Monday, January 19, 2004
Speakers today will once again try to make the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s words on injustice fresh and universal. The difficulty of that task increases with each year that passes since King was assassinated on a Memphis hotel balcony in 1968, but it's crucial that we remain wary of injustice.
Many of our children, regardless of their race or ethnic background, have little or no knowledge of the enormous victories King and his many followers bought with blood, sweat and tears. And even those who lived through those days of hell and hope have seen King's message co-opted by politicians, activists, and marketers from the far left to the far right until the passionate preacher sometimes comes across as some warm, fuzzy being who wasn't all that radical after all.
It's worth noting that King was controversial in his day, both deeply loved and deeply hated, and all too often just ignored by so-called liberals who now look back through rose-colored glasses and profess to have backed him. More than 35 years after King's death, the holiday to honor him raises a thorny question, that of just how hard it is for those on the periphery to spot injustice and name it at the time - and not in the comfort of hindsight.
That has been seen here with the murder case against Darryl Hunt, who will be honored by a local group of black ministers today. A core group of blacks has long been proclaiming this black man's innocence in the 1984 slaying of Deborah Sykes, who was white, but only recently have many whites joined their fight. Some whites still say they believe that Hunt was involved in Sykes' stabbing, so he's no victim of injustice. Hunt, free on bond after more than 18 years in prison, faces a court hearing next month at which his conviction he was given for Sykes' murder could well be overturned.
The Hunt case has been highly publicized. Countless acts of injustice here and nationwide, ranging from the mountainous to the minuscule, daily go unnoticed but by those wronged. Injustice can mean anything from wrongful imprisonment to unequal education opportunities, and victims are black, white and brown. Although King's main fight was for equal rights for blacks, he also knew that injustice was universal. Why else would he have risked the considerable influence he'd gained with President Lyndon Johnson and other powerful whites to speak out against the Vietnam War?
Fighting injustice is more than just the right thing to do. In a rapidly changing world, it's the practical thing to do. Deciding what injustice is can be daunting, but it's a struggle worth making. In his "I Have a Dream" speech that will be quoted today, King gives inspiration: "Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children."