80.

[reflections from the mountaintop]

i have been finished with my graduate studies for nearly eight months now. during my time at Boston University, Martin Luther King's alma mater, i got very cozy with the legacy of the man. i spent many, many, many slow hours in the corner of a cafe with cold coffee, tapping my pen, surveying his essays, speeches, and sermons. i read reflections on his life by other greats like Brother Cornel West or theologian James Cone. spent my nights at lectures where his sister shared stories of his life and progressive professors from fancy private universities disarmed us with provocative witticism and intellect (one particularly eloquent wordsmith, Dr. Walter Earl Fluker stays with me). when you study a public figure in that type of environment you are encouraged to demystify the legacy, separate the myth from the man (i.e. excavate his character for truths, not well-known, oft-cited caricature of the icon). so i challenged myself to do just that - to depart from the dream he had, and move past the image of him standing on the mountaintop, and to step away from streets of Selma and the jail in Birmingham.

I suppose I expected my studies to lead to greater, more humanistic snapshot, or to lead me to some deeper-seated truths that legends forget and memory stuffs under the seat-cushions. i did, in fact, discover treasures and secrets that our collective consciousness urges us to lock up without a key, but overwhelmingly my relationship with this national treasure brought to light again and again his strengths in face of our very human weakness, his ability to flex his moral muscles as we as experienced a collective dystrophy of those same muscles, and an ever-burning flame of virtue that exists within the miraculous moments of revolution.

I remembered all of these today and revisited my studies. and this post I made last February about two of our greatest.

[of Malcolm and Martin who are all too often pitted against one another in this nation's memory]

Brother Cornell West reminded me today that both believed that the unexamined life is not worth living.

he also reminded me that the only reason that they became the men they did was because somebody loved them. elijah muhammad loved Malcolm Little and Martin had a mama's love and a community's support. before they were mountains of memories they were men just like any other. it is a mistake to underestimate the power of love. for these american heroes it constituted the wind at their backs and their courage in the face of an angry, sometimes violent, American public.

love is a powerful force, a life-changing, world-shifting, motivating energy.

it is folly to forget the power of such forces and to stop believing in their miracles.

...i am reminded today that our history is bound by so much passion and energy. it only seems fair to give our all to keep the momentum going.