LET THE TRUMPET SOUND

 “For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed…

For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality…

So, when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.” 1 Corinthians 15:52-54

 

LET THE TRUMPET SOUND, The Life of Martin Luther King, Jr., is the title of a book written by Stephen B. Oates, (1936-) a former professor of history at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is an expert in 19th-century United States history. Winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Book Award and the Christopher Award, this brilliant examination of the life of Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., portrays a very real man with a powerful dream that helped shape American history.

It is a book that awakens consciences; a strong account of a saga that began in 1619, when the first ship loaded with Africans forced to go to North America arrived and which even today, 400 years later, still leaves a shameful stain of racism, segregation and intolerance against the black population in North American history. Its reading makes us dynamize the process of dormant faith in man in an attempt to break the barriers that bind him in inequality and social injustice... A book that reveals how important individual work is in solidifying the mystical experience of the first commandment and in human coexistence under the ethics of the second.

Drawing on interviews with those who knew King, previously non utilized material at Presidential libraries, and the holdings of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center in Atlanta, Mr Oates has written the most comprehensive account of King’s life yet published. He displays a remarkable understanding of King’s individual role in the civil rights movement... Oates’s biography helps us appreciate how sorely King is missed.

A true disciple of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr. had a dream of racial justice and fraternity in the United States, and of peace throughout the world. He had a dream of how nonviolence, love and courage could triumph over hate and brutal force.

The months leading up to August 28, 1963 - of the great march on Washington – were of intense speculations, debates, demonstrations, political articulations, opposition, attacks, being outlawed communist and with black leaders divided over his moral authenticity and yearnings, added by the continued violence against the black population, made him go through intense moments of depression, increased by his compulsory withdrawal from the family, with which he had a close connection.

The day before this great march, his frustration increased; after having prepared his speech for a long time, the event’s organization gave him only 8 minutes to speak. Despite this time constraint, he would like to say something meaningful, something that the American population would not forget for a long time. Two months earlier, he was already thinking of a dream with an America free of social prejudice and more justice for other minorities. The next morning, almost without sleep, he finishes the text. From the hotel room where he was installed, he saw through the window crowds approaching, frustrated still thinking that only 15,000 thousand people would introduce themselves. However, as time passed, the newscasts gave a larger number. King's speech would be for the end of the march. As he, his leaders and family approached the promenade area behind the White House, they gaped at the announcement of the number of spectators for his speech... 250,000!

Literally voiced by the immense crowd upon his arrival at the parlour, Dr King begins his prepared speech. In the end, during a small moment of reflection, he is approached by his secretary who insists that he finishes discoursing on his dream. King then pulls away from the role and starts improvising, which was considered the most eloquent speech in the history of the United States... his dream! In the most striking moment, when the right man confesses the right words to the right people, in the right place, at the right time, he says:

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal…

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character...

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together…

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics – and any other religion - will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

 

On April 4, 1968, five years later, under the rifle of a white man, the dreamer fell... but not the dream!

The corruptible Adamic man departed and reborn the cosmic, incorruptible man... from death to immortality!