by dov burt levy
Writing a newspaper column is easy. Get a cup of coffee, sit in front of the computer, 30 minutes later, the 700 words are finished.
Wrong.
This column, celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday, turned out to be my most difficult column since I began doing this work 20 years ago.
Dr. King was murdered 39 years ago at age 39. But not before he saved the country from an almost certain future race war by leading an unstoppable, nonviolent inter-racial movement against the ugly, disabling, and demeaning practices of segregation and racism.
The South had formal segregation in places of public accommodation as well as denying the vote to African-Americans. The North had its informal extra-legal practices of discrimination in jobs, housing and public education.
Our lives coincided enough that I met and marched with him twice and heard him speak in person three times.
I have written three separate versions of a column, none satisfying me and leaving no alternative except to tell you how I am falling short.
My first draft talked about Dr. King’s accomplishments, his short life literally cut in half, from the average American life span of 77 years.
One of his six books is titled “Why We Can’t Wait.” His autobiography, had he written it, might have been titled “I Didn’t Wait” — high school graduation at 15, doctorate at 26, Nobel Prize at 35 and dead at 39.
During his short life, he led civil rights campaigns in Montgomery, Birmingham, Chicago, and elsewhere before turning his attention to the Vietnam War and American poverty.
I mentioned his books, his manifestoes, his numerous supporters and opponents, and the campaign of harassment fueled by the FBI’s unlimited funds and paranoia of J. Edgar Hoover.
I wasn’t satisfied with this column, too many facts.
My next draft was “Dr. King, Darfur and the Jewish Community.” I cited Dr. King’s ability and strategy to create “tension that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudices and racism.” With these nonviolent, almost daily, provocations, neither the courts nor presidents could delay for long doing the right thing.
I wrote about Darfur where a real genocide happens today while international action is so pathetic that countless others are destined to die, adding to the 400,000 already murdered.
I explained how the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Ruth Messinger of the American Jewish World Service had taken the lead organizing the anti-genocide rally in front of the congressional buildings last year and are today behind numerous public service announcements on television.
Not enough, I wrote, the African American and the general community must completely join the fray. Moreover, a person of the stature, ability and charisma of Martin Luther King was needed to lead the movement.
I wasn’t satisfied with that version.
Then came word of Teddy Kollek’s death. He, the indefatigable mayor of Jerusalem for 28 years, dead at age 95. Teddy’s energy, vision and commitment for Jerusalem were not unlike Dr. King’s efforts for justice and social change in America.
I called this draft, “Martin and Teddy: Two Lives Cherished.” I made much of the fact that these men, by their first names alone, were so well known and important that almost any American asked to name the most important person in American history named Martin will readily say, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Ask any Israeli who the most famous Teddy in the world is, and they will tell you there is no other Teddy besides Kollek.
Finally, that column wasn’t exactly right.
So, I sit by my computer telling you my difficulties, and in the telling, I realize that I have told you just about everything I was thinking about.
Perhaps because I loved, respected and learned so much from Dr. King, that I can’t put it into only 700 words.
Still, I can tell you, if only Dr. King were alive today, 10,000 people would likely be marching in a daily vigil around the United Nations, the White House and the Capitol Building, until the Darfur genocide was stopped.
If only …
Dov Burt Levy has been a government professor in Detroit, North Carolina and Tel Aviv.
CopyrightJ, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California