MLK monument overdue
A monument honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife, Coretta Scott King, is coming to Boston Common. Mayor Marty Walsh has been working with a privately funded nonprofit called MLK Boston on the project, which will also include an interactive learning center in Roxbury and special programming at the Twelfth Baptist Church, where King served as assistant minister as a young man.
This is excellent news and Mayor Walsh and all involved are right to showcase the life’s work of the great civil rights leader. It is hard to fathom why this wasn’t done years ago.
It is especially important that young people know the true depth and import of MLK’s words and actions. The courage Dr. King displayed in the face of violent opposition is a rare commodity, and the sheer power of the man’s oratory cannot be overstated.
On April 23, 1965, Dr. King addressed a joint session of the Massachusetts state Legislature. In the packed chamber he made a moral plea to those gathered:
“I am convinced, as I stand before you this evening that, if America and democracy are to live, segregation must die! In a real sense segregation is a cancer in the body politic which must be removed before our moral health can be realized . ... And all men of goodwill all over this nation must work together passionately and unrelentingly to solve this problem.”
Martin Luther King Jr. earned his Ph.D in theology at Boston University. Coretta Scott King had attended the New England Conservatory of Music.
From Boston their work on civil rights would take them far and wide until his assassination in 1968. King was only 39 years old.
He was a gift to all Americans. We can be proud that Boston played a part in shaping the man who was able to affect a change in the culture by reaching so many hearts and minds.
He ended his speech at the Massachusetts State House by declaring, “With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to speed up the day when all of God’s children all over this nation, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics will be able to join hands and sing the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, we are free at last.’ ”
What words. What a man.