The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Bridge in Roanoke, VA. Photo by J. J. Hoffman
By the Rev. Angela Furlong
‘I am here because injustice is here. And injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.’
That was the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s response when criticized by fellow clergy members for his presence and activism in Birmingham, Alabama. Fellow clergy members who were white, privileged, and sorely prejudiced against Dr. King’s non-violent but direct approach to combatting racism. Those white clergy members condemned Dr. King’s activism as unwise and unjustified. Steep in that word for a second…. UNJUSTIFIED.
Unjustified means that there were no ethical or righteous reasons that would warrant his actions. Keeping in mind that his actions were peaceful, here are some synonyms for JUST: honest, fair-minded, non-discriminatory, righteous, equitable. So, white clergy members were telling a black man that his reliance upon the effectiveness of civil rights rulings by the Supreme Court was not fair, and his affirmation of agape and brotherly love for people of all races—true equality and freedom—is discriminatory; a black man who has been assaulted, arrested, threatened, and condemned. All because he, by Divine right, expected equality and advocated for it. Because he persisted in his efforts to realize not just his dream, but God’s dream of a world where all of God’s people can walk hand-in-hand in beloved community. He advocated LOVE, and he was accused of being an extremist. Dr. King very vocally, and by example, opposed violence. He is documented saying that he could not follow the old eye-for-an-eye philosophy because that would end up leaving everybody blind. Instead, he advocated and led sit-ins, prayer marches, boycotts and freedom rides. He modeled peaceful protest. He modeled persistent prayer. He modeled The Way of Love.
Social Justice is complicated. It always has been, even as far back as when Jesus walked the earth. And addressing it unveils false assumptions, overt, covert, and unrecognized prejudices, fear, and vulnerability. Addressing it enables the projection of all voices involved—everyone. Because racism, sexism, elitism, genderism, all -isms hurt everyone. And by addressing them, we create a tension that makes room for dialogue and love. Why? Because we are human. In all of our humanity, in tension with our beauty and our belovedness, we are also imperfect, insecure, and afraid. Afraid of the unfamiliar and the unknown. Afraid of our sensitivities and frailties. Afraid of difficult and painful truths. Afraid of vulnerability. I have never lived as the lead in Dr. King’s narrative. I am not African American. And that is a vulnerability that makes it difficult for me to truly embody and relate to the human experience of being African American. But this I know: The United States of America is marketed as a land of freedom and opportunity. At whose expense do we gaslight the world with these ‘American’ images, feigning freedom and opportunity for ALL… as we continue to oppress and denigrate people of color, women, LGBTQIA+, asylum seekers, the homeless, the mentally ill, the addicted…? All human and all beloved by God. Beloveds who struggle for equity in housing, education, employment, healthcare, safety, access to healthy foods, and justice. That was the world of oppression that Dr. King was struggling in, and it is the world that we still struggle in today. We can choose to close our eyes, ears, and hearts to this truth, or we can open our eyes, ears, and hearts to the pain and injustices of our society and address them head-on through dialogue, prayer, and direct action.
Dr. King was arrested for publicly protesting the cruel and unjust treatment of people of color. A people who were supposedly free. He was arrested for standing up for human rights. He spent eight days in a small Birmingham City jail cell, in solitary confinement, patiently writing an open pastoral response to his fellow clergy members’ criticisms in the margins of a newspaper that was smuggled in to him by his lawyer and on jailhouse toilet paper. His words were smuggled out, typed up, and published in The Liberator.
Not long after he was released, Dr. King began to organize youth marches in Birmingham—youth whose future depended upon the outcome of the struggle for civil rights. At one of the youth-involved marches, he recounted an interaction between a police officer and an 8-year-old African American girl. Amused and not taking the little girl’s voice and power seriously, the officer asked her condescendingly and with ageist dismissal, “And what do you want?” Her composed and unabashed response gives pause for all to listen… “Freedom.” At other youth marches, pleas for freedom were met with fire hoses, clubs and attack dogs forcing peaceful activists to run for their lives. Today, believe it or not, that question is still asked of people of color. “What do you WANT from us?” I venture to guess the answer might still be, “True freedom. Equity. Dialogue. Visibility. Empathy. Love.”
Dr. King spoke of a constructive, non-violent tension that enables one to rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood—beloved community. This type of constructive, nonviolent tension is necessary for growth. And in the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland, we have numerous opportunities to engage with that tension and to participate in reparative work. We have a Reparations Committee that supports reparative programs that build up Black communities and help repair the breach caused by systemic racism. We have the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that engages in the work necessary to eradicate racism. Its mission and programming aim to build understanding regarding the Diocese of Maryland’s history of racism and chattel slavery and their residual impacts on society, particularly on the lives and wellbeing of black folk. We have Sacred Ground, a dialogue series on race, grounded in faith. While this work is arduous and uncomfortable, it is also just and loving and Christ-like. It is what we are called to do as beloved creatures of God—as followers of Christ.
In scripture, John the Evangelist tells us:
Let us not love with words or speech, but with actions and in truth. (1 Jn 3:18)
The truth is that our siblings of color still suffer greatly from prejudice and discrimination, and that truth is institutionally pervasive. It will take the entire community’s love and action and commitment to change that and to repair it.
Dr. King was well-experienced with the assaults of racial injustice and well-versed in Biblical text. In his letter, he opens the eyes of those blinded by their own privilege by affirming that ‘human progress comes through the tireless efforts of people willing to be coworkers with God.’ His letter has been labeled the Gospel of Freedom. Like our Biblical Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Dr. King’s Gospel of Freedom promotes Jesus’ Way of Love. God’s love for us and our love for one another.
Dr. King’s approach was considered extremist. As he so passionately reminds us in his letter, Jesus was an extremist for love, truth and goodness. He was non-violent and he loved ALL. Jesus, too, was condemned for standing up to unjust societal practices in order to love and serve the dignity and well-being of His fellow humans. Jesus fought against extremists of hate. And so did Dr. King. Dr. King fought against racism and hate, crimes against humanity. If doing so meant that he was labeled an extremist, then he embraced that label for the good of humanity.
So, in the insightful words of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the question is not whether we will be extremists. The question is will we be extremists for hate or for love?
About the author
The Rev. Angela E. Furlong is co-chair of the Reparations Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland and priest-in-charge of St. James’ Episcopal Church in Mt. Airy, MD.
To learn more about the work that the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland is doing to love our neighbors better and to eradicate hate, visit episcopalmaryland.org.