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January 22, 2010

Martin Luther King Jr. made America uncomfortable

By JERRY McGOVERN, School Ties

A 4-year-old asked me about something in my 1998 pickup truck. He wanted to know what this thing on the door did. I told him you use it to open and close the window.

"No button?" he said.

"Nope, just this thing you turn in a circle to open and close the window. You know, in the old days, there were no buttons for windows in any cars."

By the time I'd said "in the old days," he'd stopped paying attention. He wanted to know if we could collect driftwood at AuSable Point.

He's not unusual. It's natural for a youngster to assume that whatever is has always been, and it's easy for him to ignore the past. That's why we teach kids history, but it's difficult.

And sometimes, I think we reshape the history, trying to fool ourselves about who we were.

America celebrated the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. on Jan. 18. Many of the reports I read suggest we're all pretty happy about the Rev. King, grateful that he lived and fought for freedom.

Each year, the anger and fear he generated in the United States — enough to get him murdered — becomes more distant. In 2010, we forget how uncomfortable many Americans were with his refusal to accept the status quo. He wanted freedom for everyone, he wanted it immediately, and he was not interested in taking, as he said in 1963, "the tranquilizing drug of gradualism."

CONFLICT BREEDS PROGRESS
If you're old enough, of course, you can remember African-American citizens treated like criminals because they wanted to be treated like citizens. You can remember segregated schools and laws against interracial marriage.

You can remember Selma and beatings, firehoses and attack dogs, children killed in church, an F.B.I. director intent on sabotaging King's work.

But in about 30 years, everyone who can remember that violence, that misuse of power, will be gone. What will happen then?

Oh, there will still be a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, but it will have all the energy of Labor Day.

We'll forget how revolutionary Martin Luther King Jr. was, just as we've forgotten labor leaders like Peter J. McGuire.

And now we hope, since we're all in favor of racial equality and good working conditions for labor, that the battles are over. We hope that we've made enough progress, that everyone who was mistreated is now being treated just fine, that we don't have to expand our vision and dreams anymore. We hope that no one is going to make us uncomfortable again.

But a lesson of the Rev. King's lifelong fight for justice for everyone is that we don't make progress without conflict. Nor do we make progress unless someone pushes us out of our comfort zone.

COURAGEOUS SPEAKER
At the Martin Luther King Jr. celebration in Plattsburgh, Assemblywoman Janet Duprey spoke in support of gay marriage. Echoing the Supreme Court decision that ended segregated public schools, Duprey said, "Separate but equal just doesn't work."

She has not come to this decision lightly, only after a lot of thought and conversation.

Duprey knows she's made some people, many of them her constituents, uncomfortable. In fact, she says, they've voiced their displeasure clearly and often to her.

But the assemblywoman is right about gay marriage and courageous to make us uncomfortable.

I believe that someday we'll look back on the gay marriage debate and wonder why it generated so much heat. I believe kids will grow up in a world where it's commonplace and legal for people of the same sex who love each other to marry. I believe they'll find it odd we were uncomfortable with what has come to be.

Jerry McGovern, the Press-Republican's coordinator of Newspapers-in-Education, taught in New York state's public schools, and now teaches in the Communication Department of Plattsburgh State. He can be reached at gmcgovern@pressrepublican.com or 565-4126. This column is the opinion of the writer and not necessarily of this newspaper.

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