Those who believe that President Joe Biden’s age may be an impediment to a second term should have a debate with me. Though my friend Martin Luther King Jr. warned me I wouldn’t make it to 50, I recently celebrated my 93rd birthday, and though the body has slowed down a bit, I’ve never been thinking more clearly in my life.
Having a birthday near the beginning of the year puts one in a reflective position, and having so many of them gives one context.
Looking back this past year, despite the cacophony of headlines – referencing mass shootings, states' preoccupation with controlling women’s right to determine the use of their own bodies, presidential primaries, conflict in Israel, former President Donald Trump’s legal challenges and reelection campaign, the resignation of Harvard's Black female president over alleged plagiarism, insufficient protection of Jewish students at universities – my glass remains half-full.
I still believe tomorrow has the possibility of being better than today.
Accordingly, I was shocked that former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, a Republican candidate for president, had to hesitate in responding to a question as to the “cause” of the American Civil War. It’s hard to get excited about the future when some staunchly refuse to learn the lessons of the past. Even worse, it could be that Haley knew full well the answer but in courting the MAGA vote, she struggled to give an answer with political cover for her target audience.
As a counterbalance, the Haley situation reminded me that a momentous event just occurred in Virginia. For the first time in its 405-year history, the commonwealth chose a Black person, Don Scott, to be its speaker of the House of Delegates.
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The great Gospel songwriter James Cleveland has a verse in one of his hymns that says, “I don't believe He brought me this far to leave me.” So I am thinking to myself: What would my beloved Martin say on the occasion of what would’ve been his 95th birthday, on Monday, if told that a Black man had been elected as the speaker of the House of Delegates in the former capital of the Confederacy?
Martin would likely paraphrase writer Victor Hugo: More powerful than the march of mighty armies is an idea whose time has come!
Scott’s election as speaker of the House of Delegates in Virginia represents an idea whose time has come.
Haley’s lack of understanding that slavery was the cause of our Civil War, the bloodiest war in our history, represents misguided thinking and willful blindness that has stuck around.
Push for gun reform:Martin Luther King was assassinated 55 years ago. Why do we still allow gun violence?
These are two ends of the continuum of racial divide in our country.
Barack Obama’s presidential election made me feel the country was moving as a whole toward the more noble end of this spectrum, Donald Trump’s made me feel otherwise.
Hope blossomed with Joe Biden winning the office, and now 2024 – and another, angrier Trump run – looms freighted with dread of a backslide.
My glass remains half-full, however, and I remember the words of my beloved Martin as he accepted the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize:
"I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history.
"I refuse to accept the idea that the 'isness' of man’s present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal 'oughtness' that forever confronts him."
Clarence B. Jones was personal attorney, adviser and speech writer for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Jones is credited as a co-author of King's 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech. He is chairman of the board of the Spill the Honey Foundation. His new memoir, written with Stuart Connelly, is "The Last of The Lions."
MLK was my friend. Why I'm hopeful we're making progress on racial divide.
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15.01.2024
Those who believe that President Joe Biden’s age may be an impediment to a second term should have a debate with me. Though my friend Martin Luther King Jr. warned me I wouldn’t make it to 50, I recently celebrated my 93rd birthday, and though the body has slowed down a bit, I’ve never been thinking more clearly in my life.
Having a birthday near the beginning of the year puts one in a reflective position, and having so many of them gives one context.
Looking back this past year, despite the cacophony of headlines – referencing mass shootings, states' preoccupation with controlling women’s right to determine the use of their own bodies, presidential primaries, conflict in Israel, former President Donald Trump’s legal challenges and reelection campaign, the resignation of Harvard's Black female president over alleged plagiarism, insufficient protection of Jewish students at universities – my glass remains half-full.
I still believe tomorrow has the possibility of being........
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