Dr King and I
The what-I-learned experiences of David L Lewis
THIS
IS A TEST- Answers at end:
1) You see a random person walking down the street. What is the FIRST judgment your mind makes about that person?
2)
You see a random person walking down the street. What is the SECOND
judgment your mind makes about that person?
January 15 2024
The greatest recorded oratory of my lifetime was the Martin Luther King Jr. “Dream speech” at Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963. That part of his “dream” which became engraved in my soul is the line: “I have a dream that my four children will some day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” This sentence became a touchstone by which I have tried to live in the world in which we actually live.
Five years after that speech Martin Luther King Jr. Day became the federal holiday observed on third Monday of January. Given how much America has changed for the better since 1968, it is good that our country observes this commemoration. However, Civil Rights Day might be a better designation. As with many such commemorations, the man represents not himself but the contributions of innumerable people who contributed something. As professor Eddie Glaude put it, “You can change the world if you do a little more than nothing”.
This is about my own minuscule contribution to how much America has changed for the better since 1968.
Growing up in St Louis I encountered almost no “Negro” people. There simply were very few around. I started high school three years after Brown vs Board of Education. Thus began my introduction to “Blacks” (the correct word at the time). My general impression these many years later is that they might have thought less of me for being white than I of them for being black.
Looking back over some eighty years, I see many times when my ignorance kept me from seeing how blind I was to what God was showing me:
There was the nurse who taught me at age 7 to treat all nurses with respect.
The mixed-race couple passing by when I was 12 who got me in trouble with my friend’s mother because I saw no harm in such a relationship.
The young custodian who taught me to respect all work, especially work I wouldn’t want to do myself.
That time I accepted an invitation to attend Deliverance Temple, not knowing I would be the first white man to ever walk in the door. When we left that town it was an ‘integrated’ church and I was sent out as something of an ambassador.
When I felt led to attend another ‘black’ church. Arrived at time on the sign, 9:00AM, and stayed to end, 3:00PM. One of deacons said I was “first white man to ever stayed for whole thing”. Never occurred to me to offend them by leaving early.
Of all the people alive today the person whom I’d most like to meet is President Barack Obama. Somehow feel I owe him an apology. Understand that every President is hated by a percentage of people for their policy or actions. It just never occurred to me, though, a President of the United States of America would be hated because of skin color or ancestry; or be judged by what they are, and not by the “content of their character”. As another great man who happened to have black skin, civil rights hero Congressman John Lewis, said of America: “We’re better than that”.
As we honor Dr. King and his accomplishments it seems unreasonable to ask a white person to understand what it like to live in black, or red, or yellow skin. This is not possible because I’ve never ‘walked in their moccasins’. All anyone has a right to ask of another person is to be treated fair and be concerned if I have caused pain.
TheStillLearningDaddy!
Answers: #1) Gender #2) Race
Think about it, you only notice when you can’t automatically, unconsciously make that judgment.
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