I was in the bath when I heard a speech which I thought was footage of an address by Martin Luther King. It was, after all, the eve of Martin Luther King Day in the US – a national holiday to commemorate the vision and achievements of Dr. King.
It wasn’t Dr. King speaking though, as I watched, dripping wet. It was President Obama speaking in a cadence imitative of Dr. King. “I promise you, change will come”, President Obama was saying at a campaign fundraiser in Chicago. “If you are willing to work even harder for my re-election, I promise you, change will come”.
I was reminded again of what a compelling orator the President is and so I went online to hear his full speech. In it, he reminded his audience of the kind of changes had been won during his presidency – equal work for equal pay – ‘our daughters are worth as much as our sons’ – and of saving the automobile industry and thus over a million jobs. Also that he raised fuel efficiency standards in order to save billions of dollars on oil and he stopped $60 billion to banks to issue student loans and instead provided this service direct to students. He passed historic health care reform so that no one would go bankrupt because they needed medical attention and he ensured that 2.5 million young people stayed on their parent’s health care plan. He was ending the war in Iraq by bringing US troops home and he was working to create new jobs for people who are unemployed.
The President reminded those present that real change, and big change, wasn’t easy, that it was going to take time and that it took ordinary citizens to keep pushing and to keep inching. This reminder seemed to invoke the words of Helen Keller – ‘The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of tiny pushes of each honest worker.’
These tiny pushes are what we were invited to sign up for on Martin Luther King Day of Service as a day of community action. The national Martin Luther King Day of Service was signed into law by President Clinton on August 23, 1994 as legislation that challenges Americans to transform the King Holiday into a day of citizen action volunteer service in honor of Dr. King and it is today the largest event in the nation honouring Dr. King.
This year, people across the US commemorated Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with both service as well as with protest over economic injustice and inequality. People marched in below-freezing temperatures from the African Burial Ground to the Federal Reserve in downtown Manhattan. Children played ‘We Shall Overcome’ on violins, and members of the crowd spoke of parallels between the Occupy movement and King’s Poor People’s Campaign, which he was organizing as the next phase in the civil rights movement before he was murdered in 1968. The focus was similar – educating US citizens about the economic injustices they were experiencing and the need for change. Today the focus remains on the billions of dollars in bailouts given to banks while many Americans still suffer unemployment and housing foreclosures due to the most vulnerable affected by questionable lending practices.
To this end, a new coalition has sprung up called ‘Occupy the Dream’, a coalition of African American church groups affiliated with Occupy Wall Street. Across the country these assemblies and gatherings aim to mobilize church communities to step up their oratory and action in relation to the gross injustice inflicted on so many poor people by the greed of financial institutions. At Riverside Church in Wall Street, the movement held rousing events with musicians like Patti Smith and Steve Earle playing in the church to a packed house. Community activists like Queen Mother Delois Blakely shared their thoughts on King while Reverend Al Sharpton led a march from Harlem to the church.
I promise you, change will come, said the President.
I went to an Episcopalian service just near my apartment early Sunday morning to hear more about Martin Luther King (I keep typing ‘kind’ instead of ‘King’ and there must be something in that). In addition to a sermon on MLK, we heard of the number of US soldiers who have died in Afghanistan (13 in the last month) – and I wondered how many Afghanis had died during this same period. At work I receive at least three calls a week from women who think Women’s World Banking is a bank to help them access funds to pay their rent, keep their children in schools and pay for a medical emergency. I tell them that we are focused on helping women in developing countries and that we can’t help them save their apartment or help pay for their child’s hospital bill. In the New York Times there are photos of people at foreclosure auctions snapping up house bargains in the US for individual buyers and companies all round the world. Across the city, more shops are shutting down each week and people are using food stamps for purchases at supermarkets.
I promise you, change will come, said the President.
Mitt Romney looks set to be the Republican nominee for the US elections in November this year and President Obama has had a stunning head start both in terms of fundraising and messaging due to the disarray over candidate preference in the Republican Party. I know that ten months is a long time in politics and that anything can happen and yet I still think that President Obama will be re-elected for a second term. I just hope that next time he is able to push for those big and real changes that count — economically, environmentally and morally. Corporations no longer recognized as citizens, Guantanamo Bay closed, a New Deal to get more people back to work, an Environmental Protection Agency that’s allowed to enforce a Clean Air Act at the level it recommends, regulations to hold US financial institutions to account, a tax structure that is fair and equitable for all citizens and a health care plan that is less of a compromise and one that will truly make a positive difference to the lives of the majority of Americans.
Away from the fray I feel like a babushka wrapped up in a bear coat and bear hat, rolling down the street this long weekend to collect necessities before returning to my warm cave. Josh arrives at my apartment, equally frozen and up for cooking spaghetti in my cozy kitchen. The boiler to my apartment sits in the basement of a café below and so by the time the heat rises to my apartment, it is very, very hot. I open windows and pretend I’m in a sauna, steaming myself.
The other day I was out walking and a light flurry of snow started falling – I smiled, I laughed, it felt so fresh and light and heaven-sent in that fairy-floss form. People around me were smiling too – those first few swirls of snow bring with them a sense of wonder – like you’ve found yourself on a movie set and you’ll just play along for the fun of it all. And then I walk around the corner and a movie is literally being made as I walk toward the set. This is New York. A quartet on the opposite street are singing ‘A change is gonna come’ and Magnolia Bakery in the Village looks to be handing out peace cupcakes. The peace bikes in the streets are festooned with Martin Luther King messages and a woman with coiffed hair is walking her Scottish Terriers with MLK pictures on their tartan vests. And I definitely feel like I’m on that movie set.
Jane Sloane