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Table of Contents
Fall
Leadership Conference
District
President’s Column
Qiyamah’s
Corner
Ministerial
Matters
Lifespan
REflections
Accepting Allies
Chalice Lighters
General Assembly
TJD Board
Retreat
Don't Sleep on
the Dream
District
Calendar
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Don’t Sleep on the Dream
On August 22-23, 2003, thousands gathered in Washington, D.C., to honor the man who marched on D.C. 40 years ago and delivered the landmark "I Have a Dream" speech - The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I was present. I drove in the middle of the night to Durham to catch a 6 a.m. charter bus, coordinated by the Southern Anti-racism Network. I arrived early to the parking lot of North Carolina Central University, turned off my car and fell fast asleep. I was awakened by a university security officer tapping on my window. I told him that I had driven from Charlotte, and that I was with the bus that would go on to D.C. in the morning. He shook his head and said, "That's a long way to come, shoot, and you still have a long way to go." "Yes, sir," I said.
I tried to be eloquent, articulate when a reporter from a network TV news channel asked why I'd come that morning to board the bus, but the words of the security officer would have served the truth well and in fewer words. It is simply this: Because we have come a long way, and shoot, we still have a long way to go.
I boarded the bus with white and Black, young and old(er). There was a woman who had boarded a similar bus 40 years ago as a child and was now bringing her children. As the single-file line slowly disappeared into the bus, a man from the back of the line solemnly surveyed the quiet, predominately black college at dusk, "They're sleeping comfortably in their beds when they should be out here with us," he said
I sat next to a young sister who works with a non-profit for prison reform. We got into a lively conversation about the prison industrial complex, the "modern day lynching of black men." That one in four black men will be in some facet of the criminal "justice system," the majority of which for non-violent crimes. She said, "We can't continue to let them drain our communities of its resources," as her son, decked out from head to toe in an army fatigue short set, noisily made bang! bang! bang! sounds with his GI Joe action figure. The irony was crowned when a brother on the bus pinned him with a button that said: "Money for education, not war."
Somehow this madness must cease. That's what Dr. King said, "Somehow this madness must cease," calling for an end to war.
"This is not a commemoration, this is a demonstration." This is what Dr. King's son, MLK, III said under the hot sun on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial the weekend before last. Speaker after speaker - Coretta Scott King, John Lewis, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson - reminded us of all the reasons Dr. King's dream is still absolutely relevant to our lives today. I won't take this moment to list the pieces of this mountain that we have to climb together (i.e., racism, poverty, state violence and militarism, etc). We know the mountain well.
On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., I listened to a minister pour libations and invoke the name of our ancestors in an African language. We pour libation to invite the presence of the ancestors to join us, and to bless our endeavors. I have come for the passing of the torch. This is why I had come, I'd come for my inheritance.
You see, in this country, we have inherited this mountain, but we have also inherited the knowledge, the power and the blessing to reach the mountaintop. Don't sleep on the dream. Awaken the spirits. We have sacred work ahead of us. Kaleema Haidera Nur. Presente! Unitarian Universalists. Presente!
By Kaleema Haidera Nur
UU Church of Charlotte, NC |