Jan 29, 2013 By Larry Douglas 3 min read

In the summer of 1971, I was 13 and our family was living in Memphis Tenn. On weekends Dad made extra money servicing air conditioning units around the city. Sometimes I rode along and served as the loyal ‘gofer.’

One afternoon, while working at a motel, I was told to carry a bucket of tools from a downstairs room to a room upstairs on the other side of the building. On my way I was startled to discover a door with a wreath and a large image of Martin Luther King attached to it. That’s when it occurred to me that I was at the Lorraine Motel, standing near the very place where Dr. King had been slain.

Later, as we rode home, I asked my dad why someone that important stayed at a motel in such a poor part of town. Over 40 years later I can still clearly remember his reply: “Because that probably was the only place in town where anyone would let him stay.”

These days I find I’m asking a similar question: Where in the history books will Martin Luther King find a place to stay? I ask because I’m not sure the Dr. King that inspired us a generation ago is the same man that is embedded in our contemporary memory.

On Aug. 28, 1963, Dr. King delivered his now famous “I Have a Dream” speech. In his remarks he characterized the words of our Constitution and Declaration of Independence as “magnificent.” He stated the signers were penning a “promissory note” and added: “This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

His use of the term “unalienable rights” has always garnered my attention. Unalienable rights are freedoms the Founding Fathers insisted were endowed to all men by God. In that same speech Dr. King referred to sacred obligation, all men being created equal, the glory of the Lord, and all of God’s children.

Do Americans remember that Dr. King viewed civil rights as an expression of unalienable rights? Do our public schools remind students that Dr. King declared life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness was a “sacred honor?” Would any piece of current legislation successfully travel through the House and the Senate if the words “glory of the Lord” and “all of God’s children” appeared in the document? Do our nation’s courts legally embrace the view of a “created equality”?

If tumbleweeds are a metaphor for obscurity, only shadows from tumbleweeds could be more obscure. Today I fear there is an ominous, secular wind howling through the heartland of America that would recast Dr. King’s visionary speech as an obscure musing and rebirth of his dream as a shadow from a tumbleweed drifting into the wilderness of history.

“We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now.” MLK

Larry Douglas is a resident of Waynesburg.