Observing MLK Jr. Day with New Appreciation

I have a new appreciation for MLK Jr. Day this year. The week before New Year’s, Dave and I traveled to Georgia and Alabama, places I’d never been. The destination was a wedding in Montgomery, AL, but if we can when we travel, we add extra time. To take the journey at a more comfortable pace, and also, to take in the sights.

Our first stop in Atlanta: The Martin Luther King, Jr. Historic District. We walked from our hotel and that felt appropriate as MLK used marching as a form of activism. Senator John Lewis said, “When we pray, we move our feet.” Our trip felt like a pilgrimage of sorts.

We visited The King National Historic Park, including the visitor’s center, and we saw where MLK and Coretta are entombed – in the midst of a massive outdoor fountain that has a step down quote inspired by verses in the biblical book of Amos: “We will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.” Across the courtyard stands an outdoor pulpit broadcasting the “I Have a Dream” speech on loop and I love the symbolism that his voice will never again be silenced.

We saw the house in which MLK was born and Ebenezer Baptist Church, where he, his father, and his grandfather all served as pastors. The church has had only five senior pastors in 136 years, an impressive show of commitment when the average pastor stays at a church less than 10 years.

Back at the hotel that night, we watched the movie Selma, about the march MLK led from Selma to Montgomery, AL. The next morning, we drove from Atlanta to Selma.

Again, we found the church where activists gathered to plan the march. And then we returned to the Edmund Pettus Bridge. We’d driven over it on our way into town, but it felt necessary to walk it.

The bridge is named for a member of the KKK. According to the visitor’s center, there has been discussion about renaming the bridge, yet those who marched want the name to remain. They marched for voting rights denied to them by people like Pettus. The name itself symbolizes the significance of the march.

It’s an easy walk up and over a slight rise in the center of the bridge, yet as we arrived at the crest, I used my imagination to conjure the police, many of them mounted on horseback, all with billy clubs or other weapons, ready to injure or kill those who would march. A quote in the visitor’s center said the activists felt like they were “marching into hell,” and I felt humbled by their determination to keep going.

As we returned, we met a man whose uncle had marched with MLK and bore a scar on his face from a billy club beating that day. His uncle marched again with President Obama on the 50th anniversary. He and his wife are teachers, and all year they raise money so she can take children from Selma to Atlanta to learn more about Dr. King. We change the future when we tell the truth to our children.

And then we drove to Montgomery, where the wedding would be held the next day. Dave had downloaded an audio walking tour of downtown Montgomery. We each put in an air pod and followed instructions: “Turn left here and walk two blocks. Stop on the corner of Montgomery St.” and so on, guiding us through town and through history.

We saw the Winter Building where the telegram was sent issuing orders to fire on Fort Sumter, the shot that began the Civil War. The building is on the corner of a large intersection and in the middle is a fantastic fountain. If you didn’t know, you wouldn’t know, yet that fountain sits on the site of the old slave auction block, smack in the city center and directly in line with the Capitol building.

At that same intersection stands a statue of Rosa Parks on the site where she boarded the bus and refused to move to the back. We walked to the Montgomery Bus Station, famous for the boycott and also for the Freedom Riders. We found Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church where MLK pastored from 1954-1960, and we ended our walk at the state capitol building where the march from Selma ended.

The morning before the wedding we visited The Legacy Museum, sponsored by the Equal Justice Initiative. EJI was founded by Bryan Stevenson, a public interest lawyer who has dedicated his life to serving the poor, the incarcerated, and the condemned. His book, Just Mercy, should be mandatory reading for every American.

The museum is one of the best I’ve ever experienced. Using art, signage, and multimedia, it tells a whole story: from Africa and the Atlantic Slave Trade to the Intercontinental Slave Trade, to laws and and lynchings, to mass incarceration as a direct result of and current form of slavery.

I took a break to use the restroom and, as I emerged, a Black custodian was waiting to do some cleaning. He asked how I was doing and I recognized it as more than a polite greeting. I looked him in the eyes. “Honestly, I’m feeling a little overwhelmed, but appropriately so…” He nodded his head. “Yeah, you be gentle with yourself today, you hear?” I walked away feeling seen, but also, like the roles should have been reversed. How does it feel to work as a Black man in a service job in that museum?

The wedding was the occasion, but the trip became about so much more than a wedding. Travel is good for so many reasons, among them for setting what we know of history into its geographical location. For allowing us to experience with our own senses the places where history happened.