Planting The Seed, Lightpainting Series, stained glass window, Minneapolis, Minnesota, August 2007, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
When I walked out into the sub-zero temperatures yesterday to warm up my car, a piece by NPR’s Enrique Rivera poured out of the Alpine radio speakers. Rubbing my hands together, and pulling the end of a wool cap down over my neck, I stared off into the distance at a couple of squirrels playing tag on an old growth oak, and listened to Enrique Rivera.
His family is from El Salvador, and in his research he had stumbled on a yellowed piece of paper, a poem about red spring lilies that his grandmother had written for Martin Luther King. The discovery led him to contemplate King’s influence on the Latino community. As I listened, I thought about what Martin Luther King means to me.
I’m old enough to remember his speeches on TV, graphic black and white photographs in Life magazine, and the sad day in 1968 at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis (now the National Civil Rights Museum) when King was assassinated. Regardless of where you lived in this country, who you were, or what you believed, the way Martin Luther King lived his life, impacted your own.
I honor Martin Luther King Day by remembering the past, and pulling it into the present as a reminder. Not only the power of the March on Washington in August 1963, and King’s I Have a Dream address, but the efforts of others to bring to light injustices in the history of my own state of Minnesota (Clayton Jackson McGhie in Duluth in 1920 or the Mankato 38 in 1862). I remember my tumultuous teenage years in the late 60’s and early 70’s, the Women’s Movement, Stonewall and Harvey Milk. Or the efforts of women like Emma Lazarus.
Martin Luther King brought awareness to all of our civil rights. That’s what great leaders do. He spoke for all of us. And reminded us that it is our silence that we should fear:
In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
No one wants to be silenced. As writers and artists, we work to find our voices every day. Many who have spoken out or taken action against what they see as unjust, have paid a high price. Martin Luther King was one such man.
For the Writing Topic this week, write everything you know about Martin Luther King. How old were you when he died, or were you even born? How does your family speak of his legacy; how did they see him in the 1950’s and 60’s. Is there any way that Martin Luther King has changed your life? How has he broken open stereotypes or paved the way for acceptance of your own differences.
Do a 15 minute Writing Practice that begins:
I Remember Martin Luther King…
Reverse it. Do another 15 minute Practice:
I Don’t Remember Martin Luther King….
If you get stuck, go to one of the links in this piece. Listen to Enrique Rivera’s commentary on his grandmother who was a writer and artist. Check out the links for Emma Lazarus, Stonewall, Duluth, or Mankato.
Think of conversations/controversies about civil or human rights in your own hometown. Your own family. What about those close to you, people you love, who live a different lifestyle and have opened your mind (and your heart) to a new definition of human rights.
Write everything you know about Martin Luther King.
-posted on red Ravine, Martin Luther King Day, Monday, January 21st, 2008
One thing I like about redRavine is the opportunity to mark seasons and holidays. Before I clicked on the site today, I felt pretty confident the posting would be about King.
A few years ago I drove from the North to the South. I made a point of stopping at the Lorraine Hotel, and spent quite a bit of time just standing there looking at the balcony of the humble, humble hotel. I went to Atlanta, and sat in the pew at Ebenezer Baptist where Coretta was photographed during the funeral. You know the picture, right? The one where she’s wearing the widow’s veil and looks stately and beautiful. When I drove from Selma to Montgomery I stopped at the campsites where everyone slept during the march.
It took such courage to do what they did. That doesn’t even touch the depth of it, does it? Today I simply sit with that kind of bravery. I admire them for it.
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Sinclair, that’s an amazing journey, the energy of simply visiting and sitting in places where history has taken place. Can I ask, what made you want to embark on such a journey? Were there any surprises along the way, chance meetings, insights?
I know the photograph of Coretta exactly. The photographs of that time are etched in my mind. When you think about it, there was no Internet, no email, no instant communication.
Yet when events like this happened, the world was pretty in tune with what was going on (but not inundated like we are today). There was space between TV and radio for Time or Life to write a good piece.
I’d love to hear more about your journey. Was it the first time you had traveled South? When I saw the photo of the Lorraine Motel again, I wanted to visit it, too.
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It was only my second time South. The first time I was a junior in college. I went for a month-long service project in Jackson, Mississippi. There were about 30 of us, kids from the North. It was extremely eye-opening. They would take us (when we weren’t working in the mission) to tiny towns in the Delta. I hadn’t even known what the Delta was. To little shack-like restaurants with amazing food (my first taste of sweet potato pie), to towns literally divided racially by the railroad track. It was about 1982.
The last time I went on a journey to see Jimmy Carter in Plains, Georgia. I took my time and stopped at all kinds of historic sites I had heard about for years. I could fill pages and pages with the surprises along the way. I loved the South. It is radically different from the North (you know this, QM!). I have wanted to go back ever since.
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I have never been to Mississippi or Alabama, even though I lived in Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee at different points in my life. I’d be curious to ask my mom is she’s ever been to those states. Yes, the South is very different culturally from the North. I have learned to love it all over again. I did struggle through part of my 20’s and 30’s with embracing that part of my history (that part of me). But I have turned a big corner. To deny part of our family roots is to deny part of what makes us who we are. It just doesn’t work.
I love that part of the country. And as we all know, some darn great writers come from the South! What reallly helped turn the corner for me was learning about everything that has happened in other parts of the country – like the Mankato 38 (which President Lincoln played a huge role in), and what happened here in Duluth. There are stories like that in every town in this country.
Hey Sinclair, what was Jimmy Carter like? I see him as one of the great humanitarians of our time.
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Remarkable photo, QM. I just have to say.
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Jimmy Carter was as you’d expect: kind, funny, warm, really smart, articulate, wise. I heard him speak at his church in Plains.
I spent a lot of time at his boyhood home, now a tourist attraction. It is in the country, surrounded by cotton. It is a modest, small home. On the tour they told us that the Carter children were encouraged to bring reading material to the dinner table. They all ate and read together. They were desperately poor (the Depression), but somehow cobbled enough money together to buy Jimmy a horse. He named it Lady, and a lot of the old photos of Jimmy’s childhood show him posing with her.
I could write for pages about Jimmy, so I’ll try to contain myself. He is, however, the nearly perfect person.
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I learned a lot about Dr. Martin Luther King when I read the book, “Walking with the Wind — A Memoir of the Movement” by John Lewis.
Lewis considered the greatest speech of Dr. King’s life to be the one he delivered on April 4, 1967 at the Riverside Church in New York City. In this speech, Dr. King denounced the Vietnam War.
It is worth looking this speech up on-line to read it. The speech (unfortunately) holds great relevance today for our nation, now back at war.
As Bob Dylan wrote and sang:
“When will we ever learn? When will we e-e-ver learn?”
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breathepeace, I was trying to think of the name of that book today. Thanks for reminding me. I remember when John Lewis was describing meeting King for the first time – I was riveted to the page. I enjoyed the storytelling aspect of that book.
I’ll look the Riverside Church speech up. I’ve been reading his speeches, just the words, just the text, and finding them quite poetic. I don’t remember reading that one. I’ll check it out.
Sinclair, thanks for the update on Jimmy. He seems every part the wise elder statesman. Did you read, An Hour Before Daylight: Memories of a Rural Boyhood? He’s also written fiction. Have you ever looked at a list of all the books he’s written? Quite a long one.
yb, thanks on the photo. Somehow it seemed to fit.
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Here’s the link to the MLK Riverside Church speech that breathepeace mentions in Comment 7. I started reading it, but realized I need to revisit it tomorrow when I am fresher.
Until then:
Beyond Vietnam (LINK)
April 4, 1967. New York, N.Y.
Riverside Church
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The sound of his voice alone stirs me and gives me hope.
He was before my time but his presence emanates from videos, tapes, the page.
He had some truly stunning words related to silence. Here are some of my favorites:
I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government.
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.
I recently posted some “creative nonfiction” that is a move toward breaking silence, bearing witness.
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I just visited your blog and commented on a piece, not sure if it is some of the creative nonfiction you refer to. Either way, it was a powerful piece.
QM and I were have a conversation recently about our blog and blogging, and how much we each felt the medium lends itself to writing creative nonfiction. The kind of rapport that often happens with readers and fellow bloggers — around themes common in many of our lives. It is also a medium for telling our own stories. No need to wait for someone to ask for those stories. The democratization of voice.
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Yes, thank you Ybonesy. That was the creative nonfiction I was referring to. I appreciate your responses.
The blogosphere is becoming a goldmine of first person narratives – the cyber-narrative, interactive and yet private. How will that change the face of qualitative research, of our understanding of social systems? So many things to consider.
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Ivy, those are great quotes from King. I’m struck by the one about government. And when I listened to Enrique Rivera’s piece, he mentions it at the end, too. That living in a democracy means that we retain the right to question our government. To question government does not make us unpatriotic. It doesn’t make us anything but people who question with healthy skepticism, the workings of a large and powerful body.
The whole idea of silence (in all of its many forms) offers deep exploration. We can sit and meditate in silence and we need that in order to even create the space inside TO question. Thanks for your comment.
I realize I need to get going on this practice on MLK. It’s kind of a deep one, many layered. But in practice, you never know where the Writing Topic will take you. This one’s going to be eye opening, I’m sure.
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[…] -related to Topic post, WRITING TOPIC – MARTIN LUTHER KING […]
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[…] I don’t remember Reverend King, don’t remember where I was when I was seven and he died. Probably formulating my story, revising myself so that by the time I got to high school I’d have an alibi when the kids called us spics and called our school Vato High. Mom says she remembers. Her voice gets thin (and forgive my feverishness now — I really should be sleeping not writing) when she says, Oh, I remember it. Those were sad times, she says. -related to Topic post, WRITING TOPIC – MARTIN LUTHER KING […]
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[…] can’t think of a better way to honor the memory and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. than to take time off of work on Tuesday to listen to Barack Hussein Obama II be sworn in as our […]
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[…] -related to post: WRITING TOPIC — MARTIN LUTHER KING […]
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I left a comment this morning in the 40 Years post. It seems a fitting tribute to leave it here as well.
It was 41 years yesterday that he was assassinated on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis.
The MPR News Cut blog had a link to previously unreleased photographs from April 4, 1968, by LIFE photographer Henry Groskinsky. They left me somber. And bring back the horror of that day. I am old enough to remember it like it was yesterday. It’s one of the darker parts of the history of this country; it’s good not to forget.
The day MLK died at MPR News Cut (LINK)
LIFE Presents: Never-Before-Published Photos From Memphis, April 4, 1968 (LINK)
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I thought about Martin Luther King quite a bit on my drive around the Twin Cities today. I listened to an excellent piece on American Public Media’s American Radio Works — King’s Last March by Kate Ellis & Stephen Smith (LINK). I listened to the Reverend Joseph Lowery on NPR (LINK) and pondered what it was like in the 1960’s. I was young. But I remember.
It seems like the best thing we can do to honor Martin Luther King is to remember. To not let the way it was be forgotten — yet to keep moving forward. I try to remember local history. Today I want to drop these photos in the comments along with the links I added to my Flickr photos after a 2007 visit to the Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial on Superior Street in Duluth. Today, I honor Dr. King by remembering.
____________________
CLAYTON JACKSON MCGHIE MEMORIAL, DULUTH, MN
Duluth, Minnesota
Field Numbers: IMG_1163, 1164, 1157, 1151
Gospel Mission wall over the Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial on Superior Street in Duluth, Minnesota. June 15th, 1920 was a sad day in Minnesota history, We discovered the Memorial on one of our yearly trips to Duluth to visit Lake Superior.
You can read more at the links. The Memorial was unveiled on June 15th, 2005 and is comprised of two tall stone walls, headlined by an inscription from Edmund Burke that reads:
"An event has happened upon which it is difficult to speak and impossible to remain silent." – Edmund Burke
Another quote on the memorial is by writer, James Baldwin:
"We are responsible for the world in which we find ourselves if only because we are the only sentient force that can change it." — James Baldwin
Tolerance In The News, Duluth Remembers, October 2003
History of Event In Duluth at the Minnesota Historical Society
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Martin Luther King. Another year has rolled by. I remember. Wishing we could all live in peace.
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It’s been 43 years today since the assassination of Martin Luther King. I listened to King’s Last March again while I was driving today. Every year when I listen to it, I hear something new. As I was listening this morning, I was mostly struck by how weary he was right before he died. He was tired and worn out from the struggle. I wonder what he would think of the world in 2011.
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