The fierce urgency of today
These are urgent times in which we live. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was one of the most inspiring and influential activists during the time of the civil rights movement in America. He saw this period of time coming and did his best to prepare us.
He shared his nonviolent approach to it and invited the world to partake, because he had adopted this as his philosophy: “Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.”
Two roads diverge in a wood, as Robert Frost described in his poem, “The Road Not Taken.”
As we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King’s life and legacy this week, many of us are faced with two roads from which to decide to travel for the next year, or the next 100 years. At this point, we are realizing that evil is never the climax but the good and hope that comes after it. We are standing at the crossroad with the weight of our future, and the future of our country, bearing heavily on the choice we must make.
As we celebrate and honor Dr. King, we are also re-examining and comparing our values to his expressed values and character. Here stood a man who allowed nothing to pull him off the path that he had chosen for himself when he was faced with the two roads.
Dr. King stated, “As my sufferings mounted, I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation — either to react with bitterness or seek to transform my suffering and the suffering of others into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course.” This is why and when he charted the course of nonviolence.
Many years ago, Dr. King stated that the time in which he lived was a time of fierce urgency to act. Sixty-two years ago, Dr. King had come to realize that freedom delayed was freedom denied. So many were denied basic freedoms (life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness) so he and others felt compelled to call for action to be taken then — and NOW.
King said, “I guess it is easy for people who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, ‘Wait’. But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen the hate-filled policemen curse, kick, brutalize and even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity; when you see the vast majority of your 20 million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society...” there is no time to accept WAIT as the solution. It is not easy to stand still, sit down, stay in your place and be quiet.
In the meantime, Blacks must learn how to love themselves and how to appreciate others, Black or white. My mother would always tell me and my five siblings to remember we were no better than other children, but we were no less, either.
How urgent are these times? Urgent enough for Black people to appreciate and truly accept the fact that God did not make a mistake in creating Black people, just as he did not make a mistake in creating white people. The time is urgent enough for all of us to develop a sense of selfrespect and allow others to do the same. The time is urgent enough for all humans to be allowed a sense of dignity. The time is urgent enough for all decent people to set priorities based on godly principles. The time is urgent enough for Blacks to stop believing all the negatives that others say we are. The time is urgent enough for Blacks to get in touch with SELF and stop letting other people define them. The quality of an individual’s soul is what counts with the Creator.
The time is urgent enough for us not to sit down on the steps because it “gets kinda hard.”
As Langston Hughes wrote in his poem “Mother to Son”: “Don’t you sit down on those steps, cause I’s still going, I’s still climbing Cause Life for me ain’t been no crystal stairs.”
Many well-meaning whites and many Blacks are being fooled by the superficial diversity that they think they see now. We look around and see Blacks graduating from Harvard, Princeton and Yale. We look around and see Blacks who have become CEOs and corporate lawyers, chiefs of police departments and mayors. We have seen that a Black man can become president of the greatest country in the world.
Seeing that keeps us from realizing the urgency of the time. In reality, African Americans and other nonwhites are doing no better today as a whole than when Dr. King was assassinated in 1968. The unemployment rate in Black and brown communities is the same as that in some Third World countries. Included in that high rate is the number of Black and brown people in prison.
Many will say, well they asked to be there. Not so; the problem is they were not given the same care, compassion, and concern at home, in school, or in the community. Most of these people will never own homes, never be employed, never complete their education, and never be in a position to financially support a family. Why is that so? The system says that is how it should be.
We have set up a caste system: Once labeled, always that brand.