Obama At The Pulpit: Learning From Martin Luther King’s Generation
Last year, President Obama preached a sermon at Washington DC’s historic Vermont Avenue Baptist Church. He addressed “the hard winter” that Martin Luther King led America through and reflected on how those principles can give us hope for our struggles today.
So, yes, we’re passing through a hard winter. It’s the hardest in some time. But let’s always remember that, as a people, the American people, we’ve weathered some hard winters before. This country was founded during some harsh winters. The fishermen, the laborers, the craftsmen who made camp at Valley Forge — they weathered a hard winter. The slaves and the freedmen who rode an underground railroad, seeking the light of justice under the cover of night — they weathered a hard winter. The seamstress whose feet were tired, the pastor whose voice echoes through the ages — they weathered some hard winters. It was for them, as it is for us, difficult, in the dead of winter, to sometimes see spring coming. They, too, sometimes felt their hopes deflate. And yet, each season, the frost melts, the cold recedes, the sun reappears. So it was for earlier generations and so it will be for us.
What we need to do is to just ask what lessons we can learn from those earlier generations about how they sustained themselves during those hard winters, how they persevered and prevailed. Let us in this Joshua generation learn how that Moses generation overcame.
Let me offer a few thoughts on this. First and foremost, they did so by remaining firm in their resolve. Despite being threatened by sniper fire or planted bombs, by shoving and punching and spitting and angry stares, they adhered to that sweet spirit of resistance, the principles of nonviolence that had accounted for their success.
Second, they understood that as much as our government and our political parties had betrayed them in the past — as much as our nation itself had betrayed its own ideals — government, if aligned with the interests of its people, can be — and must be — a force for good. So they stayed on the Justice Department. They went into the courts. They pressured Congress, they pressured their President. They didn’t give up on this country. They didn’t give up on government. They didn’t somehow say government was the problem; they said, we’re going to change government, we’re going to make it better. Imperfect as it was, they continued to believe in the promise of democracy; in America’s constant ability to remake itself, to perfect this union.
Third, our predecessors were never so consumed with theoretical debates that they couldn’t see progress when it came. Sometimes I get a little frustrated when folks just don’t want to see that even if we don’t get everything, we’re getting something. (Applause.) King understood that the desegregation of the Armed Forces didn’t end the civil rights movement, because black and white soldiers still couldn’t sit together at the same lunch counter when they came home. But he still insisted on the rightness of desegregating the Armed Forces. That was a good first step — even as he called for more. He didn’t suggest that somehow by the signing of the Civil Rights that somehow all discrimination would end. But he also didn’t think that we shouldn’t sign the Civil Rights Act because it hasn’t solved every problem. Let’s take a victory, he said, and then keep on marching. Forward steps, large and small, were recognized for what they were — which was progress.
Fourth, at the core of King’s success was an appeal to conscience that touched hearts and opened minds, a commitment to universal ideals — of freedom, of justice, of equality — that spoke to all people, not just some people. For King understood that without broad support, any movement for civil rights could not be sustained. That’s why he marched with the white auto worker in Detroit. That’s why he linked arm with the Mexican farm worker in California, and united people of all colors in the noble quest for freedom.
Of course, King overcame in other ways as well. He remained strategically focused on gaining ground — his eyes on the prize constantly — understanding that change would not be easy, understand that change wouldn’t come overnight, understanding that there would be setbacks and false starts along the way, but understanding, as he said in 1956, that “we can walk and never get weary, because we know there is a great camp meeting in the promised land of freedom and justice.”
