“The United States observes only ten national holidays. Three of those days celebrate individuals: Christopher Columbus Day honors a man who in our civil mythology discovered the Americas, but in reality, there were millions of natives living here long before he arrived. George Washington’s Birthday honors our first President who contributed much to our system of government, but his DNA is also found in America’s original sin of race and slavery.
And every third Monday in January, the nation honors the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Born in Atlanta, Georgia January 15, 1929 and martyred by an assassins’ bullet on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, TN. Dr. King’s political and religious leadership in the social movements to dismantle segregation and voter disenfranchisement is widely remembered as heroic. But we too often remember only parts of this story.
Exactly one year before his 1968 assassination, Dr. King broke his public silence about his opposition to the escalating war in Vietnam that was claiming unfathomable numbers of lives, particularly the poor. He denounced the war as inseparable from the perpetuation of racism and poverty, domestically and globally. King said that only a ‘revolution of values’ is capable of bringing change on the scale necessary to address “the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism and militarism.” He saw that the nation had the material means to address all three but lacked the moral will to do so, despite the biblical, theological and civil sources that supported such action.
As we prepare to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Dr. King’s assassination on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel and the 50th anniversary of the Poor Peoples Campaign what an opportunity we have been given to find the will and resources to address “the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism and militarism.” What an opportunity we have been given to find the moral center that Dr. King gave his life to and to finish the work of the prophet. There is no better way to honor a prophet than to finish the prophet’s work.
The National Civil Rights Museum, located at the historic Lorraine Motel has determined that the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., assassination cannot be just another commemoration with ceremony that only takes us back. No, this commemoration must be a movement that takes us forward. Not just a commemoration, but a commencement, a convocation that leads us to a revolution of moral values.
As Dr. William Barber of the Moral Monday Movement has said, “what will save our country is not the religious left or the religious right, but the moral center.” We want to find that moral center.”