While we’re generally all about discussing the week’s news, in this WeeklyDIVA we are looking back into the past, with equal parts sadness and hope.
A Death in Memphis“...And I've looked over, and I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land. So I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man.”
Courageous and eerily prophetic words from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., spoken the night before he was shot and killed in Memphis, Tenn., 40 years ago today. In town to support trash workers on strike for better wages, he gave one of his most famous addresses, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” apparently without a single note.
Watch this excerpt of his speech.
Just 39 years old when he died, King had already succeeded in changing the nation forever. From the Montgomery Bus Boycott in the mid-1950s, to the famed March on Washington in 1963, to his Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, King pushed America to live up to its stated ideals of justice an equality. When President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, outlawing discrimination in public facilities and dealing a crippling blow to southern segregationists, King was there, standing just behind him. (See photo.)
See a chronology of his life.
Beyond the headlines
So even with all the headlines this week, we thought it appropriate to let the remarkable Dr. King speak for himself:
From his Nobel acceptance speech in Geneva, Switzerland: “I accept this award today with an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in the future of mankind. I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the "isness" of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal "oughtness" that forever confronts him. I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsam and jetsam in the river of life, unable to influence the unfolding events which surround him. I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.”
Read the full speech.
The big picture
Of course, race as a national conversation made headlines two weeks ago when Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama gave a stirring address on the subject, while urging the country to open its own discussion. (Watch or read his speech.)
Dr. King has now been dead longer than he lived, yet the imprint of his life surrounds us every day. And next year the nation will finally open a memorial in his honor in Washington, D.C. As the nation grows more diverse—reports show that more than 50% of the American population will be non-white by 2050—it’s certain his wisdom and courage will continue to influence American culture.
