On Saturday, January 13, 2018, I
received one of the greatest honors of my life when I was invited to speak at
the 33rd Annual Freedom Fund Banquet of the NAACP. In addition to honoring me as the speaker,
the NAACP also presented me with a Shoaf-Crump Award for Community
Service.
A number of people have asked me for
a copy of my speech. I don’t always use
a manuscript and when I do, what I say is never exactly what is on the
paper. The stories that I share of
growing up in Alabama are stories that I share from my heart and
experience. I have tried to write down
the essence of the story so the reader will at least have an idea of what I was
talking about.
A manuscript cannot begin to do
justice to the excitement, energy, and enthusiasm that filled the large YMCA
Banquet facility that night. For the
first time ever the banquet was sold out.
When Bishop Green prayed so eloquently and powerfully for the Lord to
send his Spirit—He did! It was electric
and dynamic. The response I received
from God’s people who were filled with His Spirit that night was amazing.
Here is a copy of my speech:
To Elder Gloria Cross and the officers of
the NAACP, to Mayor Clark and all the elected officials who join us here
tonight, to Banquet Chair Lula Hairston and all the members of the Banquet
Committee, to members of NAACP who are gathered here, to members of the clergy,
I want you to know that from the moment Elder Cross called me months ago and
extended this gracious invitation to be your speaker tonight, you have bestowed
upon me one of the greatest honors of my life.
I am deeply humbled and eternally grateful.
My friend Rosa Terry shared an
overly generous and gracious introduction for which I was deeply humbled. I wish my mother could have heard it because
she would have believed it! Rosa is always
so wonderful to work with.
I acknowledged the members of my
church who were in attendance. I was
grateful for their presence. Also, to my
son, Ray Nance, my daughter-in-law Sang, and my wonderful wife Joyce of 40
years who is always by my side and I could not do the things I do without her.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do
that.
Beloved, let us love one another, for
love is of God.
It started with a pilgrimage. Ninety-four years ago a Baptist minister
named Michael went on a life-changing pilgrimage with a group of ministers to
the Holy Land, where they walked in the footsteps of Jesus. On the way home they went to Germany where
they attended the 1934 meeting of the Baptist World Alliance.
They took a side trip to the city of
Wittenberg. There they walked in the
footsteps of the great reformer of the 16th century, Martin
Luther. Michael was so deeply moved, so
inspired, so convicted by the example of the great reformer who stood before
the authorities and the governmental and the ecclesiastical powers and when
told he must recant his views he responded.
“My soul is captive to the Word of God.
Here I stand, I can do no other!”
This experience had such a powerful
impact on Michael, that when he returned home he changed his name and the name
of his 5 year old son from Michael to Martin Luther. He was no longer Rev. Michael King, Sr, but
now he was the Rev. Martin Luther King, Sr. and his son, his son Martin Luther
King, Jr. became the greatest reformer of the 20th Century.
In a small town in Alabama in 1962 a
little 8 year old boy rode his bicycle down to the L&N railroad depot to
meet the afternoon train as he often did.
This afternoon the street behind the depot was packed with hundreds,
maybe thousands of people. That little
boy watched as a short man in a blue suit stood up on a platform and as he
started to speak people shouted and cheered and whistled. But his words were chilling and caustic. His words were vicious and vitriolic, they
were full of anger and hatred, words that were evil and malicious, words that
incited the crowd, striking the deepest recesses of their souls and appealing
to their darkest fears and insecurities---
As the people screamed and whistled
and stomped their feet and pounded their fists, the little boy was scared. He witnessed a mob mentality. He had never seen people so angry, never seen
people that vindictive, never seen people so full of hatred. He could see the darkness enveloping him; he
could feel the hatred pounding him.
He got on his bicycle and rode away
as fast he could, as he did he could hear that short man who was running for
governor, a man named George Corey Wallace shouting: “Segregation today, Segregation tomorrow,
Segregation forever!”
I was that little boy.
I rode my bicycle back to my house. We had a nice brick house on Main
Street. Behind my house we had a big
back yard with two huge pecan trees, with a field where we played ball, and
then there was a path and that path led through a lots of trees and bushes, a
path that led to a different world, a path that I would often take, to the
African American community in my hometown.
My topic this evening is “The other
side of the path”
I would go down that path to see my
dear Bess, Mabell Johnson. I remember
one hot summer day that Bess and I were sitting in the back yard shucking
corn. Bess was doing most all the
shucking, and I was listening to Bess talk about life. My mother had gone to visit somebody who had
a new baby and Bess told me that people had it all mixed up. She said we should be rejoicing when someone
dies because all of the pain, the heartache, the tribulations and suffering
were finally over. That’s when we
should rejoice. She said, when a baby is
born we should weep—because that child is born into a world of injustice, and
trouble, and heartache, problems and pain.
I
didn’t know what Bess was talking about. Not then, anyway. There were a lot of
things I didn’t realize back then. I never thought about the fact that Bess was
black and I was white. I never pondered
the inequity of the fact that she lived on side of the path and I lived on the
other. Even though we said she was like a member of our family, I know now
that wasn’t true. She didn’t sit down to eat with us like a family member
would. Bess didn’t go to the movies with us, she didn’t go to church with
us. I didn’t realize that it wouldn’t
have been “proper.” Or in some cases illegal. Even though my parents
would never tolerate any racist remarks, Bess was still “the help.”
She never graduated from high school
because she left school to work for my grandmother. Bess couldn’t walk down
Main Street. She couldn’t eat in the same restaurants, drink out of the
same water fountain or even ride in the same seats on the bus as white people.
I was welcomed at Bess’s church, but there was a man who carried a gun to our
church to make sure Bess and any other person of color knew that they were not
welcomed there. I remember the well-worn path behind her house that led to the
outhouse. We had two indoor bathrooms at our house before she even had
one.
In spite of all of these
differences, Bess loved me and cared for me like I was her own. And in
many ways, I was. I loved Bess and looked up to her. She had a way
of putting everything in the right perspective. She taught me so much
about life, about forgiveness, and about faith. I remember walking down to the
other side of the path to visit Bess at her little house. There were
three pictures hanging on the wall: Jesus, John F. Kennedy, and Martin
Luther King, Jr. I didn’t understand why she had those three pictures,
but I do now. Three men who believed in justice. Three men who believed in equality.
Three men who gave her hope.
I remember a hot August day in 1963 and
Bess and I were watching a special on my grandmother’s TV. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, the man who was
named for the great reformer, was speaking from the steps of the Lincoln
Memorial. My small heart soared with his eloquent words of justice and
equality. I remember so well Dr. King saying, “I have a dream that my four little
children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the
color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
I
wanted his dream to become my dream. I wanted to live in a world where all
the paths led to equality and not disparity, where justice rolled down waters
and righteousness like a mighty stream. I
wanted to live in a nation that would live out its creed; We hold these truths
to be self-evident that all men are created equal. And one day we will be free at last, free at
last. I remember Bess watching, but not saying much.
It was like she knew more trouble was to come.
And that trouble came just three weeks later on a Sunday morning. I got up and put on my little suit and went
to Sunday school, where we sang Jesus loves the little children. Four of those precious children that Jesus
loved were also getting ready for church that day not far from me. Denise, Addie Mae, Carol and Cynthia had
beautiful dresses that they wore to Sunday School where their lesson was titled
the Love that Forgives. In the middle of
their Sunday School lesson a bomb exploded at the 16th Street
Baptist Church taking the lives of those 4 little girls.
In
1956, when Dr. King was pastor in Montgomery, he was at a meeting one night and
someone threw a bomb into his house that could have easily killed his wife and
baby. Dr. King arrived at the house
there was a huge crowd ready to burn Montgomery to the ground. But Dr. King spoke words of calm and
forgiveness. He said, We must love our
enemies. We must meet hate with love.
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only
light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do
that."
One
day I went to the other side of the path to play with my good friends Herman
and James. We always had the best time playing
together.
One
day we decided to go to town---they couldn’t walk down Main Street. It wasn’t
proper. Store owner grabbed me and shook me and shouted
in my face, “Little Howell, what are you doing hanging around with those little
N boys. Wait until I tell your father—he will straighten you out!”
Barber
Shop---the barber bragged about caring a gun to church to keep the N out, since
he had a straight razor at the back of my neck, I just listened, but I could
see the darkness enveloping me, I could feel the hatred pounding me. I knew it wasn’t right---We welcomed
missionaries in our church who took the Gospel to Africa, but a man had a gun
to keep African-American citizens out of our church—that is not right.
Freedom
of Choice—In 1964 in an effort to circumvent the federal order to desegregate
the schools, George Wallace instituted a “freedom of choice” program where each
student could decide where he or she wanted to attend school. According to historical reports, only a
handful of black students requested a white school and no white students wanted
to attend a black school. But that was
wrong.
There
was one.
The
day they handed us the paper I started thinking about where I wanted to go to
school the next year. It made perfect
sense to me to attend the “Training School” that was black. My friends, Herman and James, went there,
Bess was next door, it was a short walk and I would not have to ride the
bus. To me it made perfect sense.
There
is one minor thing I should mention. I
forgot to get my mother to sign the form.
The next day I turned it in, signing her name on it. When I got home that afternoon my mother was
shaken—but not because of what I had done.
She had received a phone call that day from the principal asking her if
she had lost her everlasting mind!
“What do you mean sending your son that that N school!” he screamed.
He can’t get an education there!”
He went on to chew her out in royal fashion and told her there was no
way I was going to attend that N school.
(She did tell me I should have told her what I planned to do.)
April
9, 1968 was the only time I ever saw Bess cry.
Sitting in front of the TV at my grandmother’s house—watching Dr. King’s
funeral. I watched Bess use her apron to
wipe her tears and I thought about those 3 pictures, three men who fought for
justice, freedom, all three dead---and I watched Bess wipe the tears than ran
down her face. And then she walked home
to the other side of the path.
Our
high school eventually integrated but we did not have an issue, primarily
because we won the state basketball championship. Everybody was happy!
One
week before my HS graduation, the short man who spoke words of evil and
darkness was shot, he was paralyzed and in pain the rest of his life.
I
graduated from HS and went to college.
James graduated from HS and went to Vietnam.
Working
in a church in LA (lower Alabama) A lady
told me one day she wanted to talk to me about her father. I did not know she was George Wallace’s
daughter. She said the man who shouted
those words about segregation and the man who spoke such evil was not her
father. Deep down inside he is a good man,
a loving and forgiving man, she told me.
George Wallace actually ran for
governor in 1958 with the endorsement of the NAACP. Then he sold his soul to the devil. She told me about that Sunday in 1963 when
the little girls had been killed. About
how deeply that affected him—but he did change. The next year he stood in the schoolhouse
door to prevent a black student from enrolling in the University of Alabama.
Words are nothing more than words,
until they are incarnated into action.
But
then he was shot, then he was in pain, then he was suffering. And he found his soul that he had lost years
before for political gain.
Suffering
from his assassination attempt, George Wallace spent every Sunday going to
churches asking for forgiveness. 1982 he
was elected Gov of the State of Alabama for the final time. The racists, the segregationists, the haters,
the bigots, had all turned against him.
But George Wallace received over 90% of the black vote and was elected
Governor for a fourth term.
In 1995 on the 30th
anniversary of the Selma march, he welcomed the marchers to Montgomery with
open arms, and one by one as the marchers came and they hugged the former Gov.
he whispered, please forgive me, please forgive me, I love you.
Darkness cannot drive out
darkness, only light can do that. Hate
cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.
A number of years ago I went to DC
for a conference. I got up early in the
morning and went to the Lincoln Memorial.
I stood on the very place where Dr. King with power and eloquence
articulated his dream for all to hear.
Then I walked down to the Vietnam
Memorial. I stood there, all alone,
looking at the 58,000 names on the wall.
My first thought was, but by the grace of God. . . my name could have easily been on that
wall. If I had not gone to college after
high school graduation, I would have been drafted. But then I realized that it wasn’t just the
grace of God that kept my name off of that wall, it was because I lived on the
other side of the path. You see, my
friend James, his name is on that wall, because he lived on the other side of
the path. James could not afford to go
to college, he went to Vietnam. He could
not walk down Main Street in his hometown but he could give his life for his
county. He died for his country because
he lived on the other side of the path.
As I was standing there I recalled
the words of Dr. King, “ In the
end we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our
friends.”
I made a commitment that day—a commitment to God, a
commitment to justice and righteousness and a commitment to my friend James, that
I will not be silent. I will not be
silent until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty
stream.
I thought
about that frightening scene when I was 8, I cannot be silent.
I thought of Bess wiping her tears with her
apron and I knew I could not be silent.
I thought of that school principal who asked
my mother if she had lost her mind, and I cannot be silent.
I thought of that usher who carried a gun
to church to keep people out of the house of God and I cannot be silent.
Darkness cannot drive out
darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do
that.
George Wallace’s daughter remained quiet, in
the background, until one day she was in Atlanta with her young son and she
took him to the King Center, he was looking a pictures of the racial unrest of
the 60s. He saw pictures of men and
women being beaten by police, of dogs and fire hoses turned on innocent
citizens and he looked at his mother and asked, “Why did Papa do those
things”
She
looked at her son and said, “Papa was wrong.
But we must work to make it right.”
Last year, much publicized 50th anniversary of the march,
when the marchers reached Montgomery, George Wallace’s daughter and there
holding hands with MLK’s daughter Bernice to welcome the marchers.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness,
only light can do that. Hate cannot
drive out hate, only love can do that.
Dear friends as long as there is
injustice, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” We cannot be silent.
As long as we hear words from our
elected leaders that are chilling and caustic, vicious and vitriolic: words
full of anger and hatred, words that are evil and malicious—we cannot be
silent.
Let us open our mouths and speak
up!
We cannot be silent.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do
that.
Beloved, let us love one another, for
love is of God.
Here is the report of the event in the Dispatch:
