The more things change, the more they stay the same: Happy MLK Day

The more things change, the more they stay the same: Happy MLK Day

This is more musing than scholarly: The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Sixty years ago, in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement, was a surge of public engagement in the most basic rights for fellow human beings, Americans pushed to the margins. In the south particularly but everywhere, Black Americans were living under segregation. Martin Luther King Jr. acknowledged this and challenged the status quo—not without reprisal or the fear of death. He and his adherents, believers, did the right thing in standing up. As must we.

But, he knew talk was cheap.

In a talk delivered at Stanford in 1967 he credited advances that had been made (mostly under his leadership), but he said it wasn’t enough. He addressed the problem of Two Americas. One is living in sunny oblivion, unaware that a second America exists. It isn’t just about black or white, Black or White, but many Americans live in inequality, without proper housing, adequate jobs and wages, without healthcare, without hope. They live, in his words, in the “fatigue of despair.”

This combination of words caught my attention. Even if I am not living in abject poverty at the moment, I understand the fatigue of despair. I feel for the people living under the boot of federal law enforcement, the threat of troops invading Minneapolis, ICE breaking down doors, officers shooting unarmed Americans. But I’m not there. I can only feel the fatigue, tired of the assault, daily, hourly, by this government.

I thought Republicans in the past always were against Big Government.

Anyway, back to Martin Luther King and his speech:

Many things were gained as a result of these years of struggle. In 1964 the Civil Rights Bill came into being after the Birmingham movement which did a great deal to subpoena the conscience of a large segment of the nation to appear before the judgment seat of morality on the whole question of Civil Rights. After the Selma movement in 1965 we were able to get a Voting Rights Bill. And all of these things represented strides.

But we must see that the struggle today is much more difficult. It's more difficult today because we are struggling now for genuine equality. It's much easier to integrate a lunch counter than it is to guarantee a livable income and a good solid job. It's much easier to guarantee the right to vote than it is to guarantee the right to live in sanitary, decent housing conditions. It is much easier to integrate a public park than it is to make genuine, quality, integrated education a reality. And so today we are struggling for something which says we demand genuine equality.

And, for some people this was a bridge too far. It’s one thing to share a seat at a lunch counter and quite a different thing to have to sacrifice a seat at the lunch counter. True equality asks us to apportion, redistribute, to make allowances for others. They do not rise up and deserve it, but, we, because they are our brother and sister, try to meet their need.

This is why for so many years when I lived in Chicago, I attempted to live out words in deed. I worked at a homeless shelter, watched children, worked in a community kitchen, gave away food, clothes, hustled frozen pork tenderloins to folks waiting in line at the shelter’s weekly food pantry. Not just me but also my friends. Katherine gave Marie James the coat off her back, which Marie immediately went out and gave to another person living on the streets. Oh well.

This MLK Day—I know it’s a day off in January when you can go skiing or take a three-day weekend—try to meditate on “genuine equality.” Maybe you cannot give a person a job, but you can buy them a cup of coffee. Maybe, and believe me the fear is real, you cannot stand in front of ICE and protect your neighbor, but at least try to offer genuine care today. As my friend Keith Wasserman always says (as a young undergrad at Ohio University he started a homeless shelter in an overlooked area of southeastern Ohio): Love is a verb.

MLK at Stanford, 1967