Dr. King - The Final Speech

By the time I send this, it will be the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The odd thing is that most people will be using the 'I Have A Dream' speech tomorrow when they're talking about him, because it was a lightning rod of a speech that seemed to touch a whole bunch of people.

While that is a great speech, the one that touched me more was the one he gave the day before he was assassinated, in Memphis, Tennessee. Oddly enough, I remembered hearing this speech on TV live when I was only 8 years old, just starting to know who this man was because my parents wanted me to know who he was and what he stood for, and the next day, he was gone.

On a global scale, it didn't come close to the other speech, yet, on a personal level, it was a much better speech, told way more about the man himself, and seemed quite prophetic in his own life.

For instance, right at the beginning we learn that Dr. King was quite a funny guy with a good sense of humor when he says: "As I listened to Ralph Abernathy and his eloquent and generous introduction and then thought about myself, I wondered who he was talking about." Sometimes when we think of our country's political icons, we don't necessarily think of them as funny guys.

He knew something about history. In this particular speech he starts out talking about Memphis, which is where he was on that particular day, there to support the striking sanitation workers. He was supporting the rights of city workers to form a union, one week after violence took the city with the governor calling out the National Guard and having it end up with violence and bloodshed. Most of the sanitation workers were black, while 95% of the supervisors were white. All the black workers made less than the white workers, they were not allowed to change their clothes at their place of employment like the white workers were (this was 1968; remember, segregation was supposed to have ended), and if the weather was bad they sent the sanitation workers home and didn't pay them. Twelve days after Dr. King's assassination, the city approved the union and equalized pay.

Anyway, back to his knowledge of history. He talks about Egypt, and Exodus, and the Red Sea. He talks about being in Greece and Mount Olympus. He mentions the names Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Euripides and Aristophanes and their being assembled around the Parthenon. He mentions the Roman Empire and the Renaissance period. He mentions Martin Luther and Abraham Lincoln and alludes to Franklin Roosevelt. This was no ordinary speech, that's for sure.

He briefly talks about the problems we had in America at the time, but says he'd rather be living in that period of time than in any other period in history, following it up with this:

"The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land; confusion all around. That's a strange statement. I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars."

What a great line that is; how profound. When bad things are happening to us, it only means they have to get better, and if it seems they're only getting worse, then you're only getting closer to being better. Powerful stuff there.

He talks about violence versus nonviolence. He talks about injustice. He talks about unity, with this great statement:

"We've got to stay together and maintain unity. You know, whenever Pharaoh wanted to prolong the period of slavery in Egypt, he had a favorite, favorite formula for doing it. What was that? He kept the slaves fighting among themselves. But whenever the slaves get together, something happens in Pharaoh's court, and he cannot hold the slaves in slavery. When the slaves get together, that's the beginning of getting out of slavery."

He talked about previous marches, but especially the marches through Birmingham, Alabama. How many times was he jailed? How many other American icons have been jailed for their words? He talked specifically about Bull Connor and his brutality, and how none of it stopped the people from doing what they felt was necessarily for equality and freedom. How many of us in America today world would intentionally put themselves in front of attack dogs and fire hoses, knowing that those on the other side didn't see them as equals, didn't see them as people, but as nuisances?

And he talked about the power of the dollar, that monetary value that some people often take for granted, even today, where people like Tom Joyner, Robert Johnson, Jesse Jackson and the like are often condemned for the stances they take, but even today equals or exceeds what it did in 1968 when Dr. King said this:

"Now the other thing we'll have to do is this: Always anchor our external direct action with the power of economic withdrawal. Now, we are poor people. Individually, we are poor when you compare us with white society in America. We are poor. Never stop and forget that collectively -- that means all of us together -- collectively we are richer than all the nations in the world, with the exception of nine. Did you ever think about that? After you leave the United States, Soviet Russia, Great Britain, West Germany, France, and I could name the others, the American Negro collectively is richer than most nations of the world. We have an annual income of more than thirty billion dollars a year, which is more than all of the exports of the United States, and more than the national budget of Canada. Did you know that? That's power right there, if we know how to pool it."

He talked about doing the right thing, for the right reasons. He used the term dangerous unselfishness". He said "Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge to make America what it ought to be."

He talked about being stabbed by a demented woman in New York City years earlier, and how close he came to not being in this world any longer. The New York Times reported that if he'd have sneezed, it would have killed him. Then he read a short letter he received from a 9 year old girl in White Plains, which got a great laugh from the audience:

Dear Dr. King,

I am a ninth-grade student at the White Plains High School. While it should not matter, I would like to mention that I'm a white girl. I read in the paper of your misfortune, and of your suffering. And I read that if you had sneezed, you would have died. And I'm simply writing you to say that I'm so happy that you didn't sneeze.

And then he talked about if he'd sneezed all the things he would have ended up missing in his life to that point, all the injustices he'd seen and seen conquered: the sit-ins, the freedom rides, the Civil Rights Bill, the speech in Washington that I mentioned earlier, and being in Memphis on that day. He then talked about the plane ride earlier that day, and how it had been delayed because security wanted to go through the plane thoroughly since he was on it, as there had been death threats against him.

And then he became a prophet, a psychic for his own life and his own mortality, as if he knew what was coming and was going to try to brace the rest of the country for it, with these words:

"Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. 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!

And so I'm happy, tonight.

I'm not worried about anything.

I'm not fearing any man!

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!"

Did anyone see it coming? Well, I guess we'll never know. That's not really the point, though. When most people think of Dr. King, what usually follows is "civil rights leader". He was much more than that. Dr. King was the pulse of the nation; he was the pulse of the world. Like Gandhi, Dr. King was a humble man who was thrust into a larger role that he didn't ask for, but he didn't turn down either. No cause was too big or too small. Most of America knew where they stood with him when it was only about civil rights. However, when he went after Vietnam, they didn't know what to think. When he advocated women's rights, even some black men weren't so sure what his focus was. And when he went to places such as Memphis to stand with workers, people missed the real reason he went. As he said himself, in this speech, he stood for the first amendment; he stood for the rights of protest; he stood for the rights of equal treatment; he stood for the rights of assembly; he stood for freedom of the press.

And he stood for nonviolence, and the greatness of America, and the people of the world. No matter who we are, or where we are, if we don't stand for anything, we will fall. Think about this while you're trying to lead the few people you may supervise, or the few people you may work with, or the few people you interact with on a daily basis. And be inspired by it.