Imagine me sitting in the historic Ebenezer Baptist church in Atlanta, Georgia. The pews are empty now; there are no Sunday worshippers at this meeting. An old security guard walks around the church. He seems to be a gate-keeper. He tells me that this holy place is where young King started his ministry.
As I sit in the church, I am alone, "absence in my body; present with the Lord," and thinking of King. I imagine how he might have stood in the pulpit of the Ebenezer Baptist Church. Excerpts from sermons preached by the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. are playing. I observe the setting of this old church that nurtured King in his youth. I imagine the boy preacher King exhorting his ". . . trial sermon" (Baldwin 280).
I hear Dr. Martin Luther King's voice, and it serves to interrogate my conscience; it urges my commitment to civil and human rights; it shapes my memory. I merge myself into the baptismal water of King's voice as it is represented in the inaugural address of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, "Address to the First Montgomery Improvement Association Mass Meeting." I hear him talk about the people with ". . . dark complexions," about how "they will inject new meaning into the veins of history and civilization."
This is how I come to this Monday in which we honor the life of Dr. Martin Luther, King, Jr. I have been baptized Dr. King's sermons, sermons that gave and give public voice to the Jim Crow racism in Montgomery in 1955, a sermon that compelled Rosa Parks, the protagonist of the boycott to say, ". . . it became clear to me that we had found our Moses, and he would surely lead us to the promised land of liberty and justice for all" (A Call to Conscience 4-5).
Today, I honor Dr. King; I yearn that we will each find the peace he desired for our country. Let''s digest Dr. King's vision of "new meaning into the veins of civilization." Let's be the best expression of humanity on this day--right now.
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