Dr. W.D. White
I recently received an invi
tation to attend the Novem
ber 5 dedication of the new
Civil Rights Memorial in
Montgomery, Alabama.
Pressing duties here made it
impossible for me to go, but
I felt a deep sense of loss in
not being a part of that his
toric moment.
"Amongst some six
thousand persons who
attended, the
program included
Rosa Parks..."
Amongst some six thou
sand persons who attended,
the program included Rosa
Parks, the working class
Black woman who refused
to give up her seat in the
front of a public bus
(thereby setting off the
Montgomery bus boycott,
one of the first highly visible
Black successes); Martin
Luther King, III (whose fa
ther organized and led the
and who shajjed
the Civil Rights Movement
with his ideas and his per
sonality); Julian Bond, the
first Black elected to the
Georgia Legislature (who
lectured at St. Andrews, and
spent the night in my home
very week the Legisla-
''^re in Georgia refused to
him). Also in atten-
“nce were the families and
fiends of the 40 martyrs
jmembered in the Memo-
The dedication bristled
Jf' substantial and sym-
^ c meaning. Less than
° D'ocks away, the Con
federate flag flew over the
Alabama Statehouse, Con
federate President Jefferson
Davis' statue still standing
outside. Just down the
street as if silently observing
stood the Dexter Avenue
Baptist Church, from which
Martin Luther King, Jr. as
Pastor had launched and
directed the boycott that
was so crucial an early vic
tory in the Movement. In
such a setting, it was impos
sible to forget that this dedi
cation was taking place in
the heart of the old Confed
eracy, in the citadel of resis
tance to racial change.
The event marked a giant
step toward the realization
of King's prediction "the
South will someday dis
cover who its real heroes
are." Who in the fifties or
sixties would have dreamed
that standing alongside the
Confederate heroes hal
lowed in the memory of the
South would be the Martyrs
of the Civil Rights Move
ment-Black and white,
young and old, female and
male, clergy and secular,
from the North and from the
South-all standing in the
shadow of the old Confeder
ate capitol tself in 1989?
Beyond the profound
symbolic suggestions of the
location of the Monument in
a meditative garden space,
surrounded by these sym
bols of the Old South and its
"peculiar institution," is the
imaginative vision of the
Memorial itself. The Memo
rial has two parts. A circular
black granite table, with a
ithin layer of fresh water
flowing over it, lists the
names of the martyrs and
the dates of their death.
Behind this table is a curved,
9 foot high black grarute
wall, itself covered con
stantly by a thin sheet of
flowing water. Inscribed on
this wall are the words of the
prophet, often quoted by
King, that he and other
Blacks will not be satisfied
"until justice rolls down like
waters and righteousness
like a mighty stream."
But the consummate gen
ius of the memorial rests in
the fact that every person
who views it—who reads the
names of the martyrs, or
who reads the words of the
Hebrew prophet—everyone
who approaches the Monu
ment is pulled into it. For
the sheet of water over the
"The South will
someday discover who
its real heroes
are...
black granite makes a mir
ror, and every observer sees
reflected in the orial
her own face. Observers
cease to be outsiders look
ing at something "historical"
or impersonal. Suddenly
the art itself pulls us into the
moment, and we cannot
resist the realization that "L
am implicated in all this —
'This is my history"-"This is
MY moral burden of racial
injustice."
Persons who have gone
into that gravelike setting in
Washington to see the
names of those killed in
Vietnam-arranged chrono
logically along that seem
ingly endless wall, with its
flowers and other remem-
berances given to individ
ual names —will recognize
at once a kinship between
the Civil Rights Martyrs
Memorial and the Vietnam
Memorial. What a pro
found commentary on war,
and on something pecu
liarly American, that Viet
nam Memorial is-like no
other memorial in the his
tory of humankind! Impos
sible to imagine capturing
the tragedy of Vietnam
more succintly or more
poignantly than in this de
sign created by Maya Lin,
daughter of Chinese imi-
grants and at the time a stu
dent at Yale University.
Impossible to imagine more
graphically pulling us into
personal involvement in
America's history of racism
than in standing before that
black granite stone which,
with the water flowing over
its surface, shows us our
own face! Is it mere coinci
dence that both of these
works of artistic genius
were given to us by a young
woman—whose parents
were Chinese immigrants?
Those of us who remem
ber two water fountains in
the city hall-one marked
"Colored" and the other
"Whites Only"-and who
remember the water hoses,
the police dogs, the Bull
Connors, and the governors
standing in the schoolhouse
doorway shouting,
"Never!"-those of us who
never one day in our lives
ever sat in a classroom with
a professor or student of the
otner race—WE can look at
the Civil Rights Martyr
Memorial with a kind of
nostalgic reverence and
some sense of accomplish
ment.
But the reiterateditheme of
the speakers of the Dedica
tion was that "the struggle is
not over"~that there's still
work to be done in the fight
for freedom, justice, and
equality. "Buried with each
one of the Freedom 40 is a
little bit of American apart
heid," declared Civil Rights
leader Julian Bond. "The
movement was simple in its
tactics, but monumental in
its impact...It was modem
democracy’s finest hour."
November 5 was one of
Montgomery's finest hours.
My hope is that many of us
will make a sp)ecial trip to
Montgomery to stand be
fore the Civil Rights Martyrs
Memorial in reverence and
with determination. Inrev-
"Buried with each
one of the
Freedom 40 is
a little bit of
American Apartheid.
erence as we see our own
i faces looking back at us
from that black granite mir
ror, and in this stance re
learn the ancient Christian
maxim, "The blood of the
martyrs is the seed of the
Church." With determina
tion as we commit ourselves
unreservedly to the con
tinuing struggle to realize
equity and justice for all.