MLK, Jr. Memorial Groundbreaking

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”

-Martin Luther King, Jr. & Thomas Jefferson

Soon, the Tidal Basin will be home to memorials that honor both of the men who made this sentence – perhaps the greatest American quote of all time – possible. This morning, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Foundation broke ground on a project that has been decades in the making. First conceived at a Alpha Phi Alpha meeting in 1984, the Memorial should be complete in 2008. Situated on the northeast corner of the Tidal Basin, it will sit between the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials – a rare Mall monument to a man who was neither President nor war hero. Rather, it is a memorial for a man who reminded us that “everyone can be great, because everyone can serve.”

And serve Dr. King did. But you know that. Every American knows that. And if you don’t, well, I’ll leave that rich and amazing story to be told by someone better able than I. Instead, I’m just going to offer my own take on today – a very personal experience for me.

It was, to be sure, a very personal experience for almost everyone there. And that does not surprise me at all. Dr. King – even all these years later, even with people who weren’t even born when he was murdered – has an impact and reach that is almost impossible to describe. Today, Rep. John Lewis said, of hearing Dr. King’s voice on the radio when he was a 15 year old in Troy, Alabama, “when I heard his words: it felt like he was speaking directly to me. John Lewis, you can make a difference.” It is no less true for me, or – I suspect – anyone who has ever quietly listened to his words.

Depending on your age, or where you’re from, the civil rights struggle may seem less than personal for you. In my own case, circumstances of time and geography were such that I didn’t experience its most famous moments directly. I was fortunate, however, to have spent many of my formative years in the aura of many of its most significant actors. When I first moved to Atlanta, Andrew Young was its mayor. My first apartment was in the Vine City neighborhood, adjacent to Morris Brown and the rest of the Atlanta University Center (home to Morehouse, Spelman, Clark, and the Interdenominational Theological Center). For a while, at least, I shopped at the same West End grocery store as Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (H. Rap Brown). Later, I lived and worked at the intersection of Peachtree St. and (Sweet) Auburn, chatting with Rep. Lewis in our office building’s elevators, or waiting with Julian Bond for our cars. Early in my career, I was part of the effort to make the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday a “day on, not a day off.” Through this, I frequently found myself in Mrs. King’s presence while working with Dexter King and other King Center staff. The list goes on and on. The point is, not only is the civil rights struggle itself very much alive, so are many of the people who did so much of the work early on. It isn’t history – it’s us. Here. Today.

Thus, it was the here and now that I thought about as I watched the dais assemble, and the speakers share their stories. Soledad O’Brien and Tavis Smiley were MC’ing the event, and I think that the entire crowd cringed when Soledad said, “I had a dream that it would not rain.” I hope we never fall so far as a society where that will ever be an acceptable punch line. Thankfully, Tavis quickly took over, setting the tone for the day by saying that he was proud to be a part of the day, as he would “rather have the living ideas of the dead, than the dead ideas of the living.”

Anthony Williams, outgoing mayor of DC, next welcomed the crowd. Williams, fairly or not, has never been thought of as a particularly powerful speaker, but he brought out great applause when he ended his speech with a call for District voting rights. The crowd itself was interesting. There were your expected politicians – right in front of me were Senators Arlen Specter and Paul Sarbanes, along with Reps. Bobby Scott and Sheila Jackson-Lee. There were also your unexpected – Larry Fishburne was quietly sitting nearby, and next to me were three young men who couldn’t have been older than 19 or 20 (as evidenced in no small part by their “Damn, this is *major*, yo.” when Smiley and O’Brien first came out – after, oh, John Lewis, Andy Young, and Maya Angelou had already come out. Major, indeed.). Andrew Young then took the stage, introducing Darryl Matthews (president of Alpha Phi Alpha, who pointed out that the memorial is still only 2/3rd of the way towards its fundraising goal) and Tommy Hilfiger (who’s purpose was lost on me, honestly). And then, well . . . Bill showed up.

President Clinton, as he always does, delivered a great speech. He looked both to the past and the future, with two things really standing out for me. Putting our moral present in the context of the past, Clinton recalled Jefferson’s saying that when he reflected on slavery, he trembled to think that God is just. For me, this brought home some of our own recent moral failures. But ever the optimist about human nature, he went on to say, of Dr. King, “If he were here, he would remind us that the time to do right remains.” Indeed, it does. And we should not waste a moment of it.
My brief moment of sharing that optimism was quickly brought back to earth, as Attorney General Alberto Gonzales scurried in late, taking a seat near by. I doubt he would have understood the words, even if he’d heard them. In fact, in the spirit of turning the other cheek, I’m simply going to say that, shortly after the next speech (Oprah’s, which was very good), President Bush arrived and gave his speech. My only observation is that Bush would know that there is no such place as “Sweet Auburn, Georgia,” if he’d visited Dr. King’s tomb more than once. More coverage of Bush’s speech here.)

After Bush’s departure, Diane Sawyer read us a letter from perhaps the only living person who can even begin to approach the moral leadership that King gave us – Nelson Mandela. Maya Angelou then asked us to “look where we’ve all come from.” After a pause, Tavis Smiley introduced the next speaker as “someone who has recently sold a few books, a United States Senator, and maybe just maybe . . . ,” cracking a knowing grin, “ahhh, nevermind.” And Barack Obama, of course, came to the podium. The welcome that greeted him was the biggest of the morning, greater than even President Clinton’s or Oprah’s.

[Part II forthcoming]