In June 2005 during a cross-country drive from California to Nantucket, accompanied by Nikki the dog, I undertook an meaningful adventure which I reflect upon each January on Martin Luther King's birthday.
I grew up in the South during the 50s, 60s and 70s when Dr. King and others were fighting the good fight for civil rights. As the struggle was playing out all around me, the topic was rarely discussed in a balanced way or, for that matter, rarely discussed at all in our household as we grew up. My high school class included the first African-American graduate of our school system. John Green was a brave soul who paved the way under extremely difficult conditions for those who followed.
The march on Selma, the riots in Little Rock, Rosa Parks' bus ride in Montgomery and the church bombing in Birmingham were not milestones that held great meaning for me in those early days but as I grew older and moved away from the South, I developed a passion to explore civil rights landmarks and gain meaning that seemed to escape me earlier in life.
As I began researching my journey, I found a valuable resource, "We Shall Overcome: Historic Places of the Civil Rights Movement" on the National Parks Service website. (It can be accessed at http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/travel/civilrights/ ) From the website, I identified the locations that would fit into my itinerary--Central High School and adjacent museum in Little Rock after an already planned visit to the new Clinton Library, the Edmund Pettus Bridge and various churches of significance in Selma, the Selma to Montgomery march route and the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church and Southern Poverty Law Center (its landmark water feature pictured above in a photo I took in 2005) across from the Alabama State Capitol building in Montgomery.
At my first stop, Central High School in Little Rock, I purchased several CDs of Martin Luther King speeches and listened to them as I drove from site to site in Arkansas and Alabama. I was inspired by Dr. King's words and eagerly approached my destinations. With the dog in tow and the 90 degree summer temperatures, some of the stops at the landmarks were somewhat difficult but I was determined to soldier on. The experience was truly memorable and I'm thankful I had the opportunity, albeit many years after the civil rights movement actually took place, to make my pilgrimage to these important sites.
Today I marked Martin Luther King Day here on Nantucket by attending a special interfaith service at the Summer Street Church. It was a moving experience, made even more so by my partner Craig singing "Abraham, Martin and John." A video of Craig's solo is below. The sound is good but the video is so-so; try putting a donation in the offering plate while shooting video at the same time!
Today's celebration is a fitting prelude to tomorrow's much awaited inauguration of the first African-American U.S. president, Barack Obama, marking our nation's most significant journey in justice since Dr. King. I'm thankful I'm able to experience this monumental event in my lifetime after living through my childhood in the South. I hope my fellow classmate and high school graduate John Green, wherever he is, is celebrating the inauguration and realizes the importance of the role he played in bringing us to this day.
1 comments:
I'm sorry it took me a week to find this post! What a great story, and I'm listening to the solo now - quite a voice on that man of yours. Reminds me of my Daddy singing in church when I was little; he didn't know he could sing until my mom asked him to try.
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