LEAH CASTLEBERRY: Greetings
to the University of Chicago
community and guests.
I'm Leah Castleberry,
a second-year master
of public policy
candidate at the Harris
School of Public Policy.
And I am honored to welcome
you to the University
of Chicago's 30th annual
Reverend Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr., Commemoration
celebration.
Dr. King was 27 years
old, the same age
that I am now, when
he first spoke here
at Rockefeller Chapel in 1956--
no pressure.
At the time, Dr. King was in the
midst of leading the Montgomery
Bus Boycott--
a more than year-long protest
of Montgomery Alabama's
segregated public
transportation system.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott
would make significant strides
in dismantling Jim Crow
segregation in the American
South and launch Dr. King as
an internationally recognized
civil rights leader.
A decade later,
Dr. King's mission
had expanded beyond the
South and encompassing
what he called the three
evils of racism, war,
and poverty, which he believed
were inextricably linked
together.
As the Vietnam War
continued to escalate,
he became more vocal about
his stance against it
and his commitment to peace,
both domestically and abroad.
In January of 1966, he
would return to Chicago
and move into tenement housing
on the city's often forgotten
west side.
This new effort, the
movement to end slums,
led by the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference
or SCLC focused on the
de facto segregation
of northern American
cities and the poverty,
unemployment, and educational
inequities it caused.
One of tonight's keynote
speakers, Reverend Dr. Otis
Moss, Jr., was Dr.
King's personal friend
and is a celebrated civil rights
activist in his own right.
He served as board member and
regional director of the SCLC
and organized with Dr. King
on various human rights issues
nationally.
More than half a century after
Dr. King's assassination,
we remain steeped in the
struggle for social justice
here in Chicago, across the
country, and around the world.
Reverend Dr. Otis
Moss III serves
as senior pastor of Trinity
United Church of Christ.
And as a proud member
of the Trinity family,
I can say that
today Reverend Moss
carries on Dr. King's
vision of an active church
and society committed to issues
such as educational access,
economic development, and
criminal justice reform.
Today, we honor Dr. King's
steadfast commitment
to peace, equity, and justice.
As a university community
situated on Chicago's South
Side, Dr. King recognized
the importance of our role
in embodying these values.
I encourage us all to reflect
on our individual contributions
and personal investments in
making our communities more
equitable for all.
As Dr. King said
in his 1959 sermon
here at Rockefeller
Chapel, every individual
must take a stand against
injustice and discrimination
wherever it exists.
We will soon hear a more
detailed introduction
of our distinguished keynote
speakers from President Zimmer.
But first, the Chicago
Children's Choir voice
of Chicago ensemble
will lead us in singing
James Weldon Johnson's
"Lift Every Voice and Sing."
Thank you and enjoy the program.
[MUSIC - "LIFT EVERY VOICE AND
 SING"]
CHOIR: (SINGING)
Lift every voice
and sing till earth
and heaven ring--
ring with the
harmonies of liberty.
Let our rejoicing rise high
as the listening skies.
Let it resound like
the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of faith
that the past has brought us.
Sing a song full of the
hope that the present
has brought us.
Facing the rising sun
of a new day begun.
Let us march on
till victory is won.
Stony the road we trod.
Bitter the chastening rod.
Felt in the day that
hope unborn had died.
Yet with a steady beat
have not our weary feet.
Come to the place on
which our fathers sighed.
We have come over a way that
with tears has been watered.
We have come treading our
path through the blood
of the slaughtered.
Out from the gloomy
past till now
we stand at last where the
white gleam of our bright star
is cast.
God of our weary years.
God of our silent tears.
Thou who has brought
us thus far on the way,
thou who has by thy might
led us into the light
keep us forever in
the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray
from the places
our God where we met thee.
Lest our hearts drunk with
the wine of the world,
we forget thee.
Shadowed beneath the
hand, may we forever
stand true to our God,
true to our native land.
MARK MYERS: Thank you so much.
My name is Mark Myers, and I'm
the associate artistic director
of Chicago Children's Choir.
Again, as you heard,
you see over 50 members
of the Voice of Chicago
ensemble, our advanced mixed
ensemble, but they represent
over 5,200 children that
are involved in our in-school
or after-school neighborhood
programs, which all
started with one choir.
Here in Hyde Park right down
the road first Unitarian Church.
So it is a pleasure
and an honor to be here
to celebrate this occasion and
a man in the life of our country
and our world that
stands for all the values
that we stand for
as an organization
and hope to take that
mission into the future.
I'd like to introduce you
to Isaiah Keller and one
of our singers
council members, who's
just going to give a
brief word about the music
that you're going
to hear right now.
Thank you again.
[APPLAUSE]
ISAIAH CALARANAN:
Thank you, Mr. Myers.
Our next piece will be "Oliver
Tambo," a South African piece
about anti-apartheid
leader Oliver Tambo
who is returning from exile, and
South Africa is welcoming him
with open arms, similar
to when Martin Luther
King was freed from prison,
we welcomed with open arms.
The piece after
that will be "OK,"
a gospel piece by Kirk Franklin,
whose message is that even when
you're going through hard
times, when you're struggling,
when you get through
it, it's going to be OK,
and you're going
to make it through.
Thank you.
[MUSIC - "OLIVER TAMBO"]
CHOIR: [NON-ENGLISH SINGING]
ROBERT ZIMMER: Good
evening and thank you
all for joining us
here this evening
and welcome to the University
of Chicago's celebration
of the life and legacy of
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Please join me in
thanking one more time
the Chicago Children's Choir.
[APPLAUSE]
For that wonderful energetic
and energizing performance,
thank you very much.
I'd like to just recognize
one of our guests.
He is a regular but
nevertheless special guest.
He's special every
time he's here,
our friend Reverend
Jesse Jackson.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
So each year, we gather here
in Rockefeller Chapel, which
as you've already
heard this evening,
was the site of Dr.
King's first major speech
in Chicago in 1956.
We do this to remember
him, his work,
the principles he stood for, and
his continued relevance today.
Dr. King was a forceful
advocate not only
for freedom and civil rights,
but for the importance
of building a society that
incorporated diversity
and inclusion at its core.
In other words,
his vision was not
only about the individual
and the rights and freedom
that each person should enjoy,
but also of society as a whole
and how it should function
beyond the individual.
We see this duality
in his vision,
in some of his most important
work, his work on voting
rights, on one hand, work
perhaps captured most vividly
in the public imagination in the
march from Selma to Montgomery,
and on the other hand, his
stirring "I Have a Dream"
speech in which he speaks
so forcefully and eloquently
about what an inclusive
society for our children
might begin to look like.
Following his lead,
our society has
taken some very important
steps, both on individual rights
and on efforts to create
a more inclusive society.
But our responsibility and the
need to work in these areas
is ongoing.
The most important thing
to remember, Dr. King said,
is that we must keep moving.
In confronting work of great
leaders such as Dr. King,
one should always ask
not just what they did
and how we can celebrate it,
but what we can learn from it.
At the University
of Chicago, we have
learned from this very
duality of Dr. King's work.
We have striven to empower
individuals very particularly,
though not exclusively, our
students by dramatically
expanding our financial
aid offers for our students
so that every college
student is admitted
without regard to their
family's financial situation
and is offered a
financial aid package that
enables them to attend
the University of Chicago
without loans.
[APPLAUSE]
We have placed
considerable focus
on developing programs of
early engagement scholarship
and support aimed at expanding
access for African-American,
Hispanic, and first-generation
to college students,
as well as students
from rural areas,
veterans and their families,
the children of police
and firefighters, international
students, and students
who may be undocumented.
Such programs extend well
beyond financial support
for undergraduates and served
to address more broadly
the structural
disparities in our society
through such measures as
providing additional pathways
to the traditional
admissions process,
creating opportunities for all
students of high capability
while they are still
in high school,
and ensuring that such students
acquire the skills, support,
opportunities, and
experience they
need to flourish
throughout their time
at the University
of Chicago and well
into their academic
and professional lives.
This work falls into the
line of Dr. King's work
on expanding individual
opportunities and rights.
On the other hand,
we have also striven
to focus on Dr.
King's exhortations
to inclusiveness and society.
We have worked with the active
participation of faculty,
students, and staff to build an
inclusive social and academic
environment on campus and
at the same time, striven
to be partners with
individuals and organizations
from the South side so
that we can work together
to build our common community
for the benefit of all.
There are many members of
these community organizations
with which we have formed
partnerships who are here
today, and I want to
express my appreciation
not only as president of
the University of Chicago,
but my personal
appreciation to them
for our joint work together.
Believe the
University of Chicago
has come to understand
that we are better
at fulfilling our
highest aspirations
when we work to help all
individuals to fulfill
their highest potential.
And when we build
inclusive communities
whether on our campus or with
many of our community partners
here on the south side
and indeed, beyond.
Nevertheless, as I
indicated as I began,
there is much more work to do.
And this is work that we
all need to participate
in advancing as a community.
Earlier today, a little
more than an hour ago,
I had the privilege of
conferring this year's
diversity leadership boards.
These awards recognize
university faculty, alumni,
and staff members whose work
embodies Dr. King's values.
The 2020 Diversity Leadership
Faculty Award recipient
is Herschella G. Conyers,
clinical professor of law
and the director of the Mandel
Criminal and Juvenile Justice
Clinic for her
commitment to advancing
the values of diversity and
inclusion at the law school,
her standing as a mentor
and role model for students
of color, and in particular,
women students of color,
her long-standing and continuing
dedication to reforming
the criminal justice and
juvenile justice systems,
and her ongoing work
providing legal representation
to Chicago's most vulnerable
and underserved populations.
The recipient of the 2020
Diversity Leadership Alumni
Award is Dr. Thomas Fisher who
completed his medical degree
at the Pritzker School
of Medicine in 2001.
Dr. Fisher is an emergency
medicine physician
at UChicago Medicine
who has worked
at the executive leadership
and policy levels
to overcome racial disparities
in our health care system
and improve access for people
from underserved communities.
Dr. Fisher remains
deeply connected
to Chicago's south
side community,
leading a number of
initiatives aimed
at improving communication,
participation, and health
outcomes among African-Americans
and in particular,
African-American men.
Finally, our recipient for the
2020 Diversity Leadership Staff
Award is Joel D. Jackson,
assistant director
of inclusion and
training for University
of Chicago Medicine's Department
of Diversity, Inclusion,
and Equity.
In addition to his work
advancing diversity
and inclusion at
UChicago Medicine,
Joel volunteers a
substantive amount
of his time serving
and supporting
the needs of underrepresented
and underserved communities
in the Midwest, including
acting as a mentor
to at-risk young people in
Chicago's LGBTQ community.
[INAUDIBLE],, Thomas,
and Joel, would
you please stand
and be recognized?
[APPLAUSE]
Now it is my great pleasure to
welcome our keynote speakers
for this evening's ceremony.
This year, we are fortunate to
have two distinguished speakers
who happen to be father
and son, both of whom
are making impactful
contributions that continue
the important work of Dr. King.
Please join me in welcoming
Reverend Dr. Otis Moss, Jr.,
and Reverend Dr. Otis Moss,
III to Rockefeller chapel
and in thanking
them for taking part
in this evening's ceremony.
[APPLAUSE]
Our first speaker, Reverend
Dr. Otis Moss, Jr.,
we will welcome to
the podium shortly
is a theologian,
pastor, and civic leader
who for more than
60 years has worked
as an advocate for issues
of civil and human rights
and social justice.
He earned his BA from
Morehouse College in 1956,
his master of divinity from the
Morehouse School of Religion
and Interdenominational
Theological Center in 1959,
and his doctor of ministry from
the United Theological Seminary
in 1990.
He worked as a pastor
for several churches
in the south and
midwest, including Mt.
Zion Baptist Church in
Lackland, Ohio, Ebenezer Church
in Atlanta where he worked with
Dr. Martin Luther King, Sr,
and the Olivet Institutional
Church in Cleveland, Ohio,
where he served as Pastor
for more than 30 years.
Reverend Moss, Jr., was a close
associate of Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr., and was deeply
involved with Dr. King's work
in the Civil Rights Movement.
He continues to honor Dr. King's
vision as a national board
member and trustee of the
Martin Luther King, Jr., Center
for Nonviolent Social Change.
His work has taken
him across the country
and around the world, including
Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan,
Israel, and South Africa.
Reverend Moss, Jr., has been
broadly recognized and honored
for his work, including
the Human Relations Award
from Bethune Cookson
College in 1976,
the Role Model of the Year
Award from the National
Institute for
Responsible Fatherhood
and Family Development in
1992, the Leadership Award
from the Cleveland Chapter of
the American Jewish Committee
in 1996, and is the recipient
of numerous honorary degrees,
including an honorary
doctor of divinity
from LaGrange College in 2004.
Our second speaker,
who will appear later
in this evening's program,
is Reverend Dr. Otis Moss
III, senior pastor
of Trinity United
Church of Christ in Chicago.
Like his father
Reverend Moss, III,
has dedicated his
career to advancing
the cause of civil rights
and social justice,
calling attention to such
issues as mass incarceration,
environmental justice,
and economic inequality.
He's an honors graduate
of Morehouse College,
earned his master of divinity
from the Yale Divinity School,
and his doctor of ministry
from the Chicago Theological
Seminary.
In addition to his work
at Trinity United Church,
he is on the boards
of the Auburn Seminary
and Faith and Place
An Action Fund,
a chaplain of the Children's
Defense Fund Samuel Dewitt
Proctor Child
Advocacy Conference,
and the senior fellow in the
Auburn Seniors Fellow Program.
Reverend Moss, III
was recognized in 2016
with the NAACP Image
Award for his work
as the founder of the
Unashamed Media Group, which
includes providing biblical
context and theological
support to a myriad
of groups and causes,
including the Black Lives
Matter and the Occupy movements.
Following their
keynote addresses
are two speakers
will be participating
in an onstage
conversation and Q&A
with Reverend Dr.
Maurice Charles, dean
of Rockefeller Memorial Chapel.
Dr. King believed that
an individual quoting,
"an individual has not
started living fully
until they can rise to the
broader concerns of humanity."
Life's most persistent
and urgent question
is, what are you
doing for others?
As we work to address the
complex problems that society
faces, we must all be
thinking about ways
to make our campus, our city,
our nation, and our world,
a place that respects
and supports diversity.
It is only in bringing
our diverse perspectives
to bear on these questions
that we will make progress
toward the future,
Dr. King imagined.
Now please join me in welcoming
our first speaker, Reverend Dr.
Otis Moss, Jr., to the stage.
[APPLAUSE]
OTIS MOSS, JR: May we bow our
heads in a moment of prayer.
Let the words of my mouth,
the meditation of my heart
be acceptable in by sight.
Oh Lord, my rock and my
salvation, my strength
and my Redeemer.
Now henceforth and forever
in the name of our Lord.
Amen.
Thank you, President Zimmer
and to the family University
of Chicago.
It is indeed an honor
share these special moments
in this time and in this place.
I am honored,
inspired, and blessed
because in this
very moment, this
is in a profound way a family
moment share the platform,
stage the pulpit with the
Reverend Dr. Otis Moss, III.
[APPLAUSE]
And I must say, from
him, I learned so much.
There was a time when I think
he learned a few things from me,
but now, I call him
often for his commentary,
his analysis, his interpretation
on so many things.
And I want to thank you, Pastor
Moss, my beloved son, friend,
colleague, and pastor.
This setting brings some
remarkable memories.
The Reverend Jesse
Jackson, a friend
and colleague and co-worker
for more than a half-century
and one aspect, that
friendship started
through the work of and
leadership of Dr. King,
but it took on special
meaning on this campus
and in this very chapel.
I'll come back to
that in a minute.
It is a joy.
See, our daughter,
Monica, the wife of Otis
the third and our
granddaughter, Michaela.
When I see them, I know
at least I have two amens.
Greetings from Edwina, my
wife of more than 53 years
and our oldest son and
Otis' older brother,
Kevin, he will see them a
little later on this week
because Otis III will be honored
in Cleveland later this week,
recognizing his work in Chicago,
the nation, and the world.
It is good to see former
schoolmate class of '58,
Morehouse College and later,
distinguished president
of Morehouse, along with
his beloved wife Shirley.
Thank you, Dr. Massa, for your
distinguished and historic
leadership at Morehouse
and in Chicago,
the nation, and the world,
may your good works continue.
We still call on
you for so much,
and you always respond
with excellence.
Rainbow PUSH is really
a part of our family.
Trinity is deeply in
our hearts and souls.
It was more than
a half-century ago
when Dr. King called a
nationwide representation
of religious leaders,
and the Reverend Jackson
was the coordinator for this.
And in that setting,
Dr. King announced
that Reverend Jackson would
be the National leader
of Operation Breadbasket.
This young seminary
student given a national
and what would eventually become
an international responsibility
in that summer conference
on this campus.
And from that day,
Reverend Jackson
has not missed a step in
national and global leadership,
our friend.
Give him another hand.
[APPLAUSE]
It was on that occasion
over 50 years ago
Dr. King had just
released his last book,
Where Do We Go From Here.
And I received a copy of
that book from his hands,
and he signed it,
to my dear friend
Otis Moss for whom I have
great respect and admiration.
And he signed it Martin.
Otis, I'm going to give
you this book tonight.
[APPLAUSE]
I have been carrying it for
more than a half-century
and as I face sunset.
And in the words
of a great soul,
I'm pitching my tent closer
and closer to the river.
May you carry on.
And we will be smiling
from eternity as you
and your generation
and those to follow
will carry on the struggle.
Thank you.
My beloved son,
friend, colleague,
there was a time
when you volunteered
to carry my briefcase.
The last time we
traveled internationally,
you made it a point to
grab your briefcase.
You didn't allow me to
carry it but a few steps,
but that was a way
to say thank you,
I wish that I had
the time to call
the names of the leadership
team of Operation PUSH--
Rainbow PUSH
National Coalition--
but just know that
we are family.
And that is eternal.
I want to say a word
about the abiding lessons,
some historic and prophetic
moments in the life Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. We
cannot cover that total life.
I just want to lift up some
historic and prophetic moments
from which we can and
must learn and carry on.
And I want you to help me.
And as I open this line of
thought for a few minutes,
I want you to just put your hand
across your chest for a moment
and repeat after me.
In my time and in my
space by God's grace,
I can make a difference.
Now open your arms and look
at your neighbor and smile.
And as you look
at your neighbor,
say to your neighbor
these words.
In your time--
AUDIENCE: In your time.
OTIS MOSS, JR: --and
in your space--
AUDIENCE: In your space.
OTIS MOSS, JR:
--by God's grace--
AUDIENCE: By God's grace.
OTIS MOSS, JR: --you--
AUDIENCE: You.
OTIS MOSS, JR: --can--
AUDIENCE: Can.
OTIS MOSS, JR:
--make a difference.
AUDIENCE: Make a difference.
OTIS MOSS, JR: Now
open your hands
and consider the
challenge again.
And let's say in our time--
AUDIENCE: In our time.
OTIS MOSS, JR:
--and in our space--
AUDIENCE: And in our space.
OTIS MOSS, JR:
--by God's grace--
AUDIENCE: By God's grace.
OTIS MOSS, JR: --we can.
AUDIENCE: We can.
OTIS MOSS, JR: We must.
AUDIENCE: We must.
OTIS MOSS, JR: We will.
AUDIENCE: We will.
OTIS MOSS, JR:
--make a difference.
Audience: Make a difference.
OTIS MOSS, JR: Amen.
[APPLAUSE]
Now that's almost
all I have to say,
but I'm not going to
sit down right now.
There are some abiding lessons
from the historic and prophetic
moments in the life of Dr. King.
I repeat, we cannot lift them
up in a comprehensive way,
but I just want to
underscore a few.
In 1929, when Dr. King was
born, our nation and the world,
our nation, a
particular way was going
through along with
the entire world
an unprecedented
economic crisis,
and that economic crisis
was made even more troubling
by racism not only in our
nation, but around the world.
Dr. King was born
in January of 1929
on Auburn Avenue at home
in Atlanta, Georgia.
And six months later, a
child was born in Europe
by the name of Anne Frank.
And when Anne Frank
was 15 years old,
she was dying in one of
Hitler's concentration camps.
Dr. King at the age of 15
was enrolled as a student
at Morehouse College.
Anne Frank murdered
really at 15.
Dr. King assassinated at 39.
Yet in that short
period of time,
that little dash
between two dates,
Anne hiding from the enemy
for a season wrote a diary.
And when Hitler's henchmen,
when Hitler's gestapo discovered
where the Frank family was
hiding, they invaded that space
and took what they
thought were valuables--
jewelry and artwork--
and rushed off with it.
And they threw the
diary in the trash.
And by the grace of
God, it was rescued,
translated into more
than 60 languages,
and more than 30 million copies
have been distributed also.
And with the fleeting
moment of 15 years,
we still drink from the
fountain of Anne Frank's genius.
Dr. King murdered,
assassinated at 39
and we are here tonight
learning and sharing
from his life and vision.
Now he entered Morehouse
College at the age of 15
from his junior
year in high school.
And no, no, he didn't
just enter Morehouse
because he passed the early
admissions test, which he did.
But the life of
Morehouse was threatened
because as an all-male,
small, private liberal arts
institution, more than
half the student body
had been drafted into
the military so much so
that one of the members of the
Board of Trustees at Morehouse
recommended that the
school should be closed
for the duration of the war.
Dr. Benjamin Elijah
Mayes said no.
If we should close this school
now, it will never be opened.
And he came forth with the
program of the admission.
Dr. King was a part of that
early admission program where
young men, teenagers were
brought into the college
experience before they
graduated from Morehouse
because the student body was
being decimated by World War
II, and young men who
were able were being
drafted into the military.
So when you think about Dr.
King and those students who
came to Morehouse in the
early admission program,
they remember that they, along
with the vision of Dr. Mayes,
saved Morehouse College.
That was a prophetic
and historic moment
and the life of higher
education and especially
in the life of a
historically black college.
So Dr. King was saving
us before he knew it
and before we realized it.
That is our role and our
responsibility and mission--
to play a role both
consciously and unconsciously,
to keep doors open,
to keep the liberation
thrust going, to carry on
transformation and revolution,
even when you are
not conscious of it.
But to be so committed that
even when you are asleep,
something creative has
taken place because of you.
That's what Howard Thurmond was
talking about in his writing
the growing edge when
he said, all around us,
worlds are dying in, and
new worlds are being born.
All around us, life is dying,
and new life is being born.
And that is the growing age.
And we are called to be
a part of the growing
age in the midst of lynchings,
in the midst of concentration
camps, in the
midst of walls that
are being built by individuals
who have walls in their souls,
if they have a soul.
And we are call to
make a difference.
It was Harry Emerson Fosdick
who said that the world is not
saved by decisive
military battles,
but the world is saved by
the birth and development
of decisive babies.
So whenever you
see a child, know
that here is a
decisive human being,
and that a human being
can play a role in saving
your life and my life, even
when those around the child
would build walls and
concentration camps and middle
passages.
In our time and in our
space by God's grace,
we can, and we must.
We shall make a difference.
And we have to do that in
the midst of dangers, toils,
and snares.
There was a moment, 1955, when
Dr. King, much to his surprise,
was given the responsibility to
be the leader of the Montgomery
Improvement Association.
And when he stood that night,
speak to that mass gathering
of protesters, that were
more people gathered
outside than inside
because the church couldn't
hold the crowd that came.
And among other
things, Dr. King said
if we will protest with
courage, love, and dignity, when
the history books of
the future are written,
the historian will
have to pause and say,
there lived a great
people, a black people
who injected new meaning into
the veins of civilization.
And he closed the message by
saying this is our challenge.
This is our overwhelming
responsibility.
And for the next 12
years, he remained
true to that theological,
philosophical, moral,
and spiritual paradigm
that he lead on December 5
in Montgomery, Alabama,
in a Baptist Church.
And for the next 381 days,
the people of Montgomery,
the African-American
community, marched.
Dr. King was here.
1967, he reminded
us that generally,
if you turn to rioting,
within five to seven days,
the establishment will have
called forth the forces
to put down the
violent rebellion.
But Montgomery marched
381 days, and they
were stronger at the
end of the 381 days
than they were at the beginning.
And he went on to say that
riots and violence can only
last a week or two.
And when that period
is over, the enemy
will have become stronger
in its oppression.
But at the end of our
struggle in Montgomery,
we were stronger
after 381 days than we
were on the first few days.
Now that isn't that,
but there's something
in that you ought to remember.
When the days were
dangerous and the nights--
the nights were horrible,
and people had to stay awake
watching Mrs. King's
father came from his home
in Marion, Alabama, to
take Mrs. King and the baby
to their home for safety.
That's interesting.
He was going to take them
deeper into Alabama, thinking
that they would be safer.
Mrs. King refused to go
and said to her father,
no, my position and my
job is to be with Martin.
I cannot go with you, dad.
Perhaps she was
remembering that night
when their home was bombed.
And when she was a teenager
and they barely got out
in their night garments.
The house burned down, and her
father looked at the children
and said, we don't
have time to cry.
We've got to get ready
to build a new house.
He laughed left back in her
heart, her mind, and her soul.
And when he tried to protect
her from dangers, toils,
and snares, she said, no,
my job is to be with Martin.
And about the same
time, Daddy King
called a meeting in his
home in Atlanta a few weeks
before that to persuade
Dr. King, Reverend Jackson
to leave Montgomery.
He was offering him safety.
As they went around
the room, Daddy King
had called together all of the
top black leadership in Atlanta
to help him persuade Dr.
King to leave Montgomery.
After a moment, Dr. King stood
up and looked at his father
with love and respect
and said to him,
I would rather spend
10 years in jail
than to desecrate the people
of Montgomery, Alabama.
Now, I must return
and suffer with them.
And when he made that statement,
Dr. Mayes stood up and said,
Martin is right.
He must go back.
And a year later, a
year and a half later,
when Dr. Mayes bestowed upon Dr.
King his first honorary degree,
he said to him, Martin
Luther King, Jr.,
you are mature
beyond your years,
wiser at 28 than most
people at 60, living a faith
that we all preach about,
but seldom experience.
It must have been folk
like you that the poet had
in mind when he said, look
how the masses of human beings
worry themselves into
nameless graves now
and then some on selfish
soul forgets himself
or herself into immortality.
Leadership-- the leadership
that every age is in need of.
It's leadership that will take
risk, risks for righteousness
and justice and freedom in order
that the next generation can
walk the Earth with dignity.
Now you have heard
about Dr. King's letter
from a Birmingham jail.
I'm sure you have.
Some of you have even read it.
Letter from Birmingham Jail--
that was an epistle.
One of my colleagues,
Dr. Massa said,
if we were to reopen
the sacred canon,
we would have to add to
it, along with the letter
to Philippi, the Philippians.
We would have to add the
letter from a Birmingham jail.
Now it's a great piece of
work written from a jail cell.
But that is another letter.
It is the letter from
Reidsville State Prison--
much shorter than the letter
from the Birmingham jail.
And Dr. King for the first
time in his total career
was in jail all by himself.
He was sentenced to four months
public work for a minor traffic
violation.
And if we have a time
sometime in the future,
I'll give you some
of the backstories.
While he was in jail,
I was in the courtroom
when he was sentenced.
The judge sitting there,
looked at the log,
and said, how much more
time are you going to take?
I got a fishing trip coming up.
That was the judge.
And before the lawyer could make
the appeal at around 4:00 AM
the next morning, they went to
Dr. King's cell and put chains
on his body and
handcuffs on his hand
and put him in the police
wagon with a police dog
and drove 230 miles across
the state of Georgia
to Reidsville State Prison and
put him in maximum security.
And he wrote a
letter to Mrs. King,
a private personal letter.
And he started out saying,
hello, darling, hello, darling.
And he went on to describe
what his condition was.
And there is a line in
that letter, which says,
I believe that the suffering
coming to our family now
will somehow make
Atlanta a better city,
Georgia a better state, and
America a better nation.
Just how, I do not yet
know, but I have the faith
to believe that it will.
While he was in
prison, appeals were
made to the candidates
running for president, Nixon
and Kennedy.
An appeal was made to
President Eisenhower.
Nixon was quiet.
Eisenhower was quiet,
and Senator Kennedy
called Mrs. King.
And Robert Kennedy
called the judge,
and the judge
lifted the sentence.
And Dr. King was released.
When I get to heaven I'm
going to ask Robert Kennedy,
what did you say to that judge?
I'm not going to ask the judge.
He may not be there.
But when the word reached homes
and organizations and churches
and streets, Nixon was ahead
of Kennedy in the polls.
11 million pieces of literature
were printed and distributed
in places like Atlanta, Chicago,
LA, San Francisco, New York,
Cleveland, St. Louis, and all
of the major metropolitan areas.
Kennedy won the presidency
by about 114,000 votes.
Somebody told me it was
less than one half vote
per precinct.
So when you open your history
books, you won't find this,
but Dr. King elected Kennedy
from a jail cell in Georgia.
Not only that, but
Johnson was on the ticket.
And when Kennedy was
assassinated in 1964,
Johnson ran for reelection
and won by a landslide.
So Dr. King elected two
presidents from a jail cell
in Georgia.
But that's not the
end of the story.
When Jimmy Carter was
running for President,
he said to some of us privately
and then to the nation publicly
but for Martin Luther King, Jr.,
I, a southerner from Plains,
Georgia, could not be running
for President of the United
States of America.
So Dr. King elected
two presidents
from a jail cell and another
president from his grave.
And not only that, a
gentleman from Hope, Arkansas,
stood on the shoulders of
the Civil Rights Movement
and became President,
Bill Clinton.
So Dr. King elected
two presidents
from a jail cell and two more
presidents from his grave.
But that's not the
end of the story.
One night around 11 o'clock--
maybe it was four minutes after
11:00--
2008 November
watching television,
the reporter said, we have
breaking news, breaking news.
It was fulfilling news.
It was prophetic news.
It was historic news.
It was news that grew out of so
many dangers, toils, and snags
and prophetic moments.
The news reporter said,
Barack Hussein Obama
is the President-elect of
the United States of America.
Some people don't know it,
but Martin Luther King, Jr.,
has elected five presidents.
And in your time
and in your space,
you don't know
how much power you
have, but let me try to
show you for a moment.
But here just look
at your hands--
just look at your hands.
These are the hands of God.
And when anybody asks
you, where is the dream?
Where is liberation?
Where is the revolution?
Where is the salvation?
That's in your hands--
in your hands.
[APPLAUSE]
[MUSIC - "BIGGER"]
CHOIR: (SINGING) If
you feel insignificant,
you better think again.
Better wake up because you're
part of something way bigger.
You're part of
something way bigger.
Bigger than you, bigger than
we, bigger than the picture
they framed us to see.
Now, we see it.
Yeah.
No.
[INAUDIBLE] and know
that you're excellent.
Your spirit is teaching.
No I'm not just preaching.
I'm taking my own advice.
And this is key because we're
[INAUDIBLE] something way
bigger.
We never lose.
We are winners.
I'll be the roots.
You'll be the tree.
[INAUDIBLE] You're part
of something way bigger.
Let love be the water.
I pour into you.
May you pour into me.
There ain't no drought.
You just don't know it yet.
You just don't know it yet.
No matter how hard it gets.
You've got my body, yeah,
and you're going to rise.
Now, you're gonna rise up.
You're part of
something way bigger.
Part of something bigger.
Bigger than you.
Bigger than we.
Bigger than the picture
they framed us to see.
You're part of
something way bigger.
Step in your essence and
know that you're excellent.
Rise.
The spirit is teaching.
No, I'm not just preaching.
I'm taking my own advice.
You better think again.
Better wake up because you're
part of something way bigger.
You're part of
something way bigger.
I'll be the roots.
You be the tree.
That's all the fruit
that was given to me.
Legacy.
You're part of
something way bigger.
[MUSIC - "AIN'T GONNA LET NOBODY
 TURN ME ROUND"]
Ain't gonna let nobody turn
me round, turn me round,
turn me round.
Ain't gonna let
nobody turn me round.
Going to keep on walking,
keep on talking, marching up
to freedom land.
Ain't going to let nobody
turn me round, turn me round,
turn me round.
Ain't going to let
nobody turn me round.
Going to keep on walking,
keep on talking, marching up
to freedom land.
Ain't going to let nobody
turn me round, turn me round,
turn me round.
Ain't going to let
nobody turn me round.
Going to keep on walking,
keep on talking, marching up
to freedom land.
Ain't going to let nobody
turn me round, turn me round,
turn me round.
Ain't going to let
nobody turn me round.
Going to keep on walking,
keep on talking, marching up
to freedom land.
Marching up to freedom land.
Marching up to freedom land.
Marching up to freedom land.
[MUSIC - "WE SHALL OVERCOME"]
We shall overcome.
We shall overcome.
We shall overcome someday.
Deep in my heart I
do believe we shall,
we shall, we shall, we shall,
we shall, we shall, we shall,
we shall overcome someday.
Deep in my heart I
do believe we shall,
we shall, we shall,
we shall, we shall,
we shall overcome someday.
We shall, we shall,
we shall overcome.
We shall, we shall,
we shall overcome.
We shall, we shall,
we shall overcome.
We shall, we shall,
we shall overcome.
We shall, we shall,
we shall overcome.
We shall, we shall,
we shall overcome.
We shall, we shall,
we shall overcome.
We shall, we shall,
we shall overcome.
Deep in my heart I
do believe we shall,
we shall, we shall, we shall,
we shall, we shall, we shall,
we shall, we shall, we shall,
we shall, we shall, we shall,
we shall, we shall, we shall,
we shall, we shall, we shall,
we shall, we shall,
we shall, we shall,
we shall overcome someday.
OTIS MOSS III: We
give thanks and honor
for the absolute brilliance
of these young people who
blessed us tonight
and to the musicians
and to the entire community
of the University of Chicago.
And I was at Trinity after
hearing such an absolutely
brilliant presentation.
I would simply say, may
the road rise to meet you.
May the wind always be
at your back, amen, amen.
I want to say at this moment
what an absolute joy it is
to be able to present with
my father and to follow him,
that there are rare individuals.
There were rare individuals.
There were some who
professed their faith
but do not practice their faith.
And you have witnessed I
believe without a doubt
a spiritual genius to
present at this moment,
and it is an absolute joy that
you would have the opportunity
to witness this.
And I'm just deeply moved as
he passed that book to me.
When I was about 11
years old, I stumbled
into his library,
found that book,
and I saw that it had
been signed by Dr. King.
And I would put my hand on
it, hoping that in some way
that I could touch
that individual who
had signed the book.
And I will cherish that, and
then we will pass that down
to the next generation.
So Makayla, you're going
to be holding on to it
at some point in your life.
She's like, no,
don't give it to me.
I don't want to lose it.
I don't want to lose it.
But I thank you, and it
is absolutely a blessing.
And I was given a
note to make sure
that I move on at this
moment, and I want
to do exactly what I was told.
And so I want to begin by simply
lifting this up at this moment.
That it was in 1967
in Cincinnati, Ohio,
that Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr.,
preached for a men's day
service at my father's church.
You have Dr. King do
your men's day service,
and he preached a message
entitled "A Knock at Midnight."
And I want to lift
up the scripture
that he utilized that day,
coming from the Gospel of Luke,
the 11th chapter.
And I read from the New
International Version
for all of those
who are seminarians
or about to be seminarians.
I lift up the NIV version
and the OM3 translation.
That's the oldestmost
third translation
that will be out
next year edited
by my father, amen, amen.
But I begin to read this way.
Then Jesus said to them,
suppose you have a friend,
and you go to him at midnight
and say to the friend,
lend me three loaves of bread.
A friend of mine on the
journey has come to me,
and I have no food to offer him.
And suppose the one inside
answers, don't bother me.
The door is already locked, and
my children and I are in bed.
And I'm not getting
up to answer the door.
I tell you even though he
will not get up and give you
the bread because of
friendship yet because
of your shameless audacity--
another translation because of
your boldness and your power--
you will surely be given
as much as you need.
Suppose you have a friend
that shows up at midnight
and is in need.
I want you just for a few
moments that we have together,
I want to lift up this message
again that Dr. King did years
ago but to speak from a
perspective of what we
are dealing now as a country.
Something I want to
talk about, a knock
during America's
midnight, a knock
during America's midnight.
It is midnight.
It is midnight in America.
The light of the mythic dawn has
been replaced by the darkening
skies of America's refusal
to face her history
and pull back the veil of
social dysfunction lurking
underneath our democracy.
It is midnight.
Something is wrong
in our nation.
On paper, our nation
is an amalgamation
of wealth, creativity, power,
and a legit possibility
that this country built
on stolen, sacred soil
of indigenous people is
being haunted by chickens
that are coming home to roost.
It is midnight.
Midnight has come to America in
the form of Confederate ghosts
masquerading as
political pundits who
shout peculiar lies
wrapped in the cloth
of conservative mantras like
make America great again.
Raise the question, when you
say make America great again,
what year are you talking about?
Is that the year
when I was enslaved?
Was it the year when
women could not vote?
What year was America
that you speak of?
One half of this nation is
enthralled by this phrase,
and the other half
shudders in horror
at the mere mention of this
statement for fear these men
and women are
chanting incantations
to return America to a
romanticized antebellum moment.
It is midnight.
How can a nation be so divided?
It must be midnight.
We all must confess
and are confused
by the schizophrenic
nature of our nation.
1 out of 45 attempts our
nation had the wisdom
to elect a person of African
descent as commander in chief.
And we watched with
joy as a nation,
as the first family with buckets
of swag, historic dignity
was placed in the office.
While those on
the right and left
will argue about the
impact of the policies,
no person with a lick of sense
can deny the beautiful dignity,
epic elegance of a
family America would
have one time lynched
but now shall forever
be engraved in the
annals of history
as one of the greatest
presidential families
to occupy the White House.
Say what you will
about President Obama.
The truth cannot be denied there
was a dignity, an integrity,
grace, intellect, and
spirituality that filled
the halls of America's
house in Washington DC.
Is it not ironic.
God is ironic for
God used a family
from the south side of Chicago
to teach a nation if grace
is a color, it must be black,
for no other political family
in recent memory has
handled ignorance,
mean-spirited attacks,
bigotry, and racist questions
of citizenship with
such grace and class.
And maybe the legacy
of the Obama years
will not be about health
care and climate policy,
but a national lesson
on dignified leadership
when dealing with
undignified people.
Midnight has come to America.
I see the skies darkened
upon the strength
of our dark democracy.
It is midnight.
It is midnight.
When children are
caged and mothers
weep just as Rachel
wept in Israel, so
does Isabella from Guatemala for
her children, Jose and Selena.
This nation of
scientific advances,
military might,
economic prosperity,
is the same nation of health
care misery, opioid addiction,
mass incarceration,
environmental denial,
toxic masculinity, and
political corruption.
The same nation
that prides itself
on prosperity in
the economic realm
is the same nation
where it's easier
to purchase a gun
than a child to get
a scholarship to college.
Something is wrong.
It must be midnight.
And Dr. King stated
that midnight
is the hour when
men desperately seek
to obey the 11th commandment,
thou shall not get caught.
According to Midnight, the
cardinal sin is to be called,
and the cardinal
virtue is to get by.
And the texts that Dr.
King lifted up in 1967
at my father's church is a text
usually framed in reference
to about prayer.
But it also speaks
about our responsibility
of what has been
placed in our hands
that we have the
opportunity to change
the conditions for someone else,
that there is a man knocking
at midnight on the door
of a home he believes
should be open, welcoming,
loving and ready to serve.
It is midnight in America,
I say to you today.
It is midnight.
It is a moral midnight--
mass incarceration,
a war on those
who are poor black, brown,
and with privatized prisons.
And the idea of redemption has
completely left the building.
It's amazing that people who
claim to be people of faith
don't believe in second
chances, but yet they
want to talk about
grace every Sunday,
that God gave me a second
chance, a third chance,
and picked me up.
But don't you know
many people who
operate within faith
communities they
serve a savior who knew
about stop and frisk
and had a bad public defender
and was eventually executed
by the state.
It is moral midnight.
It is also a historical
midnight that we have forgotten
the power of our history.
Whenever you forget the
power of your history,
you are doomed to repeat
some of the mistakes.
In this day and age,
there are those who
weep and say, what can we do?
They operate with
a level of despair.
How dare you hang your
head in the 21st century
that we do not have the same?
We have more resources today
than our ancestors had.
How can we hang our heads?
I bring you a
lesson from a person
by the name of Robert Smalls.
Many people have never
heard of Robert Smalls
from South Carolina,
born an enslaved African,
but he made the decision
that my child will not
grow up in slavery.
And because of the
ignorance of bigotry
and of racism, Robert
Smalls and his wife
and several other
enslaved Africans,
they were called
specifically to take
care of a Confederate warship.
And because of the
ignorance of racism,
because if you are an
enslaved African caring
for a Confederate slave ship,
you did not just clean it.
You also were the navigator.
You were also the one who took
care of it, knew how to run it,
and everything.
You just couldn't
be named captain,
but you did everything else.
And so Robert Smalls,
better than Ocean's 11,
said that we're
going to hijack--
I'm sorry, liberate
this ship and we're
going to sail to freedom.
So one night after the
Confederate soldiers
went to sleep and they
had been drinking too much
and went on to
some brothel, they
snuck all of their
family aboard the ship
and decided to sail it out
of the Charleston Harbor.
This was during the Civil War.
And it was dangerous to
do that because you needed
to have the right codes to be
able to speak to the person who
is head of the harbor.
And so they knew the codes
because they had been shared.
The codes have been shared
with them as enslaved Africans,
but they knew that
somebody would
be standing in the
harbor looking to see
who is on the bow of the ship.
So they found the brother who
had the lightest complexion,
and they put him on
the bow of the ship
and put him in a
Confederate outfit.
The ship went out.
He just said and
[INAUDIBLE] And once they
got out of the harbor,
they had another problem
because there was a blockade
from the Union soldiers,
and the union was told that if
you see any Confederate ship
that you are to fire upon it.
And there they were as
morning had not yet arrived,
and they were coming up on
a ship known as The Onward.
The Onward was told
specifically to fire on this
approaching Confederate vessel.
They did not know
what to do, and it
was Robert Smalls wife who
said find a white sheet
and run it up the flagpole.
But something happened.
As if it was cinematic,
a fog rolled in,
and no one could see the flag.
And there the guns were
trained upon Robert Smalls
as on his family.
And as they were about
to fire, as if on cue,
the sun came through and
burned off all of the fog.
And they saw the white flag,
and they said, hold up.
And they boarded the ship.
When they boarded
the ship, they were
looking for some white people
who were running the ship,
and Robert Small says,
there's no white people here.
It's just us, and
we give this ship
to Abraham Lincoln for
the fight to freedom.
We have stolen it from
the Confederate soldiers.
And literally,
there is one account
that the captain
of the union ship
was like had his
mouth on the floor.
He could not believe an
African could hijack a ship.
And then they gave the
ship to Abraham Lincoln.
But the story does not stop
for Robert Smalls right there.
What Smalls then does he
joins the Union Army becomes
the first African-American
captain in the Union Army,
moves back to South
Carolina, buys the plantation
where he was a slave.
You're talking
about reparation--
buys the plantation where he was
a slave and allows the mistress
of the plantation to live on the
property, not in the big house,
small house in the back-- just
want to make sure you got that
clear--
started four schools, and
then ran for Congress and won.
Do not tell me
what we cannot do.
If our ancestors can do
that with the resources
that we have today, we have
no right to hang our head.
It is historical
midnight in America,
but it's not only
midnight historically,
not only midnight morally.
It is midnight in God's
house, the church.
God's house is a place where
even the cynic and skeptic
should knock at midnight.
The house of prayer,
the home of hope,
and the domicile of
deliverance-- the church
in America finds
itself struggling
in the dark of midnight,
unsure of its purpose.
We have seen white
evangelicals have stolen Jesus.
Now he is unrecognizable he
is no longer looks like Jesus
or a Palestinian named
Ali, an African name
Yeshua, or an Asian name Amir.
He no longer looks like a global
savior or inclusive liberator,
but has become a local
trinket, hanging around
the necks of men and
women who worship
the idolatry of whiteness over
the wonder and power of Jesus
Christ.
It has become midnight.
People are knocking, looking
for the bread of love,
for it cannot be found in
political systems or just
simply community organizing
or social media networks.
As Dr. King stated,
there is a power in love
that is transformative,
and people
are searching for more than
just a political party.
They are searching spiritually
for a new foundation
of how we transform these yet
to be United States of America.
And it has become midnight.
But even in the church, at
midnight, a man is knocking,
and the person
inside of the house
is annoyed that someone
outside of the house
wants to come into the house.
You'll get it when you go home.
There's someone outside
of the house that
wants to come in the house, but
the people inside of the house
are annoyed that someone
is knocking at the door.
Our children and
young people who
love the love ethic of Jesus
but have rejected the church.
They could not
reconcile a loving God
with self-righteous people.
They could not reconcile
the power of grace
with condemnation
offered from the pulpit.
They cannot reconcile a
church that wants money
in the offering plate from
sisters but denies them
the right to preach.
They can not reconcile
a church that
wants to pimp a person who
is gay and their gifts,
and then deny their existence.
It must be midnight,
immoral midnight,
by historical midnight, midnight
in the houses of worship.
And if we are to be the people
that we are called to be,
we need a church like King,
and not a church like Creflo.
We need a church like
Fannie Lou Hamer,
and not a church
like Franklin Graham.
We need a community
like Bayard Rustin
and not like Pat Robertson.
We must recognize
that God is calling us
to something
greater that we must
repent, to become
the country that we
have been called to become.
There is something
happening, but I forgot
to tell you a few things.
I forgot to tell you
that it's midnight,
that it's about 11:59.
It may be dark, but the
bad news is it's midnight.
The good news is it's midnight.
I said the bad news
is it's midnight.
The good news is it's midnight.
You need to understand that
any time that it's midnight,
you moved from
11:59 to midnight.
It means that morning
has already come,
that even though it's
dark, it may be midnight,
but a new day has come.
And it may be from Dr. King.
We shall overcome because
Carlisle was right
that no lie can live forever.
We shall overcome
because Bryant is right
that truth crushed to the
earth will rise again.
We shall overcome because
the love is right,
that truth forever
on the scaffold
ran forever on the throne.
We shall overcome.
We shall overcome because
the Bible is right.
What you reap is
what you shall sow.
We shall overcome,
and there will
be a moment in this
nation where we
will see black and white,
Muslim and Methodists,
Asian and atheist, Latino
and Lutheran, Methodist
and Pentecostal, Protestant
and Catholic, Jew
and Gentile, queer and
Quaker, agnostic and Anglican.
Baptist and Buddhist, Hindu and
holiness, ghetto and country,
redneck and
[INAUDIBLE] UFC and CSU
will all get together
and sing the song
about [INAUDIBLE]
from California
named Kendrick Lamar, we
going to be all right.
We going to be all right.
It's midnight, but we're
going to be all right.
[CHEERING]
MAURICE CHARLES: Good
evening to you all.
My name is Maurice Charles,
and I have the privilege
as an alum of this university
and as the newly appointed dean
of Rockefeller Chapel to
welcome you all here tonight
and to engage these
towering figures
in a moment of conversation.
And I want to say
now, lest I forget,
that after this conversation
there will be a community
reception in Ida Noyes Hall--
make sure I'm pointed
in the right direction--
to the east of the chapel.
And you are all invited.
INTERVIEWER: All right, let's
make sure that this is working.
OK.
You alluded to
this, both of you,
but I want to ask
a tough question.
In a 1967 interview--
and this was broadcast on NBC.
Martin Luther King
was asked, what
was unique about the
Montgomery movement?
And his answer was
that it was unique
because it was so
church-centered.
Can there be a powerful
movement without a spirituality?
So many people in this
country are unaffiliated.
And of course, when you
talk about a church-centered
movement, you're preaching
to the choir, at least
to the chancellor.
But what kind of
movement can you
have without a spirituality?
And I guess a
follow-up because you
talked about atheist and
Muslim and Christian and so on.
We're in the north, and
we're in a different moment
in our history.
So what role does
spirituality play?
What does it look like?
How can you sustain a
movement without the kind
of traditional spirituality
that you had in the South
when you could look at
congregations and preach
and mobilize and so on?
OTIS MOSS III: I think that
needs to be a couple of things.
One when we say church, you can
have a movement without church,
but I don't think that
there can be a movement
without spirituality.
It doesn't have to
be church-centered,
but there needs to be
the spiritual grounding
recognition that there was
something bigger than us.
Second thing is
that the movement--
and my father could answer
this much better than I could--
was an inclusive
connectivity of people
from a variety of traditions.
So you had the socialist
and you had the sanctified.
You had the
Buddhist, and you had
the Baptists who
were all functioning
under a black spirituality.
That black
spirituality, though it
was under the covering
of the church,
it was beyond the church.
And so there needs
to be a recognition
that what is being
searched for today,
it's not enough to have
a process or a policy
without the routine
behind it, underneath it,
and there needs to be
those ideals, a moral core.
If we're going to
have a real movement,
there has to be some type
of moral and spiritual core,
but it does not
necessarily have to be
out of any particular tradition.
MAURICE CHARLES: I would agree.
Harriet Tubman did not have
a cathedral, a tabernacle.
A mass gathering with choirs
and ushers and deacons
and trustees, and folk managing
parking lots and all of that.
But the church was--
the spirituality was
in Harriet Tubman.
That was a liberating
dynamic, and it was so
overflowing that it touched
other people to the extent
that she was able to lead
people through dangerous waters,
through the woods into
a new land of promise.
So the river she saw
was the Jordan River
that was in her mind
and in her heart.
So with that kind of spirit,
with that kind of moral power,
you can create a movement, and
people will see that movement
and organize other movements.
You can have a demonstration
without spirituality,
but it's short-lived.
You cannot organize
a movement on a lie.
But the German philosopher who
said all lies have short legs.
Eventually, a truth
will track them down.
So you can build a
movement on hate.
But that movement built
on hate creates more hate.
A movement founded on
spirituality, love, and truth
can continue from
generation to generation.
Now we would like to see
maybe a repetition of what
happened in Montgomery.
But the enemy has
already stood at that
and has designed a plan
to keep it from happening.
So we have to be so
creative and so courageous
that we are constantly
beyond above and more
profound than the enemy.
But we can't do that
practicing and using
the tactics of the enemy.
OTIS MOSS, JR: I would
even just add to what
Brother Jackson said earlier.
He quoted Audre Lorde that
you cannot build a liberation
movement with the
master's tools.
So black spirituality allows
Harriet Tubman to be Moses.
The church wants
her to be silent.
Black spirituality allows her
to be dean of prophetic studies,
but the church says you
must sit in the corner
and put a little
doily on your head.
And so there's a
different spirituality
co-opted the black church and
forced it into the movement.
But there were most churches
were fighting against not
wanting to be in the
movement because they
were more concerned with their
membership than ministry.
INTERVIEWER: That's
very helpful.
Thank you.
In 1966, in Martin
Luther King's essay,
"Nonviolence, The
Only Road to Freedom,"
he said the American
racial revolution
has been a revolution to get
in, rather than to overthrow.
Given what both of you have
witnessed in your lifetime,
is getting in enough to
create lasting equality.
MAURICE CHARLES: I think what
when Dr. King said, getting in,
he did not mean getting in the
image and likeness of George
Wallace.
He meant getting in with a
prophetic mission and message.
Therefore, you do not
duplicate the slave master,
nor do you duplicate
the submissive slave.
You get in with a redemptive
commitment, moral power,
and that inness becomes
transformational,
revolutionary, and redemptive.
And ultimately, it
becomes reconciling, not
reconciling with evil
but a reconciliation that
refuses to accept
things as they are,
but build in what ought to be.
INTERVIEWER: OK, probably
one of the only speeches
that many people have
heard of Martin Luther
King's was the "I
Have a Dream" speech.
And in this 1967 interview,
he was asked about that 1963
"I Have a Dream"
speech, especially
in light of the Vietnam War.
And King himself replied,
some of the old optimism
was a little
superficial, and now
it must be tempered
with a valid realism.
Would you care to
comment on that?
And do you agree with that?
And what does that
valid realism look like?
MAURICE CHARLES:
Unfortunately, the world only
knows the "I have a
dream" part of the speech,
but that's not
half of the speech.
It's not one fourth
of the speech.
It's the very end.
It's the climax.
Early on, Dr. King talks
about coming to Washington
to cash a check.
And each time we
present the check,
it comes back
insufficient funds.
All this is in the message.
And then he said,
we refuse to believe
that the bank of
justice is bankrupt.
Before you get to the I have
a dream part of the speech,
it ought to be a requirement
to read the whole speech.
[APPLAUSE]
It was a philosopher.
A philosopher said, a half-truth
distorts the universe,
but to know the truth partially
is to distort the universe.
So to know the speech
partially is to distort it
and misunderstand it but
to get the whole speech--
if you just get the
dessert at the meal,
you will eventually end up with
some very serious deficiencies.
And the body will
suffer, and you'll
have to go to a physician to
help you overcome the dessert.
So we have grabbed the dessert
from Dr. King's speech,
but we have not
gotten the main meal
where the vital organs
and the nutrition
and the body building
and the strength building
and the heart protecting
portion really is.
It ought to be required reading
to read the whole speech.
OTIS MOSS III: Part
of the challenge--
that's a great way
to put it, Mar--
Is we read Dr. King
as fundamentalists.
We read Dr. King as literalists.
We don't understand the double
entendre of black speech
that we speak on several
different levels.
So when people hear
the spirituals,
they thought that black
people were so happy
in their situation.
Down by the riverside,
isn't it nice?
They're talking about,
swing low, sweet chariot.
Really, what I'm talking
about, late at night,
I'm up out of here.
Swing low, sweet chariot,
coming for to carry me home.
You could tell somebody was
going to leave in the evening
when they would say,
down by the riverside.
Well, where you going to go?
Down by the riverside.
What if the dog's chasing you?
Well, just trouble the water.
God's going to
trouble the water.
So you had this double entendre.
The double entendre
is still is also
present in Dr. King's speech.
We miss the radicality
even of the close
that was done improvisationally.
So he says let freedom ring.
When he says let
freedom ring, he
mentions spaces that black
folk were going crazy
when he mentioned it.
He said let freedom
ring, Smoky Mountains.
Smoky Mountains were the
headquarters of the KKK.
Let freedom ring
in Stone Mountain.
That's the head of the
KKK in Stone Mountain.
So rhetorically,
he's saying that we
are going to dismantle
disrupt and destroy
all of the power bases.
I have a dream.
Now everybody else thought
it was a nice little dream.
Meanwhile, folks
from the South said,
we've got to tear
something down up in here.
And so when we understand
the rhetorical level
in that manner.
We all of a sudden read Dr.
King not as a literalist
and a fundamentalist, and part
of the problem with America
is we have too many
fundamentalists who
are attempting to define how
our country should function.
INTERVIEWER: Thank you.
Related question because
it was mentioned earlier
that you participate in the
Black Lives Matter movement,
and you masterfully pulled
together the black Civil Rights
Movement and the Black
Lives Matter movement
when you drew in that anthem,
we going to be all right.
But there are many who marched
with the Black Lives Matter
movement who said
time and again--
and you could find it in when I
was out in Oakland, California.
They would say it.
This is not your grandma's or
your grandfather's civil rights
movement.
What do you make
of that statement?
OTIS MOSS III: It's not.
And when Pop was
marching, it was not
his grandfather's movement.
Every generation marks out
space and should be celebrated.
You do not see it.
The problem is that we want
people to imitate, to copy.
Copies are always
inferior to the original,
and we need to make sure
that people can emulate.
And people can add
to, but we don't
want them to be just like us.
That is oppression.
You've got to
allow people grow--
to grow taller and to
grow wider, to seek
vistas that we would never seek.
And so that is part of, I
think, the insecurity when
we hear someone say
It's not my
grandmother's movement.
But your grandmother
made it possible,
but it's not your
grandmother's movement.
And guess?
What your grandchildren would
say the same thing about BLM,
that is not my grandfather's
or grandmother's movement.
And it shouldn't be.
I would hope that
it would never be.
Otherwise, we are
doing imitation,
and we are being inferior to
what God is calling us to do.
And that is to
create something new.
Liberation should be like jazz.
Everybody should be adding
something new every time
they are appointed
for their own solo.
[APPLAUSE]
MAURICE CHARLES: I
couldn't agree more.
Amen.
However, you ought to remember
that grandmama and grandfather
did build Tuskegee.
They did build Bethune-Cookman.
They did build Morehouse.
They did build a whole
family of AME colleges
and many, many more.
So while you say that's not
your grandma's movement,
do you have the capacity to
save what grandmama passed
on to you?
Do you have the capacity to
extend what you inherited from
and then pass on to the next
generation something that is
great and true and beautiful?
OTIS MOSS III: Why we
need a Nipsey Hussle
framework in terms of taking
resources and putting them
into institutions,
so they survive.
It's not a rejection of.
It's adding to.
And that's what we need to
understand-- not rejection of,
we add to.
Again, it's the jazz song.
What are you going to
contribute to this love supreme?
Are you just going
to repeat, or do you
have something new
to throw down as we
work this groove of liberation?
INTERVIEWER: One final
question or rather,
I should say a favor.
We witness this wonderful
beautiful movement,
this wonderful moving
moment as you passed along
this wonderful gift from
Martin Luther King to your son.
We've got a chapel that has
quite a few young people here.
Can you close us
out by giving them
something to take with them?
What would you pass,
want to give to them?
What would you hand down?
You're both preachers,
so I know you
know how to give a benediction,
and you're probably
going to do it.
MAURICE CHARLES:
There is something
that we must discover
and forever cherish
and if possible pass on--
love, hope, faith,
and a special kind
of legacy of never giving up.
And we must also, I
think, demonstrate
that there are
some things in life
stronger than death,
some things in life
more dangerous than death,
slavery and oppression
worse than death.
I grew up in the
country, and I discovered
that the worst thing you can do
to a bird is not kill the bird,
but clip the bird's wings,
bruise the bird's tongue,
and leave the bird
in such condition
that he or she can
neither seen nor fly.
And you have left that bird in
a state that's worse than death.
Therefore, if there's
going to be fear,
fear that which is worse
than death and grasp
that which is
stronger than death.
Freedom is stronger than death.
Love is stronger than death.
Truth is stronger than death.
And these are the things that
we must pass on from generation
to generation.
One ballot can change
your community.
Incidentally, most people hear
are too young to know anything
about the GI Bill--
the GI Bill that sent
multimillions of people
to school and through school
into a new life and a better
life--
was passed out of the
committee by one vote.
And with that one vote, it was
about to die in the committee.
They needed a vote.
They found a
congressman or senator
somewhere in
Florida on vacation,
got him off vacation through
the rain and the thunder
and lightning and flew
him back to Washington
to vote on the
bill, the GI Bill.
The Veterans
Readjustment Act out
of committee and a
whole middle class
was founded on one
vote, one vote.
And when someone
says, I didn't vote--
I'm taking too long, but it
reminds me of a comic script
that I read 60 years ago
where somebody went to the man
and said, I want to
ask you for a favor.
Said, well, who
did you vote for?
He said, I never
voted for anybody.
The man said, well, you're
going to ask me for a favor,
and you didn't vote?
He said, yes, it had not
been for us nonvoters,
you wouldn't be in office.
And that is a truth
that continues to go.
Nonvoters elected Trump.
[APPLAUSE]
One vote can change a community,
change a program, change a law,
change a Supreme Court
decision, or save a decision
that has already been made.
That was a long answer
to a short question,
and I apologize.
[APPLAUSE]
INTERVIEWER: OK, good
please give our guests
a round of applause.
[APPLAUSE]
