The family posed for an archetypal group shot by the monument: kids in the front, parents in the back, arms draped across shoulders, tooth-revealing smiles. As the stranger-turned-photographer handed the camera back, LCD screen up, the group crowded around it for a quick look before scattering. Only the youngest looking boy lingered, staring up at the towering figure, arms crossed in an unconscious mimic, bright yellow shirt contrasting gray stone.
Pulling a smart phone from his pocket, he aimed upwards, zooming in on Martin Luther King’s face. From a few feet behind, it looked like he was taking a picture of the sky.
Camera in hand, he ran toward the line of granite plaques – each dense with words from iconic MLK quotes – lining the walkway to the monument. Snap; the first quote transformed to a jpeg.
I expected his burst of energy to carry him down the walkway, to catch up with the rest of his family at the monument’s entrance. But he paused long enough for my attention to catch again the contrast of yellow shirt against gray stone. Long enough for him to read the quote.
Then he darted to the adjacent slab. Snap, pause, read, process. With attention focused longer than I’d expected from a pre-teen, he gradually made his way down King’s row of quotes, stopping to read each one.
As I watched, I realized that the boy’s impromptu MLK day tribute had far more focus than I’d ever given to the civil rights leader. Previous MLK holidays had passed with a respectful nod, but lacking the sort of reflection initiated by the etched words carved deeply into those slick granite tiles.
When public figures become national heroes, they become immortalized in a process of recognition that spreads widely across time and space; icons whose presence carries to the next generation, but whose life details and nuances of message become overshadowed and generalized with time. No less honored, but perhaps slightly more misunderstood, the context in which they rose to greatness becomes disconnected from the present-day celebration and recognition.
As I slowly followed the boy in the yellow shirt, reading the granite quotes for myself, I suddenly realized that I’d never even listened to a full Martin Luther King speech.
So I went home and did just that.
And I was deeply struck by the potency of his words and the crescendo of their delivery. The context in which they were written may be long past, separated from the present by new laws and new social norms. But their applicability – their meaning in a new context – remains, perhaps even stronger with age.
“Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence, when it helps us to see the enemy’s point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition.”
