Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Finding Hope in the Mountain of Despair

Like a Matterhorn in Kansas, a mountain of despair towered in the middle of the last century, casting a dark shadow on African Americans across the US. Its jagged features were chiseled through centuries of racism. From the first slaves who arrived in the colonies manacled to the ships of the Middle Passage to their 20th century descendants who were chained to the lowlands of social, political and economic discrimination, the monolith menaced and for decades it seemed insurmountable.

Racial discrimination was Everest before Sir Edmund Hillary. It was the four minute mile before Bannister, flight before the Wright brothers, portable light before Edison. Overcoming racism and its twin peak of discrimination was, in the minds of most who lived then, not possible.

Obstacles of mountainous size know no color line. We all face them. But to describe the daily hurdles we cross as equal to scaling the towering cliffs of centuries-old institutional racism is to be either ignorant of history or callous of heart. A measure of empathy for that generation of African Americans would offer a pass if they concluded the mountain was too high.

Into that story a young preacher man rose up. Inspired by the challenge and the moment in history, Martin Luther King passionately called his listeners to overcome the temptation to retreat. Brandishing the weapon of love and harnessing the impatience of millions of African Americans who had grown weary of living in the shadows, he challenged them to “hew out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope.”

Those words were one of the capstone phrases of his most famous address, the one delivered fifty years ago today on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. When one has hope, one has the freedom to dream. When one is undaunted by the “difficulty of the moment”, one has the ability to see that “it is not an end, but a beginning.” The “fierce urgency” of the moment compelled Dr. King to beckon Negroes of the early Sixties to “rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice.”

The speech soared; not only on the airwaves of that sacred ground, but on into history. Today, 50 years on from that August day, we hear the echoes still. But not all was good that day, or the ones before and after.

The city of Washington DC was on high alert leading up to “the first ever Negro led public gathering in the nation’s capital”. President Kennedy had positioned nearby almost 20,000 military troops in the event a riot had to be quelled. Liquor sales were halted in the District. Some store owners deposited their inventory in warehouses in the event of looting. Even the Washington Senators postponed two ball games until the week following the March. While it all proved to be unnecessary, clearly the prejudice of White Americans was present and accounted for.

Racism didn't end that day. Three weeks after the March, down in Birmingham, the KKK threw some TNT at the 16th St. Baptist church and killed four young black girls as they prepared for Sunday school. A riot broke out. By ’64, legislation addressing Civil Rights had been passed, but the nation remained on the edge of a seeming apocalypse. The “jangling discords” of the nation were incessant, brassy and everywhere. Even a Dream described with eloquence was not enough to end the nightmare.

Into the middle of that chaos a simple song drifted lightly up, then like a phoenix rose on the crescendo of works much mightier than its simple score. Coupled with Dr. King’s soaring rhetoric, it formed a duet that inspired millions to march. From ditty to anthem, a theme song was born.

We Shall Overcome

Written in 1900 as a gospel song and first used as a protest chorus by Food and Tobacco union workers in 1947, by the time the civil rights movement was gaining speed in the late 1950’s, the song’s moral clarity had caught hold of protesters at lunch counters and behind jail bars. Marchers on Main street and Marchers on Washington held it aloft on a cappela shields of soul force. Folk singer Joan Baez sang the hymn as an invocation to the proceedings that led to King’s great sermon in DC.

We Shall Overcome | we shall overcome someday | Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe | we shall overcome someday.

The remaining verses take us on an emphatic journey: … we shall all be free … we are not afraid … we are not alone … we shall overcome. The destination is nothing short of victory.

But of course, the dogmatic and overtly optimistic “shall” -- as if there were no alternatives but overcoming – can give rise to cynics. “Just put a happy face on it” seems a bit contrived when you've got a two-fisted grip on jail bars. It’s hard to think there’s only one outcome to the battle when you’ve got a German shepherd tearing at you and racist cops are swinging their clubs and looking to score. Is there a song for the mountain of despair? Couldn’t we adapt the lyrics to read “We might overcome?”

King was fond of saying that if you don’t have something you’re willing to die for, then you've got nothing to live for. While that reads a pinch pessimistically, it’s in that paradox that the hope of the Civil Rights Movement is found. Doubt is switched with certainty. “Maybe” becomes “will.” How can you lose if “redemptive suffering” and even death isn't a deterrent? Emboldened by their faith, the marchers belted out the lyrics and soldiered on.

We shall overcome … they became three words that formed the soundtrack of a movement that changed the course of history.

The night before he died, King put this truth to words. It’s a chilling last paragraph to his last speech:

“I've been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know that we as a people will get to the Promised Land. And I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything; I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.” 

Death has lost its sting when the stones of hope are found scattered in the shadows of the valley of death. If evil doesn't scare you, any mountain can be overcome.

Even the one named Despair.