Image of Martin Luther King leads us toward justice

On a hot, muggy afternoon in downtown Dallas, university students gathered at the Green’s Department Store. They were beginning peaceful, public pressure against the segregated nature of public life in Dallas.
Sit-ins were a way of destroying one of the most hallowed weapons in racist population control: The rights of the white majority to dictate to black folks where they could eat, sleep, go to school or get medical attention.
As Methodist seminarians, dedicating our lives to the liberating power of the gospel, we felt duty-bound to participate, though a public confrontation in which one actively disobeyed the law wasn’t an easy maneuver to contemplate.
The air was oppressive, and around the corner we could see a long line of police wagons. The die, however, was cast. The theological student body from Southern Methodist University was expected to show up.
As we entered Green’s, we noticed that the long lunch counter line was already packed with police standing behind each person, both white and black. But then we noticed some empty seats at the end of the counter.
A big, burly policeman stepped in front of us, twirling his stick. He poked the baton into the chest of my black companion.
“Where do you think you’re going, nigger?” the officer said.
“We came here to buy a Coke” was the reply.
“No you didn’t,” the policeman said. “You came here to cause trouble.”
At this point, I took my friend by the hand, shoved us past the guard and moved quickly toward the seats.
Abruptly, another policeman was now barring the way. “You’re not sitting here, nigger,” he said.
At that moment something important happened to me. I knew I was up against it. Would I take the next step and risk arrest? Was I willing to leave behind an identity of one of the favored and chosen?
Up the line of chairs, the police began hauling folks out by the scruff of their necks.
What was it going to be? I had to decide, not knowing what the consequences would be.
In my pause, for I truly didn’t know whether I could take the next step, I was visited by the Holy Spirit. As I stood there, the image of Martin Luther King leading us appeared in my mind’s eye. He was calm, clear, unarmed and determined—an anointed one leading his people out of Egypt.
The spirit King calmly took us by the hand, repeatedly assuring us it was the thing to do and the way to do it. That day we learned to stand against the murderous, unfaithful, religious American apartheid we knew so well and from which we were profiting in one way or the other.
King’s ministry taught us what Jesus is all about. It is obvious that but for King, empowered by the Holy Spirit, neither the white nor black church would have risked standing against a social establishment that held people of color in steel bonds for 300 years.
At the time, as is the case today, a scattering of accomplished people of color has reached heady heights of power and wealth in America. But the fundamental rule persists, as it has since the 18th century: the colored population has its uses and will be allowed expansion as long as it supports the social values and decisions promulgated by the white majority.
The path of Christian commitment and maturity isn’t just something one decides about. Becoming Christian is invariably the result of a “happening” that provides a person with “new eyes” from the inside out.
You unexpectedly happen upon a sacrament. You see Mary having to bury her son all alone, for the men have fled in fear. There’s a lonely, lost room in your heart that receives a touch of grace from Mary’s ministry.
One day at the Holy Communion table, you hear for the first time, “Behold, the body and blood that were shed for you, to wash away your sins.” That applies to the you who has been cheating on your wife for years and the you who finds acceptable ways to rob your neighbor.
It was the image of Martin King leading calmly, peacefully, harboring no malice for anyone, daring in spiritual conviction to lead his people and the rest of us into the very gates of hell. It was in those most virulent and fearful gates that we found within our own souls the gift of resurrection.
The Rev. J. Charles Merrill received the 2005 Martin Luther King Jr. Award from the Commission on Religion and Race.