On my birthday, April 4, 1968, Dr. King was assassinated in Memphis. My working class congregation, in somewhat segregated Baltimore, might have been cynical. After all the FBI was tracking him and openly charged him with being communist. But that was not my people’s response. At my meeting that night was with the Ladies’ Aid, they needed to talk. It was somber.
They were shocked that a clergyman would be shot and especially because they recalled his words of non-violence and his obvious call for justice. This is was not a congregation used to engaging in social justice issues or even hearing sermons about it. I had not led them into social engagement. But, martyrdom is persuasive.
Now nearly forty-two years later, what is the heritage of MLK (before it turns into another shopping bonanza)?
His martyrdom cannot be lightly dismissed. The assassinations of the 60’s left a mark on more than one generation. It was so for early Christianity; the church emerged in the blood of the martyrs. We feel it for Bonhoeffer, for Lincoln, for Joan of Arc.