LEAD LIVES THAT INTEGRATE LOVE AND POWER, TOO

Every third Monday of January, we celebrate the birth of an apostle for nonviolence and one of the most courageous moral leaders America has ever produced. Yet in these recent years marked by polarization, deterioration of voting rights, the resurgence of White supremacy, a global pandemic and ongoing ecological destruction, perhaps it is even more necessary for this nation to revisit the chaotic and dark days that led up to the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and its aftermath, in order to properly appreciate the totality and complexity of the civil rights movement and reckon with the unfinished mission of the “beloved community” he preached so often about.

It is vital for the nation to remember the accomplishments for which our fragile democracy owes King an eternal debt. But in the face of mounting deaths and disruptions caused by COVID-19 that further exacerbate racial disparities, and an epidemic of police brutality against unarmed Black and Brown bodies, we cannot forget he was shot down by an aggrieved White gunman the same way many lives are still taken today, more than 50 years later. After King’s death, over 100 cities were aflame and anger poured out into the streets.

The night before he died in Memphis in 1968, King finished a deeply emotional “Mountaintop” speech and immediately collapsed into the arms of his friend and comrade, Rev. Ralph Abernathy. We can imagine at that moment, he felt the weight of the civil rights movement, the heavy scrutiny by his own government and the toll public leadership took on his body. He was spent. King also grew increasingly angry over the lack of progress in the struggle against economic exploitation, imperialism and structural racism and disillusioned by the constant character assassination.

In connecting with the very human emotions that overcame King in his final moments and the exhaustion that many who are concerned for human welfare are feeling today, we are invited to appreciate anew the way he channeled his indignation about systemic evil towards loving, strategic and disciplined action. It is why his murder stings even more now, because his love for humanity, especially Black lives and people crushed by the excesses of capitalism and militarism, is still so rarely displayed in public today.

At this year’s All Peoples Celebration hosted by Alliance San Diego, one of our region’s most enduring living memorials to King’s legacy, San Diegans will explore the relationship between love and power that seems to be so warped and misunderstood.

King wrote, “Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.”

That kind of love King embodied ultimately led to his killing. That turning point in 1968 unleashed a despair at a level that we are experiencing again in this era. In order to truly inherit the spirit and civic calling of King and the movement, we must grieve his death and lead lives that integrate love and power in a way that produces healing and renewal in our communities.