During the last minutes of Martin Luther King Jr.’s life on April 4, 1968, he was in the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, room 306. That evening, Dr. King and his associates were planning to go to dinner at the home of a local clergyman.
While Ralph Abernathy finished knotting his tie in the hotel room, Dr. King stepped out onto the balcony right off the room. Dr. King looked over the railing into the parking lot below where Andrew Young, Jesse Jackson, and Ben Branch stood. Young and Jackson bantered and laughed with King as everyone waited for Abernathy.
Then Dr. King called down to Ben Branch, the piano player, standing in the parking lot. He said: “Ben, would you play Precious Lord for me at the meeting tonight?” Ben Branch replied: “Dr. King, you know I always play Precious Lord for you!” King replied: “I know Ben, but could you play it especially pretty for me tonight?” Branch responded: “You know I will Doctor, you know I will.”
Then the shot rang out. The assassin’s bullet hit Dr. King and he went down, on the balcony.
Andrew Young and Ralph Abernathy reached Dr. King at about the same time and they took him in their arms and cradled him. Young reportedly wailed: “It’s over, it’s all over.” But Ralph Abernathy rebuked him and said: “Don’t say that, it’s not over, it will never be over.”
Now, 58 years later, these words by Andrew Young and Ralph Abernathy raise a critical question. Was Andrew Young right to say “It is over….?” Or was Ralph Abernathy right, when he said no, “It is not over?”
I think Andrew Young was right if we pride ourselves on how far we have come as a nation in the struggle to achieve racial justice without acknowledging how far we still have to go.
Andrew Young was right if we think that celebrating Black history one month out of 12 every year is acceptable in this country; and if we fail to recognize that Black history is American History.
Andrew Young was right if we believe that combating poverty, militarism, and racism are separate movements that can be isolated one from another.
But I think that Ralph Abernathy was also right to say, “It’s not over…”
He is right if we welcome immigrants, refugees, and undocumented workers to our communities and greet them with compassion, love, and generosity, protect them from ICE, shelter and support them.
Ralph Abernathy was right if we are strong allies and protect our Jewish and Muslim siblings when they are targets of suspicion, prejudice, discrimination, and violence.
Ralph Abernathy was right if we practice radically inclusive love and actively affirm people of all races, abilities, sexual orientations and gender identities, ages, and faiths in our homes, our communities, our work places, our places of worship, and our schools.
Ralph Abernathy was right if we dare to live the most unpatriotic commandment in the Hebrew Scriptures: “Love thy enemies.”
Who, then, has history proved to be right?
Maybe both are true.
When people believe that we have triumphed over racism in this country and grow comfortable, complacent, and inactive, Andy Young is proven right. But when people are informed, outraged, and active, Ralph Abernathy is proven right.
Let us make Ralph Abernathy’s words ring true. In our fight for racial justice in this beautiful but broken country, let us be steadfast and agitated, refocused and renewed, determined, brave, and unwavering.
“It is not over, it will never be over.” Let us make those words true today, tomorrow, the next day, and in all the days that follow. Our struggle to confront and dismantle racism in this country and achieve full racial equity is not over.
Our work began many years ago and continues today. Dr. King put our feet on the right path. Together, we move forward in the months and years that lie ahead to stir up good trouble and advance the cause of peace, fairness, and racial justice.
Ralph Abernathy spoke prophetic words. They are echoed in a line in Millard Lampell and Earl Robinson’s ballad cantata “The Lonesome Train,” recalling Lincoln’s funeral train going from Washington D.C. to Springfield, Illinois:
Freedom’s a thing that has no ending,
It needs to be cared for; it needs defending.
The Rev. Andrea Ayvazian, Ministerial Team, Alden Baptist Church, Springfield, is also founder and director of the Sojourner Truth School for Social Change Leadership.