Stride Toward Freedom. Dr. Martin Luther King
What if the dark depths of prejudice
Hadn't spat a bullet, bloodstained
The single garment of destiny.
What had Dr.King lived
Counselor to schizophrenic America
Great beacon light of hope
Through ominous clouds of inferiority
Through the deep fog of misunderstanding
Moving towards the goal of justice
with calm reasonableness and wise restraint.
What if King still led
Veterans of creative suffering
Still encouraged the disinherited children of God
to sit at lunch counters
Unafraid of the word "tension"
Make bridal suites of jail cells
And love the perpetrators of the unjust system
Deluging "I-it" relationships
In his mighty stream.
Would he succumb to the tranquilising drug of gradualism,
Acquiesce and thus become as evil as the oppressor
His legacy an endless reign of meaningless chaos
A desolate night of bitterness.
Would he be a victim of interposition and nullification
In the storms of persecution
And flames of withering injustice
Such that his cup of endurance could not overflow.
What would he dramatise that it can no longer be ignored
What just and unjust laws
How long the conscience of the oppressor sleep deprived
By the legitimate and unavoidable impatience
Of non-violent gadflies,
Roused with not threats, but facts of history,
This indescribably important destiny.
To what noble heights
Could he have risen, an American Solon
With the natural medicines of air and light
Moving men from mental ruts
Unshackling brothers smothering in the airtight cage of poverty
Opening funtown to coloured children
This extremist
Working as if it were a possibility next morning
To lift the inescapable network of mutuality
To the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood
And in winning freedom
so appeal to your heart and conscience
that he won you in the process.
"Possibly the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremeists"Letter from Birmingham City Jail, Dr. Martin Luther King
*The words in italics are those of Dr. Martin Luther King
