Mitt Romney would have us believe that he marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. Or was it his father George who marched? Maybe it happened in some virtual reality, but evidence is lacking for the real event.
I, however, can truthfully claim to have marched with the celebrated civil rights leader. It happened more than 45 years ago.
On the day before the march King met with the governor and then addressed a joint session of the Massachusetts legislature, reminding his audience that segregation was practiced not only in the South. Without referring to Boston by name, he stressed “school imbalance” and “de facto segregation” — issues that Boston struggles with to this day.
On the day of the march the Boston Globe headline read, “‘We Shall Overcome’ Dr. King Leads 22,000 in March.” It was a cool, partly cloudy Friday as Boston’s “first gigantic civil rights march got underway,” the Globe reported. Singing freedom songs, thousands walked from Roxbury to Boston Common, where Dr. King joined them. [I'm indebted to massmoments.org for information in this and the previous paragraph.]
I was 1/22,000 of the crowd and did in fact walk to the Common from Roxbury, where I served as pastor of the Dudley Street Baptist Church. A colleague, Pastor Michael Haynes of the Twelfth Baptist Church just up the street (the church where King had been an associate pastor while pursuing his Ph.D. at Boston University), had challenged some of us less inclined to do so to join the march. He looked right at me when he said it. I knew he had me in mind.
Lots of reasons occurred to me for not doing it. After all, my congregation was mostly white except for the children in the neighborhood who came to Sunday school. I felt my participation might be upsetting to the pillars of the church. I’d never done anything like taking part in some kind of protest.
But after wrestling with the issue I decided to walk the walk. Before it happened I wrote in the church newsletter that I was going to do it and spelled out my reasons. Since the protest centered largely on the situation in Boston Public Schools, I would march as a parent soon to enroll a child in school. I would march as a citizen seeking better conditions for all children. And I would march as a Christian leader expressing commitment to my neighbors.
Arriving with the great throng at historic Boston Common (the same spot on which evangelist George Whitefield preached a sermon on the Prodigal Son to 23,000 people in 1740), I stood under a tree to hear King’s message. He was standing so far from me I could barely see him, but his sonorous voice carried across the entire Boston Common, conveying the hope that inequality and segregation would be overcome and ultimately justice would prevail.
Forty-five years later I cannot recall what King actually said. To say otherwise would be to top Romney’s gift for recollection of events long past. What mattered most was what taking an oh-so-hesitant stand and stepping forward did to a white kid from Cheyenne, Wyoming. I shall always be grateful to Michael Haynes for challenging me to act out the Gospel. Taking a walk can change your life.
As for my worries about what members of my congregation might say or do, no one ever said a word about it.