How Can We Follow Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Example in the Coming Days?

Jamia Wilson
Updated
Photo credit: Getty
Photo credit: Getty

From ELLE

Two months ago, after leaving the somber atmosphere of Hillary Clinton's election night party at the Javitz Center, my beloved books soothed my anxious insomnia. Vacillating between confusion and a morbid clarity about the contagiousness of fear and bigotry, I relied on the wisdom of fore-parents like Black Panther activist Assata Shakur, Dutch resistance worker Miep Gies, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to prepare for the battle ahead. Shakur called on her community to "love and protect each other," Gies put her body and safety on the line as an act of solidarity in Nazi-occupied Holland, and King used his platform to champion the voices of the "unheard."

While the aftermath of the most contentious election in my lifetime shrouded me with a feeling of disjointedness, the rise in progressive voices and movement-building worldwide has helped me regain my sense of purpose. I've found inspiration in the #writersresist demonstration, the organizing of "sister" Women's Marches in six continents, and the sit-ins to protest Jeff Sessions' Attorney General nomination.

What I'm hearing lately-from friends, family, and conversations online-is that I'm not alone in seeking guidance about how to move forward in a hostile political and cultural climate for people of color, women, people with disabilities, Muslims, LGBTQ+ people, and more. This was confirmed when I joined the long multiracial and intergenerational line that snaked around New York City's 125th Street on Saturday in anticipation of WNYC and the Apollo Theatre's commemoration of what would have been Martin Luther King, Jr.'s 88th birthday.

Although the Apollo Theatre and WNYC have held this event every year for a decade, this particular gathering was the first of the post-Obama era, bringing us together a week prior to the inauguration of a president-elect who is riding a wave of divisive, misogynist, racist, and otherwise inflammatory rhetoric to the Oval Office. The title of the event asked, along with many of us, "Where Do We Go From Here?"

The approaching inauguration provided a focus for discussion. Both on stage and in the audience, people spoke of yearning for a sense of direction to help them navigate attacks on civil and voting rights individually, and, most importantly, as a community. And although one spirited evening in Harlem didn't provide the exact roadmap, speakers and performers including Black Lives Matter's Opal Tometi and Natalia Aristizabal Betancur, lead organizer at Make the Road New York, offered insight into how to fix the cracks in our nation's moral compass-by rising with resistance through artistic, legal, civil, and spiritual action. Tometi urged the audience to insist on "telling the truth unapologetically" in an atmosphere of conspiracy theories, gaslighting, and lies, while Aristizabal Betancur encouraged listeners to build solidarity across movements. She said, "At the end of the day they don't want any of us, but all of us together are more [powerful]."

Fitting for a Sunday service honoring the life and work of a Baptist minister and social justice organizer, Marcelle Davies-Lashley crooned about the power of faith, prophecy, and rebirth. Representing a strong tradition of using spirituals and freedom songs to inspire action, Davies-Lashley sang the traditional gospel song "Jesus Met the Woman At the Well," in the spirit of Mahalia Jackson, the "queen of Gospel," who performed before King's landmark "I Have a Dream" speech.

Davies-Lashley's invocation set the stage for a series of discussions and performances calling for a powerful resurrection of the economic and racial justice values King espoused. First, scholars and clergy joined WNYC's Brian Lehrer on stage to discuss his legacy. The all-male panel, including Joshua Lawrence Lazard, Rabbi Ben Kamin, Rev. Dr. James Alexander Forbes, provided a limited perspective of the full intersectionality of King's work that expanded to reproductive health and rights. But they did discuss how external pressures increased as King expanded his organizing priorities. Their reference to the radical nature and past perception of his work as "trouble-making," as Forbes described it, also helped reclaim his legacy from the right-wing's consistent appropriation and dilution of King's message.

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Instead of resorting to expected platitudes about King's life and work, Forbes reflected on criticism King received due to his work mobilizing with Sanitation Workers and the movement to end the war in Vietnam to explain how radical he was for his time-activities so threatening that they "put a target on his back." There was nothing passive or quiet in King's tireless advocacy for solidarity, integrity, and nonviolent resistance: "it was a call for radical revisioning and restructuring for the whole system in America."

All the speakers pushed the audience to move past fear to take an unapologetic stand for themselves and the collective good. From the fiery tenor of Staceyann Chin's poetry, in which she proclaimed, "It's time to raise more than our eyebrows in protest. Time to put our bodies where we say our politics lie," to Betancur's support for intersectional advocacy-"We can't fight one issue. We have to fight all of the issues"-every commentator and artist reinforced the continued relevance of King's message.

"We can't fight one issue. We have to fight all of the issues"

When New York Daily News writer Shaun King expressed his solidarity with the Women's March and called for both the physical and livestream audiences to come together to support reproductive justice and gender equality, I realized that although we now have digital tools to help build our networks and capture state violence, the values we need to uplift, protect, and celebrate already exist and don't need amending. Even so many decades later, King's work and legacy remain vital guiding lights.

King himself said, "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." That's why we must enliven these values, perhaps by marching this weekend in the tradition of Dr. King, or however else we choose, and rising in resistance-not just on MLK Day, but every day until we're all free. That's the least we owe his legacy.

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