have got to establish justice.
And a justice that's holistic and global and mingling with love.
And if we do,
and we move with the fierce urgency of now,
using all of our hearts, all of our soul and all of our might,
then maybe someday
our as of yet unborn grandchildren will say of us
that this was a generation that let justice roll down like waters
and righteousness like a mighty stream.
Thank you.
(Applause)