This society sometimes has a way of honoring men and women more than their ideas, showering the heroes with praise while their optimism gets drowned out or–even worse–ignored and forgotten, a civil rights icon said Friday.
And so it is with the holiday that celebrates the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., said Rev. Joseph Echols Lowery, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the organization he co-founded with King.
Lowery, who has been a national leader in civil rights since the 1950s, spoke forcefully about the meaning of the King holiday at the North Chicago VA Medical Center Friday.
The occasion was a program honoring King, whose birthday is Thursday. This year’s holiday for King, who was assassinated April 4, 1968, is Jan. 19.
The message Lowery gave was simple: The national commitment to racial justice transcends the simple honoring of one man.
“Before we celebrate, we should elucidate ,” Lowery roared in a rhythmic, reverberating rhapsody, challenging a receptive audience to continue the struggle for civil rights. “You cannot love Martin Luther King Jr. and sit on your what’s-it-called and expect someone else to do all the work . . . People get into sentimental frenzy and forget the issues. I don’t want to let sentiment be an impediment.”
Lowery said King once told him that he felt “in his bones” that he would not live past 40. King was 39 when he was killed.
“Even though he felt that way, it never made him turn back from the job God gave him to do,” Lowery said. “The holiday does honor Martin Luther King Jr. as an individual, but we can’t stop there.”
Lowery later said that although many people take off from work on the King holiday, they should not rest.
“If you’re off, don’t be idle,” he said. “Do something that contributes to the flow of justice . . . Don’t let the holiday drift over to sentiment. We have to move from ceremony to sacrament. Ceremony is wearing a cross; sacrament is bearing a cross.”
Sarah Fouse, a nurse at the hospital who acted as chairwoman of the King celebration program, said she was energized by Lowery’s speech.
“I don’t think anybody (at the center) should be able to go back to what they were doing before this,” Fouse said. “They should look at the struggle differently. They should honor the struggle, not the man.”
