“Before I was a civil rights leader, I was a preacher of the Gospel. This was my first calling and it still remains my greatest commitment.” —Martin Luther King Jr.
On the Thursday morning that Dr. King was assassinated he also was attacked by one of his own friends….with a pillow.
On the day of his death, Martin Luther King Jr. got in a pillow fight in his own hotel room.
I don’t know about you, but that fact makes me smile in some deep parts of my soul with the realization that even though hate might kill this good man, it couldn’t kill the goodness and joy in the man. I smile at the realization that during Dr. King’s final moments alive he was able to smile.
And then I wonder…how did he do that?
Standing on Promises
Two summers ago I was privileged to go on a trip to Israel. For the most part, the group I went with was your usual group of American Christians touring the Holy Lands, retired doctors and lawyers and teachers on a pilgrimage to see where all the stories that had saturated their imagination had happened.
For the most part we were white and southern. But that doesn’t quite account for all of us. There were several African-American women from Memphis, and I spent the majority of the first few days seeing the Holy Lands with them. Mainly it was because they were so nice and kind, but also because I didn’t want to just see the Holy Lands, I wanted to see it through their eyes.
I have learned just enough about the Bible to remember that the Bible is harder for me to read than others. The Bible is hard for me to read, not because of a lack of training or my ability to never quite get above a B in Greek.
It is hard for me to read because of where I read the Bible from, and where I don’t.
People who have known systematic oppression were the ones who wrote the Bible. It is, as it were, a history written by the losers. And so when my new friends were seeing these stories of the land of liberated slaves I wanted to know how they saw it.
And that brings me to Mrs. Shirley.
Mrs. Shirley was a senior saint who also happened to be African-American. She had lived her entire life in Memphis and she had seen a lot. She told me about her family’s struggle to rise out of poverty and her concern for her children and grandchildren to do well in a system that seemed stacked against them.
And then she told me a story that became one of my favorite memories from the trip about when she was only 14 years old, and she got to walk with Dr. King when the Civil Rights movement came to Memphis. In order to go on one of these marches she had to go through all the training about how to keep the protest non-violent in the face of other people’s great anger, she was trained how to respond if people spit on her, or how to react if she or someone she cared about were beaten.
But the advice that really stuck with her was when the civil right protest organizers told her that if the police released the dogs that they should try to remain calm and keep walking hand in hand. As she was telling me this story, Mrs. Shirley remained calm, as if she was still following the instructions, but she had a fire in her eyes as she was remembering.
I didn’t know how to respond to her story so I asked her if she was scared during all of this and she said, “No, not really.” Then a few minutes later she came back and said, “I can’t lie. I’m embarrassed now, but I was scared. What I really afraid of was the idea that those dogs might bite me.”
Protests and Pillow Fights
Ever since that conversation I can’t view Civil Rights history the same way. When I see the pictures, and watch that footage, I picture Shirley.
When I watched Selma, the scene that touched me the deepest was watching little African-American girls march with dignity into the angry crowd armed with billy clubs and attack dogs. I wept because I now knew who that little girl was, and I knew that even thought she might not look it, she was afraid.
But Mrs. Shirley, like so many of my black brothers and sisters who lived through the civil rights movement, wasn’t angry. She wasn’t angry at other white people, and incredibly enough she wasn’t angry even at the people who had unleashed the dogs on her.
She had every right to be furious but she had chosen another path.
So eventually I asked Mrs. Shirley how she did it. I wondered what could move someone to refuse to harbor bitterness against those who wish you evil. And that’s when Mrs. Shirley told me the most profound gospel-like things. She said something to me that made me realize how Dr. King could get into a pillow fight on the day of his assassination, even after saying the night before that he knew his life was in danger.
Mrs. Shirley said she wasn’t angry because, “There is a Promised Land”
And suddenly it all clicked for me. Mrs. Shirley wasn’t just there to see the Holy Land, Mrs. Shirley was there because her entire life had been oriented around a God who makes promises that the future will be better than the past.
There is a Promised Land.
The civil rights movement succeeded because tens of thousands of men and women trusted that what God had promised would one day become a reality, and they were able to refrain from violence or anger because God would one day keep his promises.
If we want justice, if we want to keep from getting angry in the face of injustice, we must remember this: There is such a thing as a perfect justice and one day it will roll down like a river.
There is such a thing as a perfect righteousness and one day it will flow like a never-ending stream. If we want mercy then we must remember that there is such a thing as a good and compassionate God.
There is a Promised Land. It is not quite here yet but it is coming and it changes everything.
The final public words of Dr. King were spoken in a church in Memphis and as we look back on a year of racial tension, injustice, and peace, his words are just as hopeful as they were on the day he spoke them:
“Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because 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 tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. So 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.”
I’m happy tonight.
I’ll die tomorrow.
I think I’ll have a pillow fight in between.
Because there is a Promised Land.
