Walking in Memphis and the 50th Anniversary

A Southwest road trip with friends was loaded with memorable sights and events:  
Dazzling Zuni dancers at Chaco Canyon, and sounds of a flute lifting us as we climbed to the canyon rim to wait for solstice sunrise.  The sacredness of Medicine Mountain where even warring tribes would come in peace, the three of us holding hands in silence there.  The magical Black Hills of South Dakota, and at the Taos Pueblo, two little girls splashing in a clear stream.    Big Sky, 12,000 feet above sea level with snowcaps touching the clouds.  The amazing Black Canyon.  The eerie, beautiful Badlands .  Breathtaking vistas everywhere.   Waterfalls.  Mesas.  Clean mountain air.  Bison.  Elk.  Moose.  Devil’s Tower Monument—you saw it in “Close Encounters. . . .”  Staying at the Occidental Hotel in Buffalo, Wyoming, where Butch Cassidy, Calamity Jane, and Teddy Roosevelt were regulars.   At Mt. Rushmore I bought a bound copy of the United States Constitution.  We were sad there were no monuments at Wounded Knee .

 

Of all the memories, the one I internalized and carry in my being to this day, happened in Memphis on a sizzling day in June, 2008.  We were off to explore the Civil Rights Museum.  As we approached I stopped, breathing suspended along with my sense of ordinary reality.  Right in front of me was the Lorraine Motel.  I hadn’t expected to see it.  My stomach clutched as I caught up with my friends.  It was powerful, the museum and the meaning of all the exhibits inside.  There was Rosa Parks’ bus and a lifesize figure of Ms. Parks riding it.   There was the cell where MLK wrote  his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” and so many other significant reminders of the arduous and life-threatening struggle for freedom. For justice. For equality in this democracy we call America.  My friend Patsy relived a March—not from 1963, but a later one.  We visited the room where Dr. King had stayed, arranged exactly as it had been before— and outside, the balcony where he lost his life. 

 

One member of a church group—kids around ten wearing brightly matching t-shirts—wondered out loud, “Why those white ladies crying?”   Decades of grief and so many other emotions visited us at the museum.   I will go back one day, hopefully with my granddaughter’s hand in mine.

 

There's no rest in the struggle for justice and equality.  Now that the Supreme Court has gutted the Voting Rights Act, Republican-majority state legislatures are busy disenfranchising minority voters in every way they can.  They’re saying it’s because of (nonexistant) voter “fraud.”   Thankfully the Justice Department has vowed to fight these laws that are stripping the hard-won right to vote.  Mostly affected are college students, poor people, the elderly and those in urban areas who use public transportation and don’t have photo ID cards.  Mostly voters who usually vote for Democrats. But, more burdensome on those voters, and many minority voters of all ages, are the restrictions the new laws imposed on early voting, Sunday voting and same-day voter registration—among other creative voter suppression efforts.

 

So, on this 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington and Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream Speech,” there is more to overcome.  Much more.  There’s no doubt that having a black President in the White House has been a catalyst for the resurfacing, and intensification, of racism.  It hadn’t gone away, but it had become more subtle than it once was.   Most of the subtleties have gone by the wayside now.  At least we know what we’re dealing with.

 

I learned the other day that while Dr. King was speaking singer Mahalia Jackson called out to him:  “Tell them about your dream, Martin.”  He nodded, and began to speak without notes.  We all know what he said or some of it.  And we can be reminded, if we’ve forgotten, at 4 and 8 pm today on MSNBC.  The President will speak, along with Presidents Carter and Clinton; there will be other activist speakers, and some celebrities— like Oprah Winfrey.  It will be good.  So, I need to wind this up and get myself ready to watch every minute of coverage.

 

 May those who have come into positions of leadership continue to follow the footsteps of Dr. King, ever marching toward The Dream, in peace against all odds.  There’s great strength and power in peace and harmony, especially when you’re living that particular dream in the face of hate.  Of resentment.  I believe there are good torch-bearers in positions to carry on the peaceful fight that continues.  They have my confidence and respect.

 

I don’t know how it all will unfold, but I do believe deep in my heart, “We shall overcome someday.”