“We’ve got some difficult days ahead”

About ten days before he was killed, Dr. King appeared at the 68^th annual convention of the Rabbinical Assembly. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel introduced King as he prepared to engage in a rather interesting question and answer session. There is a moment in the exchange that stands out to me. A question was asked, “how can all of us who are concerned participate with you in seeking this goal of social justice?” Before he turned to the importance of the Poor People’s campaign, King’s response was instructive.

Let me say that we have failed to say something to America enough…. However difficult it is to hear, however shocking it is to hear, we’ve got to face the fact that America is a racist country. We have got to face the fact that racism still occupies the throne of our nation. I don’t think we will ultimately solve the problem of racial injustice until this is recognized, and until this is worked on.

Here King was clear. Unless we are honest with ourselves. Tell the truth about who we are and what we have done, we will never solve the problem of racial injustice. We don’t want to teach the facts of history in our classroom. Instead, Americans prefer their illusions straight, no chaser. But we must confront the ugliness of who we are.

Dr. King was right, and the evidence is clear: we are a racist country. And to admit such a thing is not to condemn the country to the gallows. It is no different than admitting that we are all sinners. To admit such a thing sets the stage for the possibility for a new imagining, a new nation, a new way of being in the world shorn of the insidious idea that some people, because of the color of their skin, are better than others.

Just nine days later, on the eve of his assassination, Dr. King gave voice to what he knew was ahead of us. On this stormy night, when he did not want to get out of bed, where a feeling in his gut told him that his days were numbered, he made his way to the pulpit in Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee. He spoke about the historical moment and what it meant for ordinary people to risk everything on this day in 1968. And he reminded the crowd of the ongoing failure of the country to make real its promise. Remember: he was organizing with garbage workers.

Dr. King understood the glaring contradiction of being poor in the richest country in the history of the world. “It’s all right to talk about ‘long white robes over yonder,’ in all of its symbolism,” he said.

But ultimately people want some suits and dresses and shoes to wear down here. It’s all right to talk about ‘streets flowing with milk and honey,” but God has commanded us to be concerned about the slums down here, and his children who can’t eat three square meals a day. It’s all right to talk about the new Jerusalem, but one day, God’s preacher must talk about the New York, the new Atlanta, the new Philadelphia, the new Los Angeles, the new Memphis, Tennessee. This is what we have to do.”

He turned the attention of the audience to the material conditions that characterized their way of life. Too many languished in poverty. Too many struggled to imagine a better tomorrow.

And then the man we honor offered the words that mean so much to me on this day: “Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. …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.”

All too often on this day, we rush to celebrate the life of Dr. King. And like so many Christians, we run past the darkness of Saturday to bask in the light of resurrection Sunday. We are quick to talk about the promised land. But we forget what he said: that “we’ve got some difficult days ahead.” Since his death in 1968, America has repeatedly turned its back on what Dr. King died for. And today we find ourselves wondering if the country will survive this moment of storm and stress.

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There are forces in America hell bent on turning back the clock, forces that have little to no concern for democratic principles, forces that darken the heart and inflame fears. Our task on this day is not simply to lift up the symbol of Dr. King and pat ourselves on the back for doing so. Our task is to understand the fullness of his life’s message: to grab hold not only of his commitment to nonviolence and his invocation of love, but to understand fully the depth of his despair at the end of his life and what he and the movement out of which he comes calls us to be.

Today we must face the fact that the sense of connection, of mutuality, so necessary for democratic life has been ripped to shreds: racism and greed still occupy the throne of this nation.

Dr. King understood in his last days that how we imagine our lives together was essential to our survival. Those difficult days have been and are marked by our refusal to see ourselves in the lives of another, our refusal to take responsibility for the wellbeing of those with whom we live. Instead, we shout and scream and fight and fear and hate. And the Republic stands on the precipice because of it all. These are difficult days.

Ironically, the celebration of Dr. King in this moment of storm and stress occasions an extraordinary opportunity for us. We can confront the life in the grave, not for who we want Dr. King to be, but for who he was, faults and all. We can remember the movement and the courage of ordinary people that made him possible to inspire us to act in our time. With that inheritance at our backs, we can imagine a new life for the nation. But we have to cast away the false idols of racism and treasure the beauty of human beings in all their difference.

And that begins with facing the truth that racism still sits on the throne of the nation.

Dr. King in his own words…

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