Remembering Days of Daisies and Death

On the Fortieth Anniversary Of a Memphis Killing

What is the color of nostalgia? I'm old enough to remember a past through a classically clouded sepia haze, but I'm also young enough to see the past through a shower of pop art daisies.

Remembering the times when daisies were on everything from black-light posters to bell-bottoms to that spot of smooth skin between Goldie Hawn's belly button and bikini line (sock-it-to-me), it sounds like a time of love - of innocence and joyful self expression. In some ways, it was.

"If any of you are around when I have to meet my day, I don’t want a long funeral. And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy, tell them not to talk too long. And every now and then I wonder what I want them to say."

But mixed into that psychedelic rainstorm and brainstorm is the bloody shadow of cut roses that are doomed before they ever open their petals to the world.

"Tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace Prize—that isn’t important. Tell them not to mention that I have three or four hundred other awards— that’s not important. Tell them not to mention where I went to school."

It may be that we bundle roses into bouquets, when they've only just started to smell and barely to flower, to indicate that there is a greater beauty in our relationships and in our lives that awaits joyful discovery even as the fragrant petals await their time to smile.

"I'd like somebody to mention that day that
Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to give his life
serving others.

"I'd like for somebody to say that day that
Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to love somebody."

But when cut roses fall onto the coffins of the dead, it means something else. It represents the unfulfilled potential of a life abridged, an abrupt end to discovery's trajectory.

"I want you to say that day that I tried to be
right on the war question.

"I want you to be able to say that day that I
did try to feed the hungry.

"And I want you to be able to say that day
that I did try in my life to clothe those who
were naked."

It is these dying roses that fall like hailstones through the bright mist of a 1968 daisy shower. They are the shrapnel in the flower power explosion. Anyone who remembers that April day remembers the scars it left on our hopes, the holes it tore in our dreams: disbelief; distrust; and a toxic infection that - by the end of June - turned most activists into apathetic cynics.

"I want you to say on that day that I did try
in my life to visit those who were in prison.

"I want you to say that I tried to love and
serve humanity."

But I don't mean to categorize April 4, 1968 as just another element in the concept we call "The Sixties," or even to lump it into the multi faceted maelstrom of that one, tragic year. I want to call that day what it was - it was the day the drum major died.

"Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major,
say that I was a drum major for justice.
Say that I was a drum major for peace.
I was a drum major for righteousness.
And all of the other shallow things will not matter.
I won't have any money to leave behind.
I won't have the fine and luxurious things of life
to leave behind. But I just want to leave a
committed life behind."

From Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Drum Major Instinct" speech,
delivered February 4, 1968 at Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta, Georgia

The child I was then is only a small part of the man I am now. Remembering that day, in the carpool, when Mrs. Pazol told us that Martin Luther King had been assassinated, I wonder how much I really understood of the man. Indeed, I am lucky that I live in a city that considers itself not only his birthplace but also the guardian of his legacy. When Atlanta finally allowed itself to breathe, the years that followed had a momentum that was unstoppable. Achievement and equal opportunity have been growing here since then, despite the rednecks in their white sheets.

But no one thinks the words "We Shall Overcome" are passe, ready to be retired. Even if Senator Obama captures the Presidency, that ends nothing. The past month of "their church vs. our church," "their pastor vs. our pastor" shows that not only is there still a feeling of disconnectedness in the African American community, but there is also a white racist behind every tree ready to spring a backlash onto the conversation.

Senator Obama's ascendancy, however high it goes, is good for the country. It's good for "White" America and it's good for "Black" America. Even the disturbing overtones in the public debate in March are good because we can see how much farther we actually have to go to see equality from every racial perspective, which is one of the main points of Sen. Obama's speech on race.

One thing is clear: in a country where our Founding Fathers were proud to declare e pluribus unum - out of many, one - there can never be equality without generosity; there can never be freedom without a voice; there can never be unity without understanding; there can never be an "us" as long as there is a "them."

When the time finally comes to stop singing "We Shall Overcome," no one will remember why we even sang it to begin with. Until then, we all must sing it, because if not for keeping our eyes on that distant time, we would be forever still, lying in our own blood on the cold, concrete balcony of a Memphis motel.

-PBG

Many Rivers to Cross - A Boomer's Remorse

Leadership, the River and the Promised Land

Somewhere we got the idea that an age of fulfilled promise and hope is beyond our grasp. How many opportunities do we have in a lifetime to change the direction of a government? How many times do we have in a lifetime to impose the will of fair, honest policy, of truly new vision, on an awkwardly political and corrupt system?

In 1968, when passion moved both reverends and radicals to march together to change the outcome of failing social and political processes, we had Abbie Hoffman and Tom Hayden to radicalize us, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy to point out the way and Eugene McCarthy to take us down the road. We looked to them as agents we could count on to force change.

For forty years we have wandered in the wilderness of post industrialism, replacing the carefree excesses of free love with the careless excesses of conspicuous consumption. It's as if the will to fight for our dreams died on a motel balcony in Memphis, or in a hotel ballroom in Los Angeles, or behind a cloud of teargas, billy-clubs and bayonets on the streets of Chicago.

When we had opportunities to grow, we shrank back; when we had opportunities to move forward, we shuffled in place; when we had opportunities to apply the wisdom of organization, of raising consciousness, of being in action to create change, we remained in ignorant bliss, watching MTV, buying PDAs and and investing in the dot-com boom.

Well now I wonder. Our Moses has "been to the mountaintop" and "seen the promised land," and while many believe that was the end of it, it was not over. We actually have the ability to move forward across the Jordan.

(Please indulge me this biblical exploration, my friends. I've only a little more to go.)

Yes, we elected a new congress, one that we thought would lead us in a new direction. But they were like the ten doubtful spies that returned after exploring the Promised Land. Their minds were hardened by the old ways of Egypt, that even after all we have witnessed in the past forty years, even the battles of the last seven years, they doubt the strength of the faithful. They bow instead to the establishment, to the milquetoast centrism preached by the priests of the Democratic Leadership Council.

Yet some do know. I believe that, like Joshua and Caleb, Barack Obama and Dennis Kucinich can lead us away from those who would sacrifice principles for the purse. But it does not have to be them. In fact, there is no them without us. We the people inherit the land. We the people create the change. Once more, we must wade into the river. Once more, we must be faithful that the water will abate until we are safely across. Once more, into the breach.

Who would have thought we would have another opportunity to overcome? Let's not let this one pass.

-PBG

Turning the Dirt in DC

This morning in Washington DC, between the memorials to America's two mavericks of liberty and freedom, Lincoln and Jefferson, behind long rows of dignitaries, shovels and a trough of dirt, stood Ambassador Andrew Young with a microphone in his hand.

Standing beside the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Ambassador Young cued those assembled to "turn the dirt" to break ground on the Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial in our nation's capital.

Like the results of the midterm elections, the groundbreaking in Washington, DC turned over the dirt that runs along the tidal basin, a short distance from Capitol Hill, to re-establish the people's America - our America.

With joyous choral voices fading, the Ambassador recalled the final planning meeting with this country's last great leader in Atlanta before they took that ill fated journey to help sanitation workers in Memphis. As Andy Young spoke tearfully and Jesse Jackson sobbed, Congressman John Lewis, who was also at that meeting in the early spring of 1968, stood along the shovel line, gripping the tool's handle with one hand, while the other held his bent head. His shoulders were shaking; his wet face was hidden in his palm.

Ambassador Young talked about how Dr. King told them, in the hours before his assassination, that they were laying the whole movement on him, that they needed to step up and be the leaders as well, that he was thinking of stepping down if he couldn't count on them.

With tears, the great men at today's event showed more than the sadness that comes from memory and loss. They were the tears of great men awed by the grace life gave them to be in the presence of the greatest of men.

So, at Andy Young's cue, the group "turned the dirt," and in the wake of the speeches and the songs, an old era of struggling for liberty was insured of its endurance, and a new era of reclaimed promise was insured of its time in the sun.

From the changes wrought by their marches and protests and even their blood, we can now all affect change through the ballot box, as we did one week ago.

May we all humbly take the torch they now hand us and - as they did when Dr. King handed it to them - move it forward strongly, resolutely and justly for the sake of all America, all Her people, and all the people of the world.

-PBG