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Reaching
the Promised Land
In
his lifetime, Martin Luther King empowered
African-Americans. By his death, he stimulated
Southern, evangelical whites to search their
hearts and embrace all children of God.
Last
week marks the 40th anniversary of Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination. In his
death, King came to symbolize the triumph of
millions of Americans.
The
tragedy represented a watershed not just in
American history but Southern culture. I say
"Southern" because the victory of Civil
Rights meant something very different in the South
than it did to the rest of the country.
Southern culture developed parallel societies for
black and white from 1619 forward. That
parallelism has been captured in many writings.
It touched a nerve when I read "To Kill a
Mockingbird" for the first time two summers
ago. (I was born before the book made my name,
Atticus, so popular with a very likable hero. I
saw the movie as a child, but never had read the
book before). The criss-crossing of race in a
small Southern town in the 1930s rang true to my
observations as a kid in the 1950s and 60s.
Thomas Sowell showed the negative aspects of the
parallel worlds in "Black Rednecks and White
Liberals." Oddly, or ironically, much of what
still separates Black and White Southerners are
social concepts they hold in common but separately
- especially personal pride.
So, the story of Southern history is this tale of
two societies inextricably intertwined and, yet,
separated - until the late 1960s.
Dr. King's genius was to apply the right tactic
(non-violence), with the right reasoning and
rhetoric (Evangelical Christian), at the right
time (after initial legal victories) with the
right ideas (natural law and Christianity).
Violence was the wrong way to win in the South.
Violence would have been crushed by a society that
exhibits a hair-trigger response to threats - and,
frighteningly, absolutely no limits when
responding to threats to family, faith or freedom.
The North of that time would have nodded smugly
and done nothing.
I was a senior at Yorktown High School in
Arlington when Dr. King was killed. The discussion
in the days that followed was less about his
murder and more about the mayhem and riot across
the river. Would the rioters come over? I remember
the menfolks chatting out in the street, John
Marshall Drive, about having their guns cleaned
and ready. (I've written before about being in
D.C. on the first day of rioting. I had a job as
an electrician's helper for the Cherry Blossom
festival and was working about the Washington
Monument. I saw the people rioting on 14th Street
about 2 blocks away from Independence Ave. I was
there when the U.S. Army put a cordon of soldiers
around the White House.) The violence in response
to to the assassination was something to behold.
Conversely, before his death Dr. King created the
situation that the Romans had during Diocletian's
persecution of Christians. Christians, and their
families, were savagely tortured and killed for
the most innocuous reason - refusing to put a few
figures of Roman gods on the household altars that
good Roman citizens had. The punishment far
outweighed the crime. Likewise, meeting men and
women simply marching to vote with dogs, water
cannons, and truncheons was overkill. It struck
the nation as fundamentally wrong.
As, indeed, de jure segregation was wrong.
Slavery, segregation and racism are sins against
God. My gg-grandfather Holland and his brothers
said slavery was a sin when they fought to defend
their sovereign state against an invading Army.
Mr. Lincoln said the great and terrible war was an
atonement for slavery in his Second Inaugural
address.
In my reading of world history no group,
sub-culture or culture, ever went as far, as fast,
as high, as well, with as much dignity, over such
hurdles as black Americans from 1865 to 1965.
None. (The lowland Scots uplifted themselves
mightily from 1700-1760, but their accomplishments
paled in comparison.)
The victory over de jure segregation in the South
was climaxed in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and
the Voting Rights Act of 1965. After that it was
the denouement. The South, meaning the white
majority, submitted to the Rule of Law because
Southerners believe it in their bones. Which
points to another point of Dr. King's gift.
All three branches of government had stood
together for de jure racial segregation. Yet, what
was legal defied Natural Law. It was morally
wrong. Conservatives understand this. Every
individual must decide to obey or resist immoral
laws. Every individual must face the consequences
of obeying or resisting. This is at the root of
the civil war we call our American Revolution. It
is enshrined in the Declaration of Independence.
It is what will empower conservatives to win the
Great U.S. Culture War. It gives the moral
authority for Christians to be citizens, not
subjects of the state. This points to tremendous
unsung victory of Dr. King's words.
The appeal to Christian thought, the Bible and
Jesus, struck white, Southern Christians in the
heart. Once the Rule of Law made them bend a knee
to change their laws, then they had to think about
changing their hearts. The transformation of the
heart that can only be done by the person and
deity of Jesus happened. It has been remarkable.
Most white, Southern Christians believe that
judging others by the content of their character,
not the color of their skin, is the morally
ascendant idea - and they teach it to their
children. Since I came home from Germany 19 years
ago, I have not been to a Virginia wedding, the
most intimate of family affairs, that didn't have
black persons as guests.
In
the rural South blacks and whites had personal
relationships, in an intertwining of their
parallel societies -- relationships that were
lacking throughout much of the rest of the
country. Blacks and whites have always known each
other as human beings. And, despite the sins of
slavery, segregation and racism, most Southern
blacks and whites have cared for persons of the
other race - as people. The black people who wept
at the funerals of my uncle in West Tennessee and
my mother and father in NoVa were crying in their
humanity.
Yet last week there was much beating of the
breasts and bleating about the unfinished work of
Dr. King. The unfinished work is the defeat of
racism. But the sin of racism, we should remind
ourselves, is not restricted to one race only.
Christian
love, agape
love, is the answer. Not laws, judges making up
laws, people whose job is their race. Not the
intolerance of Tolerance. Not the inherent racism
of identity politics. Not the insidious
discrimination of the theology of Diversity.
Nothing that comes from the fundamentally flawed
thinking of Liberal Human Secularism - but perhaps
from the Liberals' emotional humanity - their true
love for others.
Love one another as you love yourselves. That is
the answer. Actually, it is a commandment. And it
is the path to the complete triumph of Civil
Rights in the South.
Sen. Jim Webb talked about being the bridge
between races. He almost could be, but he won't.
When he walked away from evangelical Christianity
he walked away from his family, his clan, and his
connections to blacks.
The final bridge, which could be built in this
century, will have capitalism in the bridge
abutments, and it will be paved with Christianity.
The intermarriage among races - the ultimate
threat of racists - will make the issues of race
moot. That is supreme and joyful irony. Like the
white Southern Anglican churches which leave their
apostate leadership to seek succor and supervision
from Black African Anglican leaders - who are full
of Christ Jesus.
Because the bridge between races in the South, and
for new legal immigrants too, will be capitalism,
family (marriage), and Christianity, the persons
who lead the way in ideas, voices and political
faces to see will be conservatives. Again with the
irony. No one loves his black brothers and sisters
more than the descendants of white Confederates -
because both black and white unite in love and
worship of the sovereign, risen, living Jesus.
Thank you, Dr. King, for following Christ Jesus.
You showed us the way to our promised land here in
the South.
--
April 7, 2008
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