Dr. Lant passed away April 16, 2023
America’s newest national monument debuts, dedicated to The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. What we must never forget about the man and his resounding message.
By Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author’s program note. Only one song would do for this of all articles, the iconic anthem of the American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968), “We Shall Overcome.”
It was not so much a song as a declaration of purpose and profound resolve, one that did not merely state and celebrate the destination… but constituted a collective pledge, renewed with each singing, that adherents were united in mind, body and purpose; for they would need all that, and more, as they moved towards the inspiring goal of equality, where people who were divided by tradition, at last forged unity from divisiveness.
“We Shall Overcome” is a protest song. The lyrics are derived from the refrain of a gospel song by Charles Albert Tindley. It was first published in 1947 in the People’s Song Bulletin, a publication of People’s Songs, an organization of which Pete Seeger was the director. The song became associated with the Civil Rights Movement from 1959, when Guy Carawan launched it as the most famous, motivating, and ultimately elegiac song of the movement; their soaring battle hymn. It was what the oppressed people, their adherents and their resolute opponents heard when fire hoses were turned on them, dogs ordered to snarl and bite, and truncheons beat down upon the pilgrims sore beset.
There were many heroes in those days, but not yet a Hero who would rise above the others and become the very heartbeat of the movement, its public face and voice to the world.
That man had not yet emerged, but his first important moment was about to take place… in Birmingham, Alabama, where from a prison cell he was about to instruct his followers, his opponents, and a world oppressed by a panoply of civil rights abuses in what a man who believes in justice must do.
Consider this man now, on the threshold of history. He is mortal, frail, fragile, with profound doubts, hesitations and an acute consciousness of his inadequacies. He, like so many Heroes hoped that he would not have to be what he was in process of becoming; he hoped others would shoulder a substantial part of the burden. But History is infallible. It saw, as the individual did not, that this man could rise above his own demons and limitations… to become what the movement must have to succeed: a moral compass, a higher purpose, a complete humanity, and the ability to be beaten down, bitten, spat on, bruised, and beaten again — and yet love his tormenters, direct the anger of his people towards benign purpose, and always get up… showing that violence, any violence, could not stop him… and so would not stop the movement either. This was sublime! This was what the man was on this planet to do… though he did not entirely know this yet.
And so in April, 1963 he went to the most bigoted city in America, likely the most segregated, the least hospitable to its black inhabitants, the city that taught the nation how to insult, condescend, intimidate, and, all too often, to kill people of color for being born and being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was the capital of every finely turned, exquisite form of segregation and haters of every kind looked first to Birmingham as the citadel of their embittered beliefs, the fortress for immemorial hate that every black citizen knew only too well.
And so Martin Luther King, Jr. went to Birmingham as he went to so many fateful destinations… because it was necessary, because it was the right thing to do, because the people needed succor and relief and he had that to give and to spare.
The Birmingham event was a planned non-violent protest conducted by the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights and King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference against racial segregation by Birmingham’s city government and downtown retailers. He was among the first arrested… the first taken harshly, insistently to his “suite” in Birmingham City Jail. It had to be a shock, jolting, demeaning, insulting, humiliating for this man who so loved life and life’s pleasures, more accustomed to the Word of God than the execrations of man.
But he had something to say, something which he had clearly thought about for some time, because he wrote without hesitation its profound message of import to all the world and its downtrodden.
King responds to eight white Alabama clergyman who opposed his visit to Birmingham.
On April 12, 1963 eight local clergymen offered Dr. King the benefit of their erudition and desire to defuse the anxious situation and rescue the imperiled status quo. These leaders of the church did what so many such have done over the ages. Bereft of courage, with cloudy vision, and a desire to safeguard their own positions and pulpits, they wrote Dr. King to leave… to let things take their course… to stop the violence and be patient… it would be, they were quite clear, so much better so. They didn’t have to say it would be better for them…
Dr. King was bruised in body and spirit as he arrived at the city jail. He must have wondered how he came there and whether against so much hatred he could achieve his goal. He must have wondered, too, at how many people already relied upon him… and of the terrible sacrifices he might ask them to make, even unto death itself. At such a time, a man, any man, might so wonder and reflect.
But then he read the sentiments of these local clergymen about his mission to Birmingham, criticizing it as “unwise and untimely”. He read these words, and he knew at once what he must do… and so the words of high portent and unmistakable conviction came swiftly.
He started his response in the way any disagreeing minister might have addressed a colleague, professionally, directly, pointedly. But this was not destined to be such a letter between Christian clergy of differing views. He had a higher purpose, and it was soon apparent. He meant to remind (if they knew), to teach (if they didn’t) his fellow clerics a fundamental precept of their ministries. He aimed to show them, once, for all, clearly, that justice was their business, the very heart of their business and he meant his message to be stern, unequivocal, a bell summoning all to recognition of their profound duties.
First he reminded these clergymen of the South, with their regional blindness, that the issue was not Southern, but American — “Anyone who lives in the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds”. In short, what was happening in Birmingham and what made the demonstration necessary was not merely a Birmingham problem or a Southern problem… it was an American problem (not to mention by quick extension a universal problem of long suffering humanity.)
And so he built his case for action now point by irrefutable point, making the considered advice of the local clergy seem like what it was, a self-serving argument keeping the blacks in their place, patient in the face of intimidation, outrage, and a white wrath ready to explode into legally sanctioned outrages against black citizens at any time.
Thus did King find the voice of moral certainty, the voice which freed so many and which resulted in time in the sacrifice of his very life, taken by those who came to know him as the dreaded prophet of black deliverance, and so necessary to destroy.
“Injustice,” he trumpeted, “anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” The haters, the entrenched segregationists, the racial purists, the purveyors of inequitable laws and legal terrorism and abuse, for all that they wrote volumes in support of their unsustainable opinions never uttered a phrase so powerful as this… a phrase that showed just where right and a better future lay. He signed his soon-to-be-world- famous “Letter from Birmingham City Jail”, “Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood” and had it smuggled out in a toothpaste tube to avoid the jail’s guards.
Now this man has morphed into mythology with a grandiose civic temple for his observances. The architect Chinese artist Lei Yixin has been criticized for his work. No matter. Any architect’s work and vision would have found censure in the eyes of the jealous others who were not selected. But the truth is, this monument will soon be amongst the most popular, for all that the great monuments to Jefferson, Lincoln, and Franklin D. Roosevelt are near at hand.
“Now,” borrowing Edward Stanton’s words on Lincoln, King “belongs to the ages.” Here his greatest challenge will be in so inspiring those who follow in his footsteps, that his timeless message remains timely and is not forgotten by all those so beholden to the man who is now enshrined amidst among the worthies of the Great Republic his life’s work so enhanced.
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About The Author
http://jeffreylantarticles.com/jeffreylant/americas-newest-national-monument-debuts-dedicated-to-the-reverend-doctor-martin-luther-king-jr-what-we-must-never-forget-about-the-man-and-his-resounding-message/
Mandela! Dead at 95, December 5, 2013. An Appreciation.
By Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author’s program note. One evening several years ago I was dining in London with two of the nicest (and most charming) people I know, Lord and Lady Mackay of Clashfern. Born the son of a railway signalman, after a lifetime of zealous study and application of the law, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher appointed him Lord Chancellor of the realm, the equivalent of Chief Justice; a position he honored from 1987-1997.
During the course of the kind of delightful evening only the British know how to arrange, everything perfect, nothing ostentatious and the best table talk on Earth, I asked Lady Mackay who was the most impressive person she had met in all their travels. Her answer was swift and sure: “Nelson Mandela”.
She talked, as all discerning people talk, of Mandela’s megawatt smile, of how he looked her in the eyes, of how she felt his full attention whilst he was speaking with her, and how she felt his serenity and peace. Then the question that the world has always wanted answered: how after 27 years in the bleakest of prisons had he managed not only to preserve his sanity and the best of what makes us human, but to emerge with love, real love, in his heart, not corrosive anger, hatred, and rancor. Mirabile dictu, these were absent, no sign at all of his Via Dolorosa. And this, to her, to me, to all, was as a miracle.
And because he personified the very essence of optimism and hope, I have selected such a song for the music to accompany this article. Go now to any search engine and find “Free Nelson Mandela”. It is a song written by Jerry Dammers and released in 1984 as a protest against Mandela’s imprisonment. Unlike most protest songs, this track with lead vocals by Stan Campbell is upbeat and celebratory… the perfect sound for a man who knew the power of hope and therewith changed the world, one smile at a time, love his constant guide, staff, policy, and credo.
Born an aristocrat.
Rolihlahla Dalibhunga Mandela was born July 18, 1918 in Mvezo, a village in South Africa’s Transkei region, on the southeast coast. His father, Henry Mgadla Mandela, was village chief and a member of the royal house of the Thembu tribe. He died when Mandela was just 9, when he became a ward of the Paramount Chief Dalinyebo. Nosekeni Fanny Mandela, his mother, was one of his father’s four wives.
At age 7 he was given a new first name by his schoolteacher, in honor of Horatio (Lord) Nelson, the most famous British seaman, whose victory over the combined French and Spanish fleets in 1805 at Cape Trafalgar accelerated British colonization of Africa, a matter pertinent to Mandela’s future.
Privilege.
Like so many revolutionaries, Mandela’s early years were privileged years. He was educated at Methodist schools and attended the University College of Fort Hare. He was an avid sportsman, ran cross-country and boxed. His hero was heavy weight champion Joe Louis.
He was a good student, liked school and was popular. People knew even then that he was special, great things sure to come. Such a paragon needs must be married and so his legal guardian arranged a suitable match; Mandela disagreed and so became the run-away groom, supporting himself as a law clerk, earning a bachelor’s degree from the University of South Africa in 1942.
“One thousand slights, a thousand indignities.”
Ever since St. Paul entered the revelation business on his celebrated journey to Damascus, people have scrutinized important people for the moment they experienced an epiphany, destiny, fate, kismet. Albert Schweitzer, for instance, had this moment on the Ogooue’ river in French Equatorial Africa; (now Gabon.) “Reverence for life.”
But Mandela recalled no such epochal, defining experience, the moment he crossed the Rubicon. Instead his politicization was a thing of years, decades, pinpricks subtle, humiliating, and never ending.
It all added up to this, “Kaffir man, you are black. Kaffir man you are God’s garbage. Kaffir man look down, look down, for that is where you must stay.” And upon this fundamental basis a system for total control was evolved, white against black, forever apart, adamantly divided one from the other, the white minority to rule forever, the black majority to be ruled and submit, without cavil or complaint if possible, with brute force if not.
The name of this system was Apartheid, “separateness” in the Afrikaans language of the ruling elite, and the system, conceived and legally implemented from 1948 in hate, fear, bitterness and woe was as close to hell as mortal man could conceive and develop.
Apartheid touched everyone and everything. It crushed the oppressed… it corrupted the oppressor. No one under Apartheid was free, not oppressed, not oppressor, for the system ruined all. It was a deal with the Devil, and the Devil took his toll, every long minute of every bitter day.
At last the Devil grasped at Nelson Mandela… but the Devil soon knew this man would not submit. And so even the Devil was confounded by the invidious system. No one was immune and untouched but one person refused to accept the intolerable, though that would have been the easy way, the way of least resistance.
That person was Nelson Mandela, and we cherish him not because he recognized a moral evil. Many did, including brave members of the elite who made their aversion clear. It is not merely because he acted against this pernicious system, many did that, too. It is rather that he learned the essential task of embracing the oppressor who condemned them both to a system of despair and destruction yet rose above, to love in response to every calculated insult, every vulgar and demeaning humiliation, every affliction, every action intended to devalue, diminish, and degrade.
To each, to all, in every situation, he returned love… thereby redeeming a great people from the sin they could not free themselves from alone. Members of the elite though they were, responsible for every outrage, they more than ever needed a man of destiny to save them…. and Nelson Mandela was that man, though there was nothing inevitable about his rise to eminence and political importance. Instead, as he was insulted as a black man over and over again he advanced in his determination to right this wrong.
As he was humiliated as a black man over and over, so he vowed to do his part to overturn the egregious apparatus of state-sponsored racism. Instead, as he was demeaned in every aspect of his humanity, so he was adamant that this must be stopped here, now, forever… and he said he would do his part, though death be his portion.
Is it any wonder these great lines from “Julius Caesar” were his favorite? “Cowards die many times before their deaths/The valiant never taste of death but once.” And he was the most valiant of men. However as we all know, discretion is the better part of valor… and discretion is a matter of experience and education. The more he knew, the more he observed, the more he considered, the more he moved towards his ultimate goal — freedom– something far more important than mere retaliation and revenge.
This all took time, pains, focus, commitment and resilience. It was never overnight, never easy, never the work of a single day, and it took the faith that moves mountains. Thus Mandela, so often in prison from 1956 to1990, created himself, examined himself, crafted himself and moved towards becoming the man he needed to be and all the people of South Africa needed him to be for the great work at hand.
>From Communist to non-violence, essential elements in his “Long Walk to Freedom”.
Like so many black men around the world, Mandela was at first determined to use any means to topple a system that systematically devalued him and his kind. If the transition could be peaceful well and good. If not… then let the chips fall where they may. Freedom might well need weapons, and these weapons might have to be used.
This was the Great Fear of the white minority and many blacks. And it was very real, a thing of apprehension and profound anxieties, a Reign of Terror far greater and more bloody than Robespierre’s. The possibility of such a bloodbath was always present and who can doubt that if Mandela had continued to advocate violence as he did in his early career the “beloved country” would have cried indeed? “If this man wasn’t there, the whole country would have gone up in flames.” This is the considered opinion of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the man who won the Nobel Peace Prize with Mandela in 1993.
Balance.
Here was the problem Mandela faced. Particularly young black men pressed him for action now, armed action if necessary, war a l’outrance .They demanded “results”, damn the consequences. Following this bloody course would have activated the full power of a powerful regime with catastrophic consequences for all. This was the policy of Apocalypse, and if it had been implemented South Africa would have drowned in its own blood.
He knew the undeniable attraction of this adamant position. After all, he had once advocated this line himself. But as he matured he knew he had to take a very different course than turning the land he loved into a battlefield. He needed to stay focused on the big picture, the policy that would save the nation, not destroy it; ensure freedom to all, not deny it to anyone.
To ensure this end meant keeping the hotheads in line while using their undeniable power to press for constructive resolution; to use their outrage to bring constructive interaction, to bring forth harmony from rancor. This was difficult, often frustrating, perplexing, baffling. And it demanded statecraft of the highest level; statecraft perfected in a 7 feet square prison cell he occupied at a maximum-security facility, Robben Island, near Cape Town. He spent 18 years there before being transferred to a less isolated prison on the mainland.
“You have no idea of the cruelty of man against man until you have been in a South African prison with white warders and black prisoners.” Under these circumstances Mandela could have perfected hatred and bile, becoming the merciless Angel of Retribution. The world would have understood this, but Mandela chose a different course, the harder course, the course of freedom, liberty… and a united South Africa, a destination almost unimaginable in the acrid years after 1948… the years when the regime denied Mandela sun glasses. He suffered permanent eye damage; but it was the ruling authorities who were blind.
Thus, simultaneously he had to let the members of the elite know that they had to make compromises to appease his followers, who could not be expected to be patient forever. A declared Communist at first, this orientation estranged the United States, which continued to support the rigidly anti-Communist regime, that being far more important in Washington, D.C. than civil rights. It was an understandable position, but only exacerbated an already confounding situation.
Through this maze of bewildering possibilities, many contradictory, often repugnant to a nose-holding degree, Mandela had not only to maneuver… but he had to grow. The fate of millions depended on it. And bit by bit the world came to know it, nowhere more than in Boston, Massachusetts, a city which revived its revolutionary heritage by supporting Mandela’s.
There on June 23, 1990, I took advantage of the opportunity to see and hear the last of the great racial liberators, Mahatma Gandhi, The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., and Mandela himself. All three were men of privilege and learning who put their comfortable lives on the line for something of worldwide impact and importance; men who had to master themselves before they dared to ask others to follow.
Of course, I had to see the last of these titans and so along with over a quarter million other souls, many radiant, all of good cheer, I trekked to the Hatch Shell on the Esplanade alongside the Charles River. Here Mandela, just released from prison, made his first remarks to America and its iconic City on a Hill. He said little, told us nothing new. He didn’t have to.
He was the man who had cleansed a great nation of its debilitating burden, thereby saving that nation and the lives of thousands; thus even the tiniest tot knew something special was happening here and remembered. Then he smiled at the delirious crowd, danced on stage to the delight of all, thence speeding on his way to immortality.
At that moment every person in that undulating sea of humanity felt better, happy, glad to be reassured that a single person could make the world a better place and do it without revenge, retribution, retaliation, or the slaughter of a single person, black or white. That is the legacy of Nelson Mandela, and its relevance will never dim or tarnish. We must all see to that…
About the Author
http://jeffreylantarticles.com/jeffreylant/mandela-dead-at-95-december-5-2013-an-appreciation/
http://writerssecrets.com/2016/02/02/maya-angelou-lashes-out-on-paraphrase-at-the-new-martin-luther-king-jr-memorial-and-shes-right/
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It was a great honor to work with Dr. Jeffrey Lant during his tenure as CEO of Worldprofit. This
article was given to Daniel Fischer while Dr. Jeffrey Lant was at Worldprofit.
Yours In Success,
Daniel Fischer Dano Enterprises
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