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Let Us Gather at the Table

This is a repost of something I wrote on my genealogy blog today:

On this day in 1955, an innocent young man named Emmett Till was murdered in Money, Mississippi for allegedly whistling at a white woman. This event embodied all that was wrong with America in that day on the subject of race.

On this same day in 1963, Rev. Martin Luther King delivered his famous “Dream” speech before an unprecedented congregation of people in Washington, D.C. His speech articulated all that was right in the hearts of people who longed for change. Five years later, he was murdered for “whistling” for Civil Rights, igniting riots across America.

These historic events shaped my life ever after.

I was only four years old in 1955; too young to understand anything other than the admonishments of my parents about the South from which my forbears had fled. Yet, as Emmett Till’s mother said:

“When people saw what had happened to my son, men stood up who had never stood up before. People became vocal who had never vocalized before. Emmett’s death was the opening of the civil rights movement. He was the sacrificial lamb of the movement.”

In 1963, I was 12; fully able to grasp the many messages in Rev. King’s clarion call. As John Lewis, who was then president of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee and is now a U.S. Congressman, described:

“Dr. King had the power, the ability, and the capacity to transform those steps on the Lincoln Memorial into a monumental area that will forever be recognized. By speaking the way he did, he educated, he inspired, he informed not just the people there, but people throughout America and unborn generations.”

Three generations later, I sit here contemplating this history and wondering what is in store for the succeeding unborn. For all the strides that have been made, we still have so much further to go.

“But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition.”

The countless black men locked in the cells of incarceration speak of generations lost. The “bad bitches” and “baby daddies” who are euphemistically parenting the next generation assault my reasoning ability. The murderous rage afflicting our cities compels me to worry about the safety of my grandchildren on the streets of Harlem and my niece and nephews on the streets of Chicago. The racial innuendos continuously directed at the President of the United States begs me to wonder how far we have really come. The apathy of people who are likely to eschew voting in the November election makes me fear our political fate.

I believe we are standing at yet another juncture in history where “the power of one” will decide the fate of many. We can use our family histories to either empower us or consign us to continued servitude to an economic model that no longer works — for anyone, no matter what race.

“I Have a Dream” – Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 28 August 1963

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