A meditation on the impact of Martin Luther King Jr.

Now that he is safely dead, let us praise him
Build monuments to his glory
Sing Hosannas to his name
Dead men make such convenient heroes
For they cannot rise to challenge the images that we might fashion from their lives
And besides, it is easier to build monuments than to build a better world
So now that he is safely dead, we with eased consciences will tell our children that he was a great man
Knowing that the cause for which he lived is still a cause
And the dream for which he died is still a dream
A dead man’s dream—Carl Wendell Hines Jr. “A Dead Man’s Dream”

When I tell young people that our government once referred to Dr. King as “The Most Dangerous Negro in America,” they look at me like I’m crazy. It’s as though to them, he was just some kindly little racial Santa Claus peddling kindness. We already have forgotten he was so much more than that—he was someone who, in his day, said that “extreme racism, extreme materialism, extreme militarism could become this country’s downfall.”

I see the character and ideas of Dr. King in the great photographer, writer and filmmaker Gordon Parks in Parks’ book A Choice of Weapons, his story of choosing to respond to the violence and hate he suffered in Kansas as a child, with a camera, a typewriter and with a creative and curious mind.

“Even at 16, I was aware of the problems I faced and, quickly enough, I tried thinking about ways to survive. I would not go back to my sister’s, and the distance back to Kansas was insurmountable. I never thought of the Salvation Army or some other charity. Yet there were other things I considered; one of them was robbery.

“I came closest the morning of my 17th birthday, when I found myself alone on the trolley with an elderly conductor. He poked me awake and stood there just above me, holding a bundle of bills wadded together in a rubber band. At the sight of them, my hand tightened about the switchblade in my pocket.

“I rose slowly, looking around to see who was about. We were alone. The operator had already gone to the café across the street. The conductor turned away from me and walked toward the rear of the car.

“Perspiration rolled from my armpits, and my anxiety must have shown on my face. I pressed the button, and the long blade popped out.

“ ‘Conductor!’

“ ‘Yes?’ He turned and stared calmly at the blade. I looked back at him, trembling now, with all my mother’s warnings coming hot at me.

“ ‘Conductor,’ I said, ‘would you give me a dollar for this knife? I’m hungry and I don’t have any place to stay.’

“He continued to watch me for another moment. ‘You can keep the knife,’ he said. ‘Come over to the café and I’ll buy you a meal.’

“Still shaking and not knowing what to do, I closed the blade.

“ ‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

“ ‘It’s all right,’ he said, peeling off two $1 bills. ‘Go where you want and get some grub.’

“ ‘It’s OK, I can manage.’

“He insisted. ‘Take it, and keep yourself out of trouble.’

“I refused the money, jumped out of the car and hurried away, more ashamed than I had ever been in my life.”

That’s an example of how violence is often a reaction, while peace is a choice, a courageous choice, a personal choice.

Though it may sound tragic, this is not a story of violence but a story of peace. Though it may sound heartbreaking, this is not a story of woe. And though it may sound like divine providence, this is a story about a choice, a choice of weapons.

Random violence: Before my cousin Riccardo lost his son Robert to one of the most bizarre acts of random violence Wichita, Kan., had seen in years, Riccardo was celebrating.

As an assistant basketball coach at Wichita Southeast High School, Riccardo had just watched his team win a City League title. The win that night was particularly satisfying because that evening he’d watched this group of once selfish boys gel into a coolly efficient team willing to sacrifice their own scoring and profile for the benefit of the team.

After a boisterous celebration in the locker room, Riccardo was heading to a celebratory dinner when he got the call. The voice was hysterical, almost incoherent in its panic. “Robert’s been shot. Robert’s been shot. You have to come to the hospital.”

Robert had cheered his dad on from the stands that night and was dropping off some friends after the game when he stopped at a traffic light. A young man in a car next to Robert’s, a young man we’d later learn was high and drunk and who later wouldn’t even remember the shooting, didn’t like the way Robert had looked at him, so he pulled out a gun and fired at Robert’s car.

Bullets tore through Robert’s elbow and through both sides of his neck, severing arteries. Clutching at his wounds and still trying to drive, Robert drove less than a block before jumping the curb in a residential area close to Wesley Hospital. One of his friends in the car drove Robert the rest of the way to the hospital.

But Robert died before Riccardo could get there.

The case stunned the city. Hundreds of people filled St. Mark United Methodist Church for Robert’s funeral. The attention spoke to the kind of kid Robert was and to the fear such a wild, random shooting had stoked in the larger community. That attention extended to the trial and into the sentencing, where Riccardo came face to face with the child who had killed his child.

He said he immediately thought about the similarities between the young man and Robert. Each was someone’s son or grandson. What had happened was the focus of great pain in each family. With the love and concern Robert had received, perhaps Robert’s killer may have taken a different path in life.

When asked by the judge if he had anything he wanted to say, Riccardo made a choice.
Put yourself in his shoes. What would you do? How would you feel? What would you say?

Just last week, I heard a family ask a judge for a maximum sentence for the man who killed their loved one. I won’t claim that I might not make that same request had such a tragedy struck my life.

But I know there’s a God because that’s the only way Riccardo could have stood there and did what he did that day. With tears in his eyes, he pled for leniency for the young man, a move inspired, he said, from a sudden and sincere outpouring of love and concern.

Since then, he has crisscrossed the country sharing his story of pain and forgiveness, encouraging young men tempted by gangs and the streets to take a different path.
I’ve seen him with them. The same boys who can’t seem to sit still long enough for a teacher to tell them anything sit transfixed by his story.

And they aren’t just listening. I’ve watched their faces. They are learning in the purest sense. They are taking in the story, injecting their own understanding, mixing in their own life experiences, processing it and then returning quickly to Riccardo’s next word—all in the span of a moment. They aren’t just receiving a story but are participant, active listeners. The first time I heard his presentation, I didn’t just cry, I sobbed.

The great scholar and public intellectual Cornel West says truth cannot surface until suffering is allowed to speak. And suffering had spoken to Riccardo and to our family in such painful and vulnerable eloquence.

It spoke in Tucson, Ariz., where six people, including a 9-year-old girl died. It was tragic, certainly. But 30 to 40 people across America die every day to gun violence. And the country turns its back.

When will we choose different weapons?

Riccardo met Robert when Robert was a toddler and Riccardo began dating Robert’s mother, Rosslyn. He lured Robert to him with a potato chip, and the baby made himself comfortable in Riccardo’s lap. Before he left, Riccardo held the child out in front of him and smiled. Robert smiled back, grabbed his face with is chubby little hands and kissed Riccardo on the nose.

This was who Riccardo had rushed to the hospital to see. Shortly after his arrival, he and other family members were ushered into what the hospital ironically calls the Quiet Room, the place where doctors and police deliver to families the worst possible news. It is the place where the screaming begins—as it did that night.

As the doctor emerged and with police department officials present, they explained to Riccardo and Rosslyn that their son had died but that they could not see him because his body was considered a crime scene.

The fact that they would not see their son until his funeral made the scene and his death seem that much more unreal.

Riccardo said his eyes swept the room, from the faces of his wife and mother-in-law, who were screaming, to the face of the doctor, the police officials, and then into his own trembling hands.

It is unlikely, God willing, that too many of us will experience exactly what Riccardo experienced. But it is likely that we will all have choices of our own to make, moments when our suffering begins to speak and the truth of who we are begins to surface.

We can choose, so we must choose our weapons wisely: brute force or, as Dr. King said, “soul force.” Guns or grace. Hate or heart.

Riccardo chose after experiencing the unimaginable. And if he could do that, then the rest of us have no excuse.