I first heard of Martin Luther King during the Montgomery Bus Boycott when the buses in Montgomery, Alabama were segregated. Blacks were confined to the back seats. As a college student in Birmingham I heard about what was happening in Montgomery. I read Dr. King’s Stride Toward Freedom that told of the bus boycott.
My Story
But it reminded me of an incident in my life when I was probably 16. This was Columbus, Georgia. I rode the bus home from downtown Columbus to my home just miles away. About mid-way the bus suddenly stopped and a black woman got on. I remember she looked tired. She didn’t sit on the back row but about two seats closer to the front. I sat in front of her. The bus suddenly stopped and the bus driver came down the aisle. “Auntie, you can’t sit there, you know that. Get up and move to the back seat.” She just kept sitting. “Get up,” he said. I turned around and told the driver, “Mr. if you would talk to her like a human being she might move.” She moved and the bus deriver continued to drive. The white folks on the bus kept looking back at me. Some whispered to one another. It was a tense moment.
The Changes He Made
I still marvel at the incredible change one man can make. Despite the dark days there was no turning back to those days in the fifties. Black young men work out at my Rec Center. Sometimes we talk and laugh at one another another. Do you honestly think Clemson would have won those National Championships without our black players. Many of the workers in our local WalMart are black. And through very few blacks attend our church when they come they are welcomed. Many of our political leaders are Afro-American. Georgia could not have elected two Democrats to the Senate without the voter registration that Dr. King started years ago. Black faces dot all our TV stations.
Of course this is only the tip of the iceberg because one man told us he had a dream. He was assassinated one sad in Memphis, Tennessee. Evil forces tried to stop him and yet his dream of a beloved community is still a dream. We are a divided people and our days are scary. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be sworn in. She is our first black Vice President.
From a Distance
Every time I hear: “We shall overcome…O deep in my heart I do believe that we shall overcome one day…” stirs me
with hope and promise still. If we turn to the Hebrews and remember the great call of many of our saints: Abel and Enoch and Abraham and Sarah, Noah and Moses. On and on the list goes on. But the book of Hebrews was written like so many of the books in the Bible They came out of very hard soil. The author reminds us as he thought of all those he had mentioned: “All these were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw and welcomed them from a distance…” But the theme sounding like a tom-tom beat reminds us how they kept going: “Faith…Faith…Faith.
Isn’t this still the believer’s charge. “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction ofd things not seen.” Over 25,000 guards in Washington protect our government and our new President. What is to be our response? Maybe on Dr. King’s birthday we remember we are called to be faithful. And this, maybe in every age, is hard indeed.
What I Heard
I only heard Dr. King once. He spoke in our Southern Baptist Seminary chapel. I remember his sonorous words: “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.” I shook his hand after that sermon but leaving there I remember feeling strongly I had to do something. Well most of my efforts have been weak. But I have tried in my own way to believe and try to preach and live this dream thatI heard about in that chapel sermon.
Hopefully on this national holiday that we will turn off the tv and quit worrying about buying something from Amazon and ponder the truth of this day. We remember Dr. King and the challenges he left for us all. And that dream could change us all.
(Dr. King’s birthday was January 15. But we have designated the third Monday in January as a nation holiday in his honor.)
*The second photograph was taken by Andy Montgomery / flikr
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