'A drum major for peace': King's legacy becomes a call for justice in Oberlin

OBERLIN — Remembered as a preacher and prophet, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was honored Monday by Oberlin residents. People of all colors and ethnicities, they huddled shoulder to shoulder in the snow under King's image, which is immortalized in brick in a monument on East Vine Street. King was "a drum major for peace and a drum major for justice," said the Rev. A.G. Miller of Oberlin House of the Lord Fellowship. "We wonder what a more just world we would have if he had lived." King was killed by James Earl Ray the evening of April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. Had he lived, he would have turned 91 last week. "We remember that he called us to love, but that love is not merely how we feel," said the Rev. Cheryl Lindsay of Wellington's First Congregational United Church of Christ. "It's who we are, a way of being, so that our actions reflect our attitudes and beliefs, and our beliefs drive what we do." But Lindsay urged those gathered in Oberlin to remember King as he was, not as the sanitized character some have tried to make him. Yes, he was a dreamer who called for nonviolent solutions to society's problems. But King also was a political radical who was not afraid to criticize U.S. economic policy and the war in Vietnam, who took aim at slumlords and wanted to arm the poor with an economic bill of rights. Quoting King, Lindsay said "our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter." "Many of us grew up believing in the ideals of this country, but later became aware — if we had eyes to see and ears to hear — of the disconnect between the promise and the reality," she said. Americans have embraced the words "liberty and justice for all" while accepting liberty and justice only for some, she said. The idea that all people are created equal is enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, although the document did not originally treat people of color and women equally, Lindsay said. "If God embraces every living human being, then so too should we. And if God stands for justice, the question for us is what do we stand for?" She used her platform in Oberlin to call for liberty and justice for those who are at the border seeking asylum, those impacted by a justice system that needs reform, for the Sandra Blands and Treyvon Martins and Tamir Rices of the world, for those seeking equal access to education and economic advancement, women who want to make their own health care decisions and the LGBTQ community. A litany read by the crowd at Oberlin's Martin Luther King Jr. Park called for an end to violence in any form, an end to war and a shift away from materialism. Led by Ivra Jackson, of Rust United Methodist Church, the throng of people held hands and sang the gospel protest anthem "We Shall Overcome" before departing. Contact Jason Hawk at (440) 329-7122 or news@lcnewspapers.com.