An Inauguration on Martin Luther King Day

By Marilyn Moore

The ultimate in irony will be on Monday, January 20, 2025, when Donald Trump is inaugurated as the United States 47th president…on the day set aside to commemorate, to celebrate, to remember, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  I shall exert no energy on this day commenting on the 47th president; I suspect there will be ample opportunities to do so nearly every day, beginning, perhaps with the first “shock and awe” of executive orders. Later, my friends, stay tuned.

Today, however, I turn again to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a pastor, a preacher, a teacher, a dreamer, a peace maker, a man of courage, a leader.  My favorite Martin Luther King quote comes from the letter he wrote while jailed in Birmingham, where he had gone to participate in non-violent civil rights protests.  While there, he and many others were arrested.  He was urged by white clergy persons (well, white clergymen), to leave Birmingham, to wait for a better time to wage a protest.  His letter was in response to those clergy, who assured him they agreed with the cause, but that it was too soon to take a stand.   

That letter was published in many formats, including a small book, which has been in my “close at hand” stack of books for many years.  From that letter is the MLK quote that I have read over and over.  “I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be worried about what happens in Birmingham.  Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied to a single garment of destiny.  Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.”  The beauty, and intensity, of the phrasing…."an inescapable network of mutuality, tied to a single garment of destiny."

The single garment of destiny is to me a great shawl, long enough and strong enough to reach around the world, gathering all lands and peoples within its fold.  It is woven from countless threads, some of which are course, while others are fine.  Some are tough, some are fragile.  Some are stronger than they look, others are much less so.  The threads are of all hues, from the palest of pearls to the darkest of midnight.  Some sparkle, others provide the depth that allows the sparkle to be seen.  The weave is loose and soft in some places; in others, the weave is tight and firm.  

In some places the shawl is so stressed by weather and war and catastrophes and famine that the weave is damaged, and holes and tears appear.  At its best, the shawl is self-healing, with surrounding threads re-weaving the broken places, drawing in new threads to strengthen and sustain.  At its non-best, the holes grow, more threads are damaged, and the effort to repair grows harder with each passing day…and yet, in some way, the shawl hangs together.

This is our country, our world, as I see it now.  Holes, caused by racism, by poverty, by greed, by desperation, by climate change, by selfishness, by uncertainty.  Helpers, and thank God for the helpers, who work in whatever place they find themselves, to mend…to build bridges, to set a larger table, to share whatever they have to share, to teach and to nurture and to heal and to fight fires, to utter words of kindness and assurance, while offering a cup of water, a winter coat, a warm meal, a helping hand.  And thank God for the helpers who speak up, who address root causes of the holes, who engage in works of justice and policy for the civic good.  It is exhausting work to mend the holes.  It is exhausting work to seek remedies that will end the assaults on our single garment of destiny.  Both are necessary, indeed, essential, if the garment is to hold.

A most meaningful image of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. for me is the one found in Washington DC, where the sculptor shows him stepping forward from the block of granite that forms him.  It’s as if the sculpture is not yet finished, as if Dr. King is striding forward to the next whatever – cause, speech, protest, opportunity.  I cannot imagine how weary he must have been, how discouraging the cause of civil rights must have seemed, how far the dream must have been in the future.  Like all good leaders, he kept the dream before him, kept it alive in those around him, and persisted in the day-to-day work…striding forward.  

The next four years seem daunting to me, as values that I hold dearly, like first amendment protections and voting rights and strong international relations and access to reproductive health care and protections for those who are homeless and ill and poor and who face discrimination for their race or religion or gender, are likely to be assaulted.  At this age and stage of my life, I had hoped that some political battles would no longer be necessary.  Hoping does not make it so; the battles are before us.  

The gift of this age and stage of life is a sense of less constraint on my voice. I do not have a job to protect.  I do not have an employer to consider.  I have time to read, to research, to write letters and emails, to contact policy makers.  If Dr. King can stride forward from a block of granite, I can write a letter, make a phone call.  Because, to quote Dr. King again, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter.”  

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