ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, April 19, 1990                   TAG: 9004190591
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A14   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

ABERNATHY

IN THE INTEREST of freedom and human rights for their people, Ralph David Abernathy worked, planned, marched, preached, sat in jail alongside Martin Luther King Jr. Their dreams for this country have not been fully realized; but theirs and others' labors compelled the United States to face up to the promises our Constitution makes to all its citizens. Thanks to them, America today is a much more free, open and just society than 30 years ago.

Now those two leaders of the non-violent civil-rights struggle are both gone. King fell a martyr in 1968 on a motel balcony in Memphis, Tenn., from a sniper's bullet. Abernathy succumbed this week after a long illness. His was a quiet death, undramatic. When the end came, he had for some time been estranged from former associates in the movement. Only a few months earlier, his own autobiography had left stains on King's reputation.

There was ample irony in that. Abernathy himself had been accused of extramarital affairs. In 1958 the husband of one of his parishioners attacked him in the basement of his church; then, brandishing a hatchet and gun, pursued Abernathy down the street, threatening to kill the minister for having an affair with his wife. Years later, King himself is said to have confided to a colleague that he not only had known of Abernathy's liaisons in Montgomery, Ala., but also had joined in some of them.

Why should Abernathy, in a glass house, have cast stones at his late friend? Jealousy, it appears.

The two had endured stress, indignities, police brutalities, nameless threats, attempts on their lives; they had shared the pain and fear that can bond people irrevocably, as well as ecstasy at their successes. They were very close.

Yet something gnawed at Abernathy. He was envious: Always overshadowed by the more charismatic King, he felt neglected, uncredited and unappreciated. His jealousy sometimes showed even in the heat of the struggle the two waged against racist laws and customs.

In "Parting the Waters," author Taylor Branch describes one such outburst, in Richmond's John Marshall Hotel in 1963. Afterward, Branch writes, Septima Clark - called the mother conscience of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference - "followed Abernathy to his room to tell him bluntly that he was a spoiled man, full of unseemly spite," who liked to lord it over members of his congregation.

So Abernathy, like King, could yield to fleshly desires. He could also be petty and vindictive. What is remarkable about that? In great men and women, weaknesses - even large ones - often coexist with notable strengths and virtues.

Faults can amuse and titillate; people sometimes ignore the banquet to pick among the scraps that drop from the table. Abernathy and King's failings weigh very lightly on the scale that measures their lives. As humans, they were imperfect; much more so the society they fought to reform. It is that courageous and tenacious struggle for which both should be remembered. That, and for knocking down walls separating Americans of all races from each other. 


 by CNB