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Congressman Elijah
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Congressman Elijah
E. Cummings |
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January 19, 2003
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Day Address
Lehigh University
St. Peter's Evangelical Lutheran Church
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Thank you, Ms. [Latoya Stacy] Rose, for your kind words of introduction – and for all that you, Mr. Terance Smith and the other young leaders at Lehigh University are doing to give renewed meaning to Dr. King's legacy.
Pastor [Edith] Roberts – our thanks to you and the entire St. Peter's congregation for hosting this wonderful event – and for all that this church is doing to make South Bethlehem a better and more humane place.
Good evening, everyone. I am honored to be here with Pastor Roberts, [Assistant] Dean Stephan Coggs, Dr. Bill Scott and all of you.
Thank you for taking time from your busy lives to be here tonight.
As my friend, Vernon Jordan, often reminds us - 85% of everything we accomplish in this life involves just showing up.
I feel right at home with you here in Pastor Roberts' church. I am the son of two ministers – so I grew up with "double coverage" so to speak.
It is highly appropriate that we gather here in God's house to reflect upon the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy for America.
Dr. King was, after all, first and foremost a minister of God's social gospel for America. He proclaimed our shared humanity as God's children.
We have just heard the cultural foundation of Dr. King's prophetic message
echoed in the beautiful and uplifting voices of Lehigh University's Genesis
Gospel Choir.
It is a message for ALL humanity – a message that transcends race and gender.
Join me, if you will, in showing our appreciation for these wonderful young
people and the gift of inspiration that they have shared with us tonight.
I. REMEMBERING DR. KING: THE STRUGGLE FOR CIVIL AND HUMAN RIGHTS
To all of the young people here with us this evening – I am especially pleased
to see you here. You are my generation's living messages to a future that we may
never see.
Your presence here with us this evening makes me hopeful that our message to that future America will be one of confidence, unity and hope.
I was about your age when Dr. King walked upon this earth – half a century ago in the 1950s and 1960s. I was young at a time when young people joined with Dr. King and my parents' generation to work for an America that truly would offer liberty and justice for ALL people.
I was young at a difficult economic time – a time when working people labored in the heat of Bethlehem Steel's blast furnaces, both here in Pennsylvania and in my home town of Baltimore.
(I, myself, earned money for school by sweeping the Bethlehem Steel machine shop floor at Sparrow's Point).
I was young when our older brothers were being taken from their homes and families – often against their will – to fight in a brutal war in Viet Nam.
I should say to you that I do not come here tonight as a teacher of the history and sociology of Dr. King's era – I will leave those lessons to scholars like Dr. Scott. What I can express most authentically are my own experiences during that time.
So, young people, I come here to Bethlehem – to this wonderful church – to TESTIFY.
Just as you are my generation's living messages to the America of our future, I stand before you this evening as a messenger to you from the young people of Dr. King's time.
And that is where I will begin tonight – with messages to you about a struggle for justice, jobs and freedom that began many years ago and continues into our own time.
I do so to lay the foundation for my other theme this evening: my vision of
what Dr. King's message would be to the leaders of our own time.
Riverside
My parents began their lives as share croppers in Manning, South Carolina.
They were denied the right to vote, denied a formal education and denied economic opportunity.
So, after World War II, my parents moved from South Carolina to Baltimore in order to create a better life for themselves and their children.
It was there, in South Baltimore, that I received my first personal lesson about the struggle for civil rights. It happened at a swimming pool called Riverside.
I could not have been older than nine or ten when "Captain" Jim Smith from our neighborhood recreation center and the NAACP's Juanita Jackson Mitchell joined forces to stand up for us.
We were just children looking for a way to escape the summer heat of South Baltimore's concrete and asphalt streets.
In those days, South Baltimore's white children swam and relaxed in the Olympic-sized Riverside Pool that the City maintained at public expense not far from where I lived.
Black children were barred from Riverside by the cruelty of segregation.
We were consigned by the color of our skin to an aging wading pool at Sharp and Hamburg Streets.
Our pool so small that we were forced to take turns just to be able to sit in the cool water.
Upset about our exclusion from our neighborhood's public pool, we complained to Jim Smith.
To their everlasting credit, Captain Smith and Juanita Jackson Mitchell organized protest marches.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, I did not come here to Bethlehem to make anyone feel uncomfortable.
I would like to be able to tell you that the white families at Riverside accepted us graciously.
After all, we were just little children who wanted a place to swim.
Sadly, that is not what happened.
We tried to gain entrance to the pool each day for over a week.
And, as we returned – again and again – we were spit upon, threatened and called everything but children of God.
One day, I was cut by a bottle thrown at me from the angry crowd.
We were afraid, and our parents became concerned for our safety.
Captain Smith requested police protection – but no help was forthcoming. It seemed as if we were alone in a hostile world.
Then, one day when all seemed lost, Juanita Jackson Mitchell marched up the street toward our little group like she was the Empress of South Baltimore.
With her were two reluctant, but grimly determined, Baltimore City policemen – clearly more afraid of her anger than of the jeering, racist crowd.
Today, friends, the history books say that the Riverside pool was peaceably integrated.
It was -- by Thurgood Marshall's Constitution and Juanita Jackson Mitchell's determination that all children must be treated fairly.
For the rest of my life, I will thank her and Captain Jim Smith for being there for us on that hot summer day in South Baltimore.
They stood up for what was right. They stood up for some little children who needed them.
*****
Now, ladies and gentlemen, I am not here to say that the integration of a swimming pool in South Baltimore changed the course of America.
What I will say to you is that this personal experience changed my life.
There we were, about three years after Dr. King demanded that this democratic nation give us all the right to vote at the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom.
The idea of having rights sounded great to us, living there in South Baltimore – but before Riverside, I had not personally experienced having a right that other people had to respect.
And, then, after our struggle, I did have a right that was important to me.
That realization made all the difference in the world to me.
Ladies and gentlemen, Eleanor Roosevelt once insightfully observed that:
"Human rights must begin in small places close to home."
"They are the world of the individual person, where every man, woman and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity and equal dignity without discrimination."
"Unless these rights have meaning there," Mrs. Roosevelt concluded, "they have little meaning anywhere."
And THAT, my friends, is my first message to you from the children of Dr. King's time.
Human rights must begin in small places close to home.
1963: Jobs & Freedom
THAT is why all that this church and Lehigh University are doing to make life a
little better – a little more humane – here in South Bethlehem is so very,
very IMPORTANT.
To fully express to you why I feel this so intensely, I must take you back, once more, to that time in my life more than 40 years ago.
Two or three years after our childhood struggle at Riverside, it was the summer of 1963, and economic times were hard in South Baltimore.
My family was grateful that Dad had a job and a union card, even if a laborer's pay made it difficult to make ends meet.
Because I was 12 years old, I was expected to work whenever I had the opportunity to help our family.
That, as I recall, is what I was doing on August 28, 1963.
I was traveling in an old truck out into the countryside to make some money for my family by picking vegetables on a farm.
From the talk at our church, I had learned that a big protest march and rally were being held that day in Washington.
Dr. King and some others were trying to help President Kennedy get a law passed for better jobs and fair treatment.
So, when we quit work early that day because of the heat, I asked the driver to turn on the radio in the truck.
We heard part of Dr. King's speech and some cheers.
Afterwards, the radio announcer said that the march had been very large and that no one had been hurt.
That made me feel very good.
I knew that marching for our rights could be dangerous.
I still had that scar on my forehead from Riverside
As I had listened to Dr. King speaking over the radio, he had sounded so determined and hopeful about his dream for America.
But as I sat there, looking at the callouses on my hands, I wondered whether my life would ever change . . . .
****
Years of Struggle and Triumph
Several months after that 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom,
President Kennedy was cut down by an assassin's bullets.
Some people in my neighborhood were quick to say:
"See. That's what happens to anyone who wants to change life for the better for people like us."
My family, however, were church people – union people.
We kept the faith.
And life did begin to get a little better for us in the months and years that followed.
With the money that Dad saved by working overtime, and with Mother's pay from cleaning other people's houses, we were able to make a down-payment on our own home.
More protests were taking place across the country.
And people standing up for what was right – Black and White alike -- helped President Johnson finally get a Civil Rights Act passed in 1964.
The next year, though, my friends and I became very angry when we saw the televised pictures of storm troopers beating John Lewis, Hosea Williams and the people of Selma on the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
But we kept to Dr. King's philosophy.
We stayed peaceful.
And that officially sponsored terrorism in Selma, Alabama, led to national pressure for the Voting Rights Act.
Voting Rights for us became the law – eight years after Dr. King's Prayer Pilgrimage to Washington.
Closer to home in Baltimore, I continued to attend school every day, and I worked very hard.
With a lot of help from people in our community, I began to get good grades for the first time.
I was admitted to Baltimore City College, an integrated (and intensely-academic) high school. Several years later, I graduated second in my class.
I later earned a Phi Beta Kappa key at Howard University and a became lawyer at the University of Maryland – the same law school that once denied Thurgood Marshall the right to study there because he was black.
That education allowed me to enter the life of public service that continues to this day.
And, this evening, I have been invited to speak to you as Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus — 39 ordinary women and men called to the extraordinary mission of representing more than 26 million Americans of every racial background.
However, I also stand before you this evening, my friends:
- as a son of share croppers who once were denied a formal education and the right to vote; and
- as man who began life in a segregated South Baltimore elementary school and once had to struggle just to be able to swim in a public pool.
II. DR. KING'S MESSAGE FOR THE LEADERS OF OUR TIME
Most important of all, friends, I am here as a father who is determined to live
long enough to see Dr. King's dream for America fully realized for my children
– and for ALL of the children of this great nation.
Dr. King's dream – and his STRATEGY OF NON-VIOLENT CHANGE – has worked for you and me, ladies and gentlemen.
We sit together this evening in peace and fellowship.
We are able to do this because the young people of Dr. King's time followed his vision. We chose peaceful, nonviolent change – not change "by any means necessary."
We did not become Northern Ireland – and we did not become Palestine.
As a result, most of us here this evening are living lives that are the envy of people throughout the world.
We have good reason to celebrate Dr. King and all that he accomplished.
However, as I look around Pastor Roberts' wonderful church, I cannot forget that question that I asked myself back in August of 1963: Will life in America ever change for ALL of the people who look like me?
That is why I must speak to you this evening for ALL of the children of Dr. King's time.
And I must speak to you for the children of our time who remain excluded from the center of American life.
I must speak truth to power to you tonight about Dr. King's message for the leaders of our time.
****
First, I must observe that – as Dr. Cornell West argues – race still matters in America.
Four decades after the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, there are those, including the President, who have asserted that segregation is an evil of our past.
- Why, then, I ask you, are minority school children still far less likely to receive an empowering education?
- Why is the unemployment rate for African Americans still twice that of Caucasians?
- Why, in the America of our time, are Americans of color:
- too often "racially-profiled" out of our right to justice,
- denied equal opportunity in the workplace and business world, and
- "redlined" out of our dream of home ownership?
- Why are we still more likely to die before our time?
Americans of color continue to face de facto segregation here in America, my friends.
Yet, since I am attempting to speak truth to power tonight, I must also acknowledge that:
Whatever our ethnic background may be, far too many Americans remain subject to the most crippling segregation of all: the segregation from opportunity that is the inevitable result of poverty.
- Black children in America are disproportionately poor; but most poor children in America are not Black.
- Black children in America are disproportionately vulnerable to illness; but most sick children in America are not Black.
- Black families in America are disproportionately denied affordable and comprehensive health care; but most Americans who cannot afford health insurance are not Black.
- Black children in America are disproportionately denied an effective and empowering education; but most of the children who are being denied a good education in America today are not Black.
ALL of these children are OUR CHILDREN, ladies and gentlemen – whatever may be the color of their skin.
We cannot honor Dr. King or his legacy if we do not speak the truth about the denial of their "human rights."
As Americans:
- We believe that a hungry child has a human right to be fed.
- We believe that an injured person has a human right to medical care.
- We believe that a homeless person has a human right to shelter.
- We believe that every person who is willing and able to work has a human right to be able to work – a human right to a job that will pay them a fair and living wage in return for their labor.
These convictions are all part of what we believe about human rights – both as Americans and as people of conscience and faith.
Yet, to be fully truthful, we must also acknowledge the harsh reality that our human rights are too often denied.
This morning, nearly 9 million Americans walked out the door desperately seeking the job that would allow them to support their families this winter.
Americans want to work. And we need to give every American the opportunity to work.
This week, more than 40 million Americans are terrified that they will need a doctor. They are afraid that they will face poverty or worse if they become injured or seriously ill. They are afraid because they have no health insurance.
No human being should be denied medical care; no American should be forced to live in fear. We need to be about the business of assuring that every American can afford high-quality health care.
When millions of American school children go back to school tomorrow morning, they will be left one day further behind because their federal government has failed to keep its promises to them and to their local schools.
Every child deserves an empowering public education. A truly moral America would lift up every child.
****
Ladies and gentlemen, if we are to truly honor Dr. King and his legacy, we ourselves must be prepared to engage in a renewed civil rights movement.
This is my second message to you this evening, my friends.
The civil rights objectives of our time are not limited to the struggles of Black people anymore.
We now are engaged in peaceful struggle to advance the human and civil rights of ALL AMERICANS, whatever may be the color of our skin.
Our mission – Dr. King's vision transported into our time – is to
transform the "human rights" of all Americans into civil rights
protected by law.
III. OUR OWN LEGACY OF PEACE
This evening, as we honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and applaud
his philosophy of nonviolent social change, we should be asking ourselves this
question: What will be our own legacy of peace?
I have spoken this evening about the discontinuity between who we say we are as a people and what we have been prepared to do to assure universal respect for human rights.
We must also be mindful of our duty in the world.
We live in a time when many nations have the capability to construct weapons of mass destruction.
Day after day, America's security and moral credibility are being injured around the world.
The Associated Press reported earlier this year that more than 3200 innocent civilians died during our campaign of "shock and awe" in Iraq.
That is approximately the same number of people who died in the terrorist attack upon the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001
Here at home, more than 750 days have passed since September 11, 2001, and we have yet to adequately defend our cities against the terrorist threat.
We need to do what is necessary to defend America.
But we should also be listening to the legacy of Dr. King and declare this fundamental reality of our lives:
We cannot defend America by military might alone.
We must fashion a foreign policy that regains the respect and cooperation of freedom-loving peoples throughout the world.
Peace, Dr. King would tell us, has become a precondition to our continued survival.
"World peace through non-violent means is neither absurd nor unattainable," he observed after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.
"All other methods have failed. Thus we must begin anew."
"Nonviolence is a good starting point."
I believe that Dr. King would caution America's current leadership that both our highest national principles and the geopolitical realities that we face demand less reliance upon military power.
We must be prepared to invest in a foreign policy that would make this nation a full partner in the world's struggle against poverty, violence and disease.
And THIS is my third message to you from Dr. King's time.
"Peace," Dr. King often declared, "is more than the absence of violent conflict."
"Peace is the presence of justice."
CLOSING
Forty years after Dr. King stood there in Lincoln's shadow and talked about his
dream for America, our struggle for justice, jobs and freedom continues.
But those of us who lived through 1963 know that we can prevail.
We will prevail if we teach our children our traditional values of hard work, faith and discipline.
We will prevail if we keep up the pressure on our schools to educate every child – and participate in achieving that goal through our churches and social organizations.
We will prevail if we organize and vote for representatives who will transform human rights into civil rights guaranteed by law.
We will prevail if we become drum majors for peace and justice throughout the world.
Above all, the era of 1963 teaches us that freedom requires our active political engagement.
We cannot achieve freedom, universal opportunity or peace unless every American of conscience votes.
We are engaged in a continuing, peaceful and social revolution called democracy, my friends.
And, as Dr. King often counseled us:
"The most revolutionary action that our people can undertake is to assert the full measure of our citizenship."
America must once again synchronize her conduct with her conscience.
This is our time. This is our duty.
This is the opportunity that God has given us to create a better nation and a safer, more humane world.
Let a renewed movement for civil rights be our testament to the memory of Dr. King.
Let this shared mission be our legacy to our children and to all of the generations of Americans yet unborn.
Like Dr. King, I still believe that the good in America outweighs the bad.
Remember what he told us when he received his Nobel Peace Prize:
"We are living in a genuine civilization struggling to be born."
Thank you for having me here with you this evening. And thank you – each of
you – for all that you are doing to uplift your neighbors' lives.
