Traveling With Dr. King Video transcript

I never heard of human beings as I put it
with two arms, two legs, a mouth speak like
that before. It was spellbinding, it was mesmerizing,
and when he spoke, I saw in him an
eloquence and a depth of spirituality that
I needed to be around.

He could probably get you to do anything,
and I was prepared to join him.

He was doing what I've been reading about,
and now I'm thinking about and talking about.

What he conveyed to me was that it was
terribly frightening and dangerous and
terrible, but also that this was the most
important thing a person could be doing.

Two words that kept us going in the civil
rights movement. To those of us who were there; sacrifice
and risk. What are you willing to sacrifice, and what are
you willing to risk?

So this whole idea of the church
being involved in stuff outside of the
church, in the streets and community…
Because I thought church was, you know,
within those four walls, but here he's
talking about us taking action. And from
a spiritual base, and that was an
obligation that we had in, you know,
trying to help change the community.

I was not always nonviolent. But we learned
to accept that, and during demonstrations
and things like that, so we grew into
the non-violent concept of how we live
like that. I didn't think I could, but I
find myself doing just that.

You get knocked down and stand back up. You get
knocked down and stand back up, right? And
you do that enough and what you're talking about
begins to register, right? That you're not just talking.

When he would… when we
decided to go to Birmingham, for
instance. He said, you know, “some of us are
gonna die.” He said, “now I know they’re after
me, but don't worry, I can preach you into heaven.”
And then he starts saying all of the
things that he knew were bad about you,
“please Jesus forgive him, take
him in and forgive him, this one
that needs all the grace and mercy you’ve got!”
And he’d have us laughing at our
own death, and that's the way he dealt
with his fear and helped us to deal with
our fear of death.

The opposite of good is not evil, the opposite of
good is indifference. And that was the center, for him,
of the prophetic message: never to be indifferent to other
people's suffering.

I think that “I Have a Dream,” it's probably the greatest oration
we've had in this country since the Gettysburg Address.

He, standing in front of Lincoln, he linked the movement back
to Thomas Jefferson. That's what
transformed a southern black movement
into a national integrated movement.
That's what brought the churches in,
that's what brought the labor unions in,
it brought the liberal intellectuals in,
every American could identify with
that “I Have a Dream” speech.

I just walked up to him, took my left hand and grabbed
his right shoulder, and arms with my
right hand, put it in his right hand and
pulled them up to pull myself up close to him,
tears coming down my eyes a little
bit, and I said “Dr. King, when do you want
me to go to Montgomery Alabama?” That's
what I call the making of a disciple.

And the more I followed his preachings,
his teachings, the more I became
committed to the fact that this is where
I would spend the rest of my life.

My own children say, “you're too old for this, you
need to stop, stay at home!”
I can't knit. I don't knit. I have to do
this, have to work with young people. I
have to say to the world, “we are
basically nonviolent, let's work on it, let's
build that.” We're not monsters.

You know… why do we slay our prophets? That's
the eternal question from the Bible, too.
What does it say about us?

He used to then talk about it. He said
you know, “death is the ultimate democracy.”
Everybody is going to die, and you don't
have anything to say about where you die,
how you die. He said the only choice
you have is, what is it you give your life for?

Then, he told me he was gonna
see me in Washington. Of course, he was
assassinated, but about four years
ago, I looked up on the mall and there
was the King, 30 foot tall on the mall.
So then I looked at that statue and I
said, “yes, you did tell me you were coming,
you just didn't say when!