We Heard Him
Stalls at the Eastern Market are filled with colorful fabrics, colorful foods, and colorful paintings of local landscapes, inviting folks to engage in the forgetfulness of shopping. The three of us walk through, my daughter, my friend, and I, casual, carefree on a bright, hot Sunday in the District. There is no need we are trying to fill, so we ignore the folks who wait in quiet desperation for cash paying customers.
Around the corner and down the block, we sit down in the hopes of eating foods like those of our ancestors. The young, dark-skinned man fills the water glasses, smiles at the “thank you” I offer. Yet that is the only time I catch his downcast eyes. Betraying his inner world, the look on his face reveals his embarrassment at having to pick up the filthy dishes. I feel the helplessness of my position.
After the meal, we plan to walk back through what we have already seen. We think we already know the place. Instead, a man approaches me, stands face-to-face, pleading for answers, seeking. Looking him in the eye is the only way to meet his thirst, his request for peace, his demand that the world be just for black men like him. I tell him that the world is a harmony of conditions that support what we see, and tell him that we must be peace for ourselves. He speaks of guns and violence not far from here. I remind him of the Reverend Doctor MLK and his exhortation that we stand in our places. He reminds me that the good Reverend Doctor was shot in the head. “No one heard him,” he says wincing at his own words, his pitch rising with the strain. "They heard him,” I say. “We heard him.”
Where could I stand but right here in this place, feeling the burning of the world? What else could I do but find the cool, still place within and the warm, gentle gaze for this man? I have only one Way to offer him.
Today I stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and looked out over the reflecting pool, just as the Reverend Doctor MLK did so many years ago. My eyes stung with the truth of the President’s words, though he was referring to the Civil War and I am referring to a different kind of “war”:
“…in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men [and women and folks], living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.”