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The Dream Reborn?

By Steve Chase

        This April 4th is the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin
Luther King. I was just 12 when it happened, but I remember vividly the
heartbreaking day when King was shot down in Memphis while supporting
striking garbage workers standing up for their right to form a union.

        I’m sure many TV news programs will mention the anniversary of King's
death on the 4th, and some will even play a short sound bite from
King's famous 1963 “I Have A Dream” speech. A few stations might even
play a clip from the last night of his life, when King gave his speech
about going up to the mountain top and seeing the Promised Land of an
America finally and firmly dedicated to peace, economic justice, racial
equality, and a real grassroots democracy.

        Personally, I’m grateful for any attention paid to King and the
meaning of his activism for us today. One of my favorite stories of
people honoring King is from about twenty years ago. Back in the 1980s,
a local coalition of churches, civic groups, and small business leaders
organized a community organizing campaign in Seattle to get the city
council to rename a street after King. At the time, the street they
chose to rename, which was called the Empire Way, ran right through one
of the city’s predominantly black neighborhoods.

        After a few months of grassroots lobbying, they won their campaign and
got the city council to agree to the name change. After the council’s
vote, the organizers invited community members to a large Baptist
church for a victory celebration. That night Vincent Harding, a
long-time associate of King’s, spoke to the gathered community. He
urged everyone there to fully embrace the deeper symbolism of what they
had just accomplished. As he said to them, “You have now changed the
road you travel from the Empire Way to Martin’s way.”

        Isn’t that exactly the challenge we still face today—changing the road
we travel from the Empire Way to Martin’s Way? As more and more people
are coming to realize, we need to get active again in what King called
“the long and bitter—but beautiful struggle” to move away from an
empire of lies, militarism, illegal wars of aggression, torture,
uncontrolled corporate greed, growing inequality, and the trampling of
the Bill of Rights. We need to get active in the effort to create the
“Beloved Community” that King so often invoked as his deepest,
long-range vision.

        There are many signs that this shift is beginning to happen. One
important indicator of renewed movement is the innovative new coalition
of religious, labor, environmental, student, and civil rights groups
called Green For All. The coalition is hosting a national conference
called “The Dream Reborn” in Memphis on the weekend of April 4-6. The
conference is a very direct example of expanding King’s vision of the
Beloved Community to include the interests of “We the People” and the
planet. As Green For All’s conference invitation says:

It's official: in Memphis from April 4-6, Green For All is bringing
together the practitioners, activists, and communities at the center of
the emerging green-collar economy. Join us on the 40th Anniversary of
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination. This historic event will
celebrate his extraordinary life and present positive solutions from
today's generation of visionary leaders. A bullet killed the dreamer,
but not the dream. Together, we will create ecological solutions to
heal the earth while bringing jobs, justice, wealth and health to all
our communities.

Green For All’s mission statement goes on to say:

Green For All has a simple but ambitious mission: to help build a green
economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty. By advocating for
a national commitment to job training, employment and entrepreneurial
opportunities in the emerging green economy--especially for people from
disadvantaged communities--we fight both poverty and pollution at the
same time. We are committed to securing one billion dollars by 2012 to
create “green pathways out of poverty” for people in the United States,
by greatly expanding federal government and private sector commitments
to “green-collar” jobs.

Now, isn't that a great way to honor King’s memory? I would go to
Memphis, but I’m hosting an activist training session that weekend on
Diversity and Coalition-Building right here in Keene, New Hampshire. We
can’t all go to big national conferences, but we can all contribute to
the movement for a Beloved Community wherever we live.

Steve Chase is the Director of Antioch University New England’s
Environmental Advocacy and Organizing Program and is the editor of the
EAOP’s “Well-Trained Activist” blog.

====================================================

This short essay may be forwarded on to your friends, families, and
colleagues, as well as any listserves or blogs you think might be
interested. For more information, contact:

Steve Chase, Ph.D.
Environmental Advocacy and Organizing Program Director
and PHD Service Project Coordinator
Department of Environmental Studies
Antioch University New England
40 Avon Street, Keene, NH 03431
Steven_Ch...@antiochne.edu; 603-283-2336 (office); 603-357-0718 (fax)

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