Washington’s new memorial to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. opens to the
public today. The opening of this memorial offers us an opportunity to reflect not
only on a man but a movement. Every
movement needs a person who will step up and make the sacrifices necessary to
be not only the spokesperson and spiritual leader but the lightning rod for criticism
and potential harm. Dr. King was such a
person, but we need to remember those who worked with him and throughout
society in the 50s and 60s.
Some were the “shock
troops” of the movement who put their bodies and lives on the line for what
they believed. Rosa Parks, freedom riders, workers with organizations like
CORE, SNCC, and SCLC, students, religious leaders and ordinary men and women—both
black and white—stood up for an unpopular cause. Even the President, Attorney General, and
other national leaders lagged behind these citizens in taking a stand for civil
rights.
There were others who
supported the cause in their own way, often working behind the scenes to change
attitudes as well as laws. These
included many white leaders both inside and outside the church who saw the demonic
nature of segregation and sought to change a society.
Several had a great
influence on me. Louie Farmer, the
director of the Baptist Student Union at the University of Southern Mississippi
when I was a student there in the early 1960s, was certainly not an activist,
but he put a copy of T. B. Maston’s The Bible and Race in my hands and gave me
the impetus to begin formulating a different perspective on race. Harold Kitchings, pastor at University
Baptist Church in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, did not complete his doctorate in ethics
at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, but he conducted informal seminars
with a college sophomore that added additional insights to my emerging conscious
on racial equality. Others like Robert
U. Ferguson, my pastor during teen years, were working with local and
denominational structures to change attitudes, and he was a strong influence on
my attitudes.
Farmer, Kitchings, and
Ferguson will not be mentioned when the King Memorial is dedicated, but they were
part of the movement that Dr. King led.
They brought the movement down to the individual level, making a difference
in my life and the lives of many others.
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