An Unexpected Day of Reckoning

In Atlanta for a conference in early March, I added a day to my trip to hang out with my friends Courtney Cowart and Jim Goodmann, so that I could walk in the footsteps of John Lewis. It seemed fitting to visit the district that John had represented, especially now that the Library of Congress is piloting the Lewis-Houghton Civics and Democracy Initiative.

I had no idea that Courtney, a native of Atlanta, had her own family history with the civil rights movement. Driving through downtown Atlanta, she tells me that her dad had been an executive at Coca-Cola for 45 years as it grew from a business housed in a sugar warehouse into a global conglomerate. During that time, he and other executives in the white business community joined forces with black business leaders, and together they turned Atlanta into an economic powerhouse. As the Vice Chairman of the Democratic Party in Georgia, Lawrence Cowart also took a disheartened and discouraged Andrew Young out to lunch and convinced him to run again for the 5th District Congressional seat.

Courtney also told me that her mom, as President of the Atlanta Chapter of the League of Women Voters, had gotten to know Coretta Scott King while doing some organizing in the Old 4th Ward. They became good friends, often traveling together to attend marches. So as we drove through the epicenter of the civil rights movement, I began to see that tumultuous time through the eyes of an eight-year-old, who had watched her white mom and dad stand beside central figures of the movement.

While we meandered back and forth across Auburn Avenue, I stared in wide-eyed wonder. In its heyday Sweet Auburn, the neighborhood around this historic urban street, was a much-celebrated concentration of black businesses, newspapers, churches, and nightclubs. Although it isn’t as vibrant now, it wasn’t hard for me to imagine that this was once known as “richest Negro street in the world”, the neighborhood that gave birth to many key figures and organizations in the civil rights movement. We went past the Southern Christian Leadership Conference headquarters, the Atlanta Breakfast Club, Ebeneezer Baptist Church, among other historic sites that I did not recognize.

Jim and I were completely absorbed in Courtney’s stories of her childhood adventures downtown, so much so that when we passed the sixty-five feet high mural of John Lewis, topped by the hashtag #Hero, we failed to stop! (No kidding). Courtney regaled us with her reminiscences, taking great delight in recounting how much Rich’s Department Store meant to Atlantans, black and white. It was a place where all parents felt it was safe to drop off their children so the kids could do some shopping in secret (but supervised), far from prying parental eyes. She described how much fun it was to ride the Priscilla the Pink Pig, a train ride out of toy land onto the roof where there was a giant, seventy-foot tall, live Christmas tree!

Further research on my part later revealed that the brilliant idea to preserve the façade of this beloved department store as part of the new Sam Nunn Federal Building was hatched at the dining room table of Linda Earley Chastang and Congressman Lewis.

Courtney poured out riveting civil rights stories as we aimlessly wandered from block to block, among them a climactic moment when her mom, after death threats had been made, was “used as a human shield” to protect Martin Luther King Sr. at the People’s March in Washington. (With Rev. King Sr. safely in the middle of the back seat, her mom was placed on the seat beside the window in the town car that whisked them away). Then that car raced through the streets of DC, coming to a stop on the sidewalk in front of the hotel entrance, so that the car’s occupants could be rushed quickly inside.

I am humbled to admit that Courtney’s wide-eyed childhood memories of the Fourth Ward were the access road that I needed for what came next.

We decided that before we left Sweet Auburn, we would visit the King Center. It was difficult to find the small parking lot behind the building. We had to circle the block a couple times before we finally found the entrance. Why are there so few signs to access such an important destination? Then we parked and walked into the Center’s outdoor campus.

It became immediately apparent to me that this was sacred space. We were standing on holy ground.

I began to weep as I read Dr. King’s Six Principles of Non-Violence engraved on the golden cement walls that line the outer perimeter of the memorial.

One: Nonviolence is a way of life for courageous people.

Two: Nonviolence seeks to win friendship and understanding.

Three: Nonviolence seeks to defeat injustice not people.

Four: Nonviolence holds that suffering can educate and transform people and societies.

Five: Nonviolence chooses love instead of hate.

Six: Nonviolence believes that the universe is on the side of justice.

With Dr. King’s principles engraved so clearly upon our hearts and minds, Courtney, Jim and I approached the final wall that describes Beloved Community: Dr. King’s vision for mankind that we often talk about in conversation but rarely experience. In his words, “This way of living seems a long way from the kind of world we have now, but I do believe it is a goal that can be accomplished through courage and determination and through education and training, if enough people are willing to make the necessary commitment.”

If ever there was a moment that this nation needs to hear these words, it is now.

We turned away and walked upwards alongside the fountain whose water cascades downward, level after level into the calm reflecting pool that surrounds the marble temple, the final resting place of Dr. and Mrs. King. The pool barely registered a ripple. Transported by the splash of falling waters, and then the utter stillness of the pool, I felt as if I had become at one with this place for just a moment.

Entering the King Center itself, we walked to the second floor where on one side of the hall timelines and photographic exhibitions summarize the key events of Dr. King’s life and the civil rights movement, while on the other side are recounted the parallel achievements of Coretta Scott King, whose own life unfolded with equal grace and significance. (John Lewis was in their midst).

I left the memorial in a daze. At the entrance to the King Center, Mrs. King promises that the Center is “not just a place, not just a building, but a spirit”, “an extension of Martin’s personality”, “a living memorial…where we would teach his philosophy.” It is such space.

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I seem to have been born with a state of reverence for the Founding Fathers and the places that they inhabited. I have traced the footsteps of revolutionaries on the Freedom Trail in Boston more than once. I have sat in awe of the Liberty Bell at Independence Hall several times as well. I have visited Mount Vernon, Montpelier, Monticello. Historic places that hold sacred meaning for me for no reason that I can explain. I am pulled magnetically towards them.

Why is it then that I have failed to claim this piece of our history in the same way, with the same reverence? I understand that as a white male my personal narrative does not map onto the experience of being black in America, and that I could never expect to enter into this period of history fully at a gut level. But I am certain that I am not alone in feeling a disconnect from Dr. and Mrs. King’s extraordinary display of courage and determination in their quest to build a country that resolves its differences in a wise and compassionate way.

As a nation, we need to honor and claim both these individuals as two of the best Americans that this country has ever produced, and list them among the finest human beings that the world has ever seen.

When will we claim our kinship with these icons of the civil rights movement?

Why is it that the King legacy, and John Lewis’s example, which have inspired similar movements around the world, are not celebrated as the continuation of the great American narrative of rising up against oppression in the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness that was initiated almost 250 years ago? Why does this remain the history of “others”?

I hope that we live to see the day when Dr. King’s principles of non-violence and beloved community are embraced by all Americans.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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