In Memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: A Winter Soldier - @Sojourner
Last Thursday, January 15, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would have been 97 years old. American history is a history of social change pushed up from below by mass movements of committed citizens. Abolitionists. Suffragettes. Labor organizers. Civil Rights workers. Environmentalists. Liberated women, proud gays and courageous immigrants. Yet of all our many public holidays, only one honors that kind of social-justice warrior — Martin Luther King, Jr.Day celebrated on Monday, January 19.
We should begin our MLK day remembrance by recalling an earlier January — January of 1777 when an ink-stained wretch named Tom Paine huddled by a tiny fire in the blood-stained snows of Valley Forge and wrote:
THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.
Ever since, those who stand and endure against discouragement, adversity, and defeat have been called “Winter Soldiers.” We, here in this room, are today the Winter Soldiers of the unfulfilled American Dream.
Dr. King was a Winter Soldier. Dr. King was a Winter Soldier, and he was killed in action on April 4, 1968 while supporting a garbage workers strike in Memphis TN.
When I worked for Dr. King in the mid-1960s, we used to joke that we were part of his "Freedom Army." In that context, Dr. King was the general and I was — at best — just a sergeant. My view of Dr. King was from the rank and file, not from the inner circle. Yet even from that distance, what struck me most about Dr. King was his profoundly humanist vision that united people of all races and creeds. A vision founded in the unkept promise of America: "That we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men (and women) are created equal."
What struck me about Dr. King was the depth of his compassion for the suffering of all people, of all races, of all nations. And how much he cared for people, not just people in general as an abstract concept, but people as individuals.
What struck me about Dr. King was his humility. He was profoundly uncomfortable with the adulation that he received, but he consciously used it to move people into action. Yet he never made money for himself, even his Nobel prize money was put back into the Movement.
Dr. King was often criticized for not being "militant" enough. But what we often forgot — or failed at the time to understand — was that he agonized over every jailed demonstrator, over every beaten voter, over every martyr's death. When we were wounded, he bled. When we were beaten, he ached. Later in life I experienced leaders who casually sent others to the barricades without qualms or doubts, and I realized how lucky I had been to be a sergeant in Dr. King's freedom army.
The mass media continues to distort Dr. King by freezing him at that moment in time when he gave his "I Have a Dream" speech at the March on Washington in 1963. Freezing him in time at, "Black & white together," and "Judge people by the content of their character rather than color of skin." Maybe, given the events of the past year, this MLK Day will be different. So compare in your minds the number of times you see images of King on TV quoting his “dream” to the number of times you see him:
Confronting Mayor Daley about urban poverty and racial discrimination in the north.
Supporting workers on strike for economic justice.
Speaking out against the Vietnam War.
And telling students at Stanford University:
"It's easier to integrate a lunch counter than it is to guarantee a livable income and a good solid job. It's easier to guarantee the right to vote than it is to guarantee the right to live in sanitary, decent housing conditions. It is easier to integrate a public park than it is to make genuine, quality education a reality."
By freezing Dr. King in time, the media conceals one of the profound truths about him, which is that he evolved — that he rapidly evolved.
I remember when he spoke from the steps of the Alabama state capitol at the end of the Selma to Montgomery March. He said "Though the arc of the moral universe is long, it bends towards justice." And as I think back on it now, I'm astounded at how far his personal political arc traveled in just 13 years.
On the day Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat in 1955, Dr. King was a socially-conventional, politically-moderate, Baptist preacher in Montgomery, Alabama. On the day he was assassinated 13 years later, he was a Drum Major of social, economic, and international justice shaking the powers of the world.
And that's why they killed him. Malcom X was killed for the same reasons.
When Medgar Evers was assassinated in 1963, his widow Myrlie said: "You can kill a man, but you can't kill an idea." And when Dr. King was killed, it was said that, "You can kill the dreamer, but you cannot kill the dream."
And that is true. But it is only true if there are Winter Soldiers with the courage and determination to carry on. So let me close by taking note of something we often forget when recalling history.
Those Winter Soldiers shivering in the snow at Valley Forge did not know they were eventually going to win. At that time, the Redcoats occupied the major cities and dominated the colonies — only a handful villages and hamlets dared wear liberty blue. The college student sit-ins and freedom riders, the children standing against fire hoses in Birmingham, the women and men who marched over the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma Alabama did not know they were going to win. There was no easy promise of quick success. The summer soldiers gave up and went home. The Winter Soldiers held on.
And that is the essential definition of a Winter Soldier — someone who continues fighting for justice even in the coldest winter.
Dr. King was a Winter Soldier.
It now falls to us to be the Winter Soldiers of the 21st Century.
By @Sojourner