Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. I still cannot listen to Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech without tears. What incredible bravery, statesmanship, wisdom, prophecy and oratory skill. And he was all of 34 years old.
My dad had his own business at the time, with offices in Dallas and Houston. About once a month he would go to Houston for the week to take care of things. Sometimes my family would ride the train down to Houston towards the end of the week. We would stay somewhere, usually the Ramada Inn on Allen Parkway, and swim and eat silver dollar pancakes and shop. Then we would drive back to Dallas with Dad on Sunday.
It was probably that same summer, the summer of 1963. For once we didn't stay at the Ramada Inn, but instead at the very glitzy Sheraton downtown. I had never seen such a fancy place. The swimming pool was on the roof, on something like the 12th or 13th floor probably. You were out there swimming, surrounded by skyscrapers and the noises of the city. It was the most glamorous thing I had ever done - and might indeed still be. (then again, there was the Shamrock Hilton in Houston, but I digress...)
That weekend, we had just gotten ourselves to the pool. It was glorious. I guess we had been there about ten minutes when another family arrived to swim. All of a sudden my dad said, "Let's go." What? We had just gotten there. Now there was even a child my age for me to play with. But then I heard it in his voice: "Let's GO." So we did. I also heard in his voice that there were no questions to be asked. So we moved on with life, hoping that there would be another occasion to hit the pool before we had to leave.
It occurred to me some years later that the family who joined us at the pool that day was African American. To his great credit, my father used no other adjectives to describe the family, and he never talked about the reason he wanted us to leave. He was a man of his age, a Texan, trying to do the right thing as he knew it. Even so, I still regret that he was not able to allow us to do things differently.
If Martin were alive today, he would be 84. If Dad were alive today, he would be 91. Martin has been gone for 45 years; Dad has been gone for 39. I remember Dad telling us later in the sixties that Martin was just a "troublemaker." I wonder how his perspective might have changed over time - and I pray that it would have.
Fifty years later, we have an African American president. My daughter's best friend is biracial. I have close friends who are African American, Asian American and Native American. There's a lot being written about the fact that we are living in a "post-racial world." Unfortunately, I don't believe that's the case. Even though we have definitely come a long way we all still struggle with racism, whether it is spoken or not. One of my closest friends, with whom I celebrated the night that Obama was first elected President, says that he still looks at our President and still sees a "black man" before he sees anything else.
How well do we have to know someone before race differences are no longer an issue? Or gender differences, or differences in sexuality? "Social location" defines the basis for our theology and worldview. Will my social location - female, anglo, native Texan, Presbyterian - always define who I am to others? Or is Martin correct, that some day all of that stuff will be secondary at best? Perhaps it begins to happen when the focus is less upon my own uniqueness, or the uniqueness and differences of the other, and more upon the One who deliberately created us to be diverse.
Do not remember the former things,
or consider the things of old.
I am about to do a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert.
The wild animals will honor me,
the jackals and the ostriches;
for I give water in the wilderness,
rivers in the desert,
to give drink to my chosen people,
the people whom I formed for myself
so that they might declare my praise.
--- Isaiah 43:18-21
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