307 – The march I cannot ignore

This reader remembers the poignant words of Martin Luther King and is determined to march this Saturday as it is his only way to fight injustice.

COMMENT

Christopher Ling

307 (March 7), another protest, another march….

I am going to get personal.

I recall my very first “march” in Sydney where I was pursuing my Master’s degree, in 1989, a week after the infamous June Fourth incident in Tiananmen Square, China. The march was very peaceful in the presence of the local police and I, twenty-five years old then, walked carefree …

709 (July 9), another march in 2011 in Malaysia, ended with my first taste of tear gas and being pursued by the police. I was a proud daddy and I marched for the sake of my four daughters.

Another march took place much earlier, in America in the sixties. Historians tell of Martin Luther King’s tense encounter with Chicago’s tough mayor, Richard J. Daley. Supporters were feeling betrayed, having believed they had reached an understanding with Daley that would permit them to march through Chicago with police protection in exchange for calling off a boycott. But Daley had double-crossed them by obtaining a court order banning further marches. As was his style, King sat silent through most of the contentious meeting, letting others air their views. The mood was hostile, and it looked as though the meeting would break apart in bitterness. King finally spoke up, with what one onlooker described as a “grand and quiet and careful and calming eloquence”.

“Let me say that if you are tired of demonstrations, I am tired of demonstrating. I am tired of the threat of death. I want to live, I don’t want to be a martyr. And there are moments when I doubt if I am going to make it through. I am tired of getting hit, tired of being beaten, tired of going to jail. But the important thing is not how tired I am; the important thing is to get rid of the conditions that lead us to march.

“Now gentlemen, you know we don’t have much. We don’t have much money. We don’t really have much education, and we don’t have political power. We have only our bodies and you are asking us to give up the one thing that we have when you say, ‘Don’t march.’”

~ from David Garrow’s Bearing the Cross

King’s speech changed the mood of the meeting, and ultimately led to a new agreement with Mayor Daley.

Now back to 307, another march, just a few days away. What shall I do? What must I do? What will I do?

I realise, after peeling away layer after layer of the matter leading to 307, what’s left at the core is the root cause – injustice.

I realise, after looking at the photographs of the victim’s family – his wife and children; truth crushed to earth the second time.

I get my answer from King’s words, when he addressed those scarred and weary marchers from the steps when the famous march from Selma that finally made it to the state capital:

“I know that you are asking today, ‘How long will it take?’ I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because truth pressed to earth will rise again.

How long? Not long, because no lie can live forever.

How long? Not long, because you still reap what you sow.

How long? Not long, because the arm of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice …”

Therefore 307 is a march I cannot afford to ignore.

Christopher Ling is an FMT reader.