The King Martin Luther King Followed

“Only when it is dark enough can you see the stars.”

That’s what the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said to an audience gathered at the Mason Temple in Memphis, Tenn., the day before his assassination.

He was a man well acquainted with the night.

But he also kept his gaze focused on the heavens.

To win their battles, he taught, people had to bury their weapons. They must beat their swords into plowshares, their spears into pruning hooks. They would conquer oppression through the power of love.

He taught that the beauty of nonviolence is that you can struggle without hating, and you can fight war without violence. He said that love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.

He became the 20th pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala., in 1954. It was a time when segregation was king in the South, a time when a wink and a handshake guaranteed second-class citizenship for blacks.

Drinking fountains for blacks and whites were separate, by law. Blacks could not vote. Blacks riding the bus would pay their fare, be told to get off the bus and board again through the back door of the bus to sit in the black-only section. Sometimes drivers left black people stranded after the fare was paid.

In the bus ride that would change the South, one tired woman coming home from work Dec. 1, 1955, refused to give up her seat to a white man. Rosa Parks was arrested. The Montgomery Bus Co. suspended service in black neighborhoods. The 26-year-old King led 50,000 black people in a boycott of the bus company.

Discouragement and Doubt

He soon found himself arrested and thrown in jail for traveling 30 mph in a 25-mph zone in Montgomery. He was released, and death threats followed. Discouragement set in, and he didn’t know if he could continue.

His source of light did not fail him. He prayed and received a promise that God would be at his side.

Three days later his house was bombed. His wife and 2-month-old child were home. They were not hurt.

Standing on the shattered porch of his house, calming an angry crowd demanding retribution, he said, “We must love our white brothers, no matter what they do to us. We must make them know that we love them.”

The boycott lasted one year. On Dec. 20, 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court declared Alabama’s state and local laws requiring segregation on buses unconstitutional.

Not a few stones have been cast at the man, both during his lifetime and after his death at age 39. Society groans when it’s forced to change. Some critics have been quick to point out his perceived sins, citing political differences and moral indiscretions.

I find it so hard these days to get the right credentials to eternally judge the sins of another person. Courses on omniscience are few and far between. Most of us just blindly dabble in judging.

All told, it’s a lot easier to try to gauge the goodness of another’s soul. The goodness is more transparent.

Taking the Pledge

In 1963, King asked protesters demonstrating against segregated eating facilities in Birmingham, Ala., to sign a pledge. It included meditating daily on the teachings and life of Jesus, walking and talking in the manner of love, praying daily, being courteous to both friend and foe, performing regular service for others and the world, refraining from violence of fist, tongue or heart, and striving to be in good spiritual and physical health.

I’d like to take the pledge.

In declaring Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a national holiday to be celebrated on the third Monday of January, President Reagan in 1986 quoted King himself: “Our actions must be guided by the deepest principles of our Christian faith. Love must be our regulating ideal.”

One of King’s schoolmates, educator Charles Willie, cautioned King’s admirers against idolizing him. If they did, he said, they might not realize that they could “go and do likewise.”

But there are those today who go and do likewise--good, pure-hearted people who follow the same king whom King followed. It’s just that sometimes they can’t be heard through the sounding brass, the tinkling of cymbals. It’s a noisy world.

Those who have ears to hear lead the peaceable walk with the children of men. There’s still much work to be done.

King had a dream.

Dreams are one way that God communicates with man.

On Faith is a forum for Orange County clergy and others to offer their views on religious topics of general interest. Submissions, which will be published at the discretion of The Times and are subject to editing, should be delivered to Orange County religion page editor Jack Robinson.