Nearing the Mountaintop

It was March 12, 1967, the only Sunday morning I saw during my entire sophomore year at Howard University; sleeping until mid-afternoon allowed me to shake off my customary hangover. I saw my choice not to party that Saturday night as a tremendous sacrifice; an entire night of sleep would ensure my attendance at an 8 a.m. Sunday service to hear Martin Luther King Jr. speak.

When I first saw the fliers advertising King’s appearance on campus, I was unenthusiastic, a drastic change from how I had felt about his 1963 appearance at the Lincoln Memorial. In four years, I had changed. I found little comfort in his ideology of pacifism. For me, there was more truth in the radical positions of the Black Panthers and Malcolm X. Nevertheless, I decided I would give King one last chance to politically redeem himself.

My early arrival scored me a seat, but far from the front. The soft music played by the organist allowed for a moment of quiet reflection, and after some perfunctory introductory remarks, King finally ascended the pulpit.

There was a quietness about his manner and, unlike the dynamic speeches that have come to define his charismatic way, this sermon was delivered in a relative monotone, except for the deep melodious sounds of his resonating voice. He spoke for three-quarters of an hour and then returned to his seat to listen to the organist. Within minutes, the service was over.

As I stepped outside, I found that neither my contempt nor my admiration for King had changed drastically. I was glad I had gone, however, especially when I heard the news of his assassination the following year.

In the years since, fissures in my militant political attitudes came slowly, from unexpected encounters and casual remarks. Many of these incidents still linger as unresolved experiences, but they have pushed me closer to accepting King’s idea that peace must live in each of our hearts.

In late summer, 1983, I was at a hotel in Athens, Greece. I was ecstatic to finally be on the ancient soil, but my joy was shortlived as I realized most of the my fellow guests weren’t happy vacationers but stranded and hysterical travelers. I watched as they stampeded the front desk, beseeching information about their homes and loved ones. They were in Athens because their plane had been diverted from its intended destination, Beirut, because of bombing. Before this, the bombing of Beirut seemed far removed from my reality, but my innocence dissolved as I watch these Lebanese citizens clasp arms as they swayed back and forth in a wrenching dance of pain. There was no way for me to escape the universality of suffering or see conflict in merely racial dimensions.

Then there was the day that I enrolled my daughter in college in Chapel Hill, N.C. The Ku Klux Klan had selected that day to march down the center of town. One hundred men, women and children decked out in their gold-trimmed white robes wound down the street. I was mesmerized by the cone-shaped hats attached to the heads of their dogs. Suddenly I felt a great sadness, not because I had believed racism was over, but rather because these lost souls were entangled in a fading reality.

Today, with the benefit of three more decades of living and having witnessed the battles of Los Angeles, Rwanda, Bosnia and now, again, Lebanon, all places where people have, at least for a time, chosen to fight instead of finding common words of love and understanding, I can better embrace King’s words. I recognize that flexibility and tolerance will take me further than will political righteousness. I’m also more forgiving of myself as well as of others.

There is a part of me that mourns each and every April, as I acknowledge that people like King only remain with us for brief moments. Yet I am sustained in my belief in King’s knowledge that the moral arch of the universe is bent toward truth and that we will reach the mountaintop, one day.