Companions on the Journey

Imperial County Jail - Fr. Louie Vitale
Martin Luther King, Jr., Day - January 21, 2008 - 40 years later

a reflection from prison by Louie Vitale: February 2008
Two years ago at this time, I was in a Georgia jail. I could not help
but remember having lived in southern Georgia (Valdosta) while
training with the U.S. Air Force in 1956. It was very shocking to me
to see the overt signs of racism. A close friend in the squadron
could not meet us in town-he was denied access and subject to
segregation in Valdosta. He was an outstanding officer and effective
crew member. I can still remember the day we took off in two
different planes to practice intercepts on each other. We were
notified that the other crew was not available. I did notice a plume
of dark black smoke. Yes, our 2 companions had crashed on take off. I
never have been able to get over his zeal to do his all to defend our
country and yet he and his family were denied housing, restaurant
seats, even directed to “colored” bathrooms and water fountains. He
also had a flyer placed on his windshield-”Vote for Lester Maddox,”
with an axe handle in hand, Maddox’s logo.

Yes, we have come a long way since that era - but have Dr. King’s
deeper dreams been realized? The local Imperial Valley newspaper
today did look back 40 years and asked “have we really achieved the
depths of his vision, especially in the latter days of his life: true
equality for all peoples?” In 2006, the racial inequities were
obvious in the Georgia jails that I was in. The vast majority of
people that are incarcerated are African Americans. Racial bias is
patent. Sentences given take away the lives of the youth. This year
in Florence, Arizona, where some 3,000 of 3,700 prisoners were
Mexican also raised many questions-was the segregation of southern
Georgia any match for the wall on the border?

Martin Luther King shared with Cesar Chavez the vision and goal of a
multi-racial and multi-cultural society where power, responsibility,
visions and burdens are shared. Echoing Dorothy Day, founder of the
Catholic Worker, “It’s that filthy, rotten system.” King challenged a
capitalism that brings about great inequalities. The gap between the
very rich and the poor is extreme, the poor fight our wars-giving
their lives and devastating the lives and lands of the poor of the
world.

Yes, after the idyllic “I Have a Dream” speech whose remembering on
this holiday evokes an image of children of all races walking hand in
hand to live lives together-of opportunity and abundance, later King
led his marches through the cities of the North. There the fire hoses
were unfurled, the dogs unleashed. I was in Chicago the summer of
1965 as a graduate student, living with the friars on the South Side.
We went to Allen Chapel and listened to Dr. King preach about “Dives
and Lazarus” - a message of great compassion. It was the ingredient
for a system that this prophet advocated to replace runaway
capitalism. But on Monday as they marched in the streets, King
testified that the streets were meaner than in the South-fire hoses,
impaled marchers on trees, walls and asphalt. Dogs were unleashed on
seasoned bearers of nonviolence. Children were under attack, and even
Catholic sisters in their religious habits, accompanying the
protestors, claimed to have bricks thrown at them by their former
parochial school students.

Yes, Dr. King faced a tougher world after the great Peoples’ March in
1963, as he reached hard-core impoverished workers in the South and
in the North. He realized we needed a “revolution of values,” based
on compassion and justice for all. Yes, he planned to go back to the
U.S. Capitol, but not for “a beautiful day” to join hands, but also
for an expression of truth. Yes, a million activists who would stay
until justice was won.

But something even deeper had radically affected King. The Vietnam
War was fought by the poor of the ghettoes against the poor of Asia.
For King it was a turning moment - a “teshuva” - he had an urgent
message to bear to our world.

We are aware that we are trapped in the same unrestrained madness
with its staggering impact on our country and the terrible
devastation of Afghanistan and Iraq. Some estimates are they have
lost as high as a million lives-largely children, and the devastation
of 2 countries not seen since the war of which King spoke at
Riverside Church in New York City in 1967, a year before his death.
His words were truly prophetic at that time - perhaps he can once
again challenge us today. [Ed. Note: King’s speech at Riverside
Church is entitled Declaration of Independence from the War
in Vietnam, and all quotes in the remaining paragraphs are from that
speech. For the full text of this speech visit this site:
<http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0115-13.htm>http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0115-13.htm

]

I recall the first time I listened to this memorable speech how
startling it struck me. As I reread it this week, I realize that very
few proper noun changes would update his message for today’s pulpit.
Prophetic voices never die, and still bear the force to change
history. Martin had just one year to the day to bear the prophet’s
mantle. But his prophetic nonviolence continues to impact the world.
The assassin’s bullet found its way to stifle his actions of
nonviolence and silence his denouncement of the war. But we cannot
afford to allow that bullet to stifle his prophecy for our times.

Dr. King shocked many when he spoke out so forcefully and cogently
against the Vietnam War. Even his own colleagues felt he could have a
negative impact on the Civil Rights campaigns. But Martin had come to
see that poverty was a great part of injustice - and saw that the
Vietnam War had a major impact on the poor.

Further, he realized that the bombing was a crucifixion to the poor
of Vietnam-in fact he insisted that war inevitably impacts the poor
of the world. He stated, “So I was increasingly compelled to see the
war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.”

King was a disciple of Gandhi. He was a student and an activist
practitioner of nonviolence. But he found it very hard at that time
to speak out against the violence advocated by activists in our own
country. After experiencing the ghettos of the North and trying to
convince those who were using violence to attempt to bring about
social change to use nonviolent means, he noticed that “They asked if
our own nation wasn’t using massive violence to solve its problems,
to bring about changes it wantedŠI knew I could never again raise my
voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettoes without
having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in
the world today, my own government.”

To those who may think King is exaggerating this sentiment of
returning soldiers, I can attest to having this discussion in the Las
Vegas ghetto with very disturbed returning Vietnam Vets unable to get
jobs, finding impoverished segregated communities who were planning
to react as they had in ‘Nam.’

King continues, “Now, it should be incandescently clear that no one
who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can
ignore the present war. If America’s soul becomes totally poisoned,
part of the autopsy must read ‘Vietnam.’ It can never be saved so
long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world overŠSo far we
may have killed a million of them, mostly childrenŠNow there is
little left to build on, save bitterness. Soon the only solid
physical foundations remaining will be found at our military basesŠWe
must speak for them and raise the questions they cannot raiseŠHere is
the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence, when it
helps us to see the enemy’s point of viewŠ”

“Somehow this madness must cease. I speak as a child of GodŠI speak
as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the
path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own
nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to
stop must be ours.”

“Meanwhile, we in the churches and synagogues have a continuing task
while we urge our government to disengage itself from a disgraceful
commitment. We must be prepared to match actions with words by
seeking out every creative means of protest possible. Every man of
humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his
convictions, but we must all protest.”

“Now let us begin. Now let us re-dedicate ourselves to the long and
bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world. This is the calling
of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response.
Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle
is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life
militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest
regrets? Or will there be another message, of longing, of hope, of
solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause,
whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it
otherwise we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.”

Unfortunately Martin Luther King Jr.’s share of that human history
had but a year to go. There is strong evidence of a clear connection
between King’s campaign against the Vietnam War, as well as his
avowal to fill the Capitol with determined activists on behalf of the
poor of America (joined by anti-war activists) not just to hold hands
and sing but in true nonviolence to immobilize “business as usual”
until clear actions were taken to address effectively the war on
poverty, to bring the troops home to their communities and restore
the country so devastated by a grossly debilitating and immoral war.

As we celebrate Black History Month during February, I always recall
which month by remembering Dick Gregory telling black students in Las
Vegas: “We really didn’t expect to get a month with 31 days, but 28!”
Well, this year we get the extra leap day-surely as we did on the
National King Day, we will recall King’s ‘63 Dream speech. Could we
take our extra 24 hours to read, perhaps communally, his ‘67 vision?
Can we catch his prophetic spirit deeper, making our own turning
(”teshuva”), put our lives on the line - challenge ourselves to end
the massive killing at home and abroad, stop business as usual and
ride his dream to a “peaceable new heavens” (”no nukes in space”) and
a new earth: no wars anywhere, ever, true peace and sharing of the
abundance for all-Pastor Martin truly believed the source of all
creation would one day open the way, we must choose life-of all and
for all-

The night before he was assassinated, 40 years ago on April 3, 1968,
King spoke these prophetic words: “It is no longer a choice between
violence and nonviolence. It is nonviolence or nonexistence.” Yes, as
the proliferation of nuclear weapons spreads far beyond King had
imagined we must all resist nuclear war in whatever ways we are able.
But ever the man of faith and vision, Pastor Martin insisted to hope
is “to refuse to give up!”

We are created to live in a peaceful world-may King’s prophetic
spirit continue to point the way!

Your brother,
Louie