THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, January 15, 1996 TAG: 9601150046
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Charlise Lyles
LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines
My favorite photo of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is one taken in 1956, shortly after the yearlong Montgomery bus boycott.
King, his wife Coretta, and three comrades are leaving the courthouse immediately after King's conviction as boycott conspirator.
But you'd never know it had been a bad day for Martin Luther King.
On his face and those of his comrades are the biggest, brightest grins. You'd almost think that ``the dream'' had been achieved, the ``promised land'' harvested.
Their very skins seem to glow.
Surely, to some extent, those smiles were to show the world that the foot soldiers for freedom were not weary. But those smiles run deeper than that.
They shine with immortal courage. In the heat of hell, King was happy.
On the eve of his 67th birthday and the 10th anniversary of the national holiday that honors his life of service, I study that photo. And I wonder if those soldiers were happier people precisely because of the severity of the battle, precisely because of the uncommon courage it required.
Buddhist thinker Daisaku Ikeda once said: ``Without courage you cannot become happy.''
King himself said: ``Courageous men never lose the zest for living even though their life situation is zestless; cowardly men, overwhelmed by the uncertainties of life, lose the will to live. We must constantly build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.''
The battles facing African Americans and therefore all Americans seem piddling compared to those that King fought. Still, the struggle is formidable.
For the most part, we need no longer fear mass violence rooted in the psychosis of supremacy. But black men are killing one another in epidemic numbers.
We need no longer fear court-sanctioned discrimination. But the ``Contract with America'' and other misguided agendas seek to crush the government support that was the very fruit of King's labor.
In 1995, affirmative action took a beating prompted by myths, misinformation, and shifting demographic trends.
In Virginia, the Department of Transportation rang in the New Year by dropping one of the state's most successful minority-contracting programs.
And here in good old Hampton Roads last week, the U.S. Justice Department approved at-large voting for the Portsmouth School Board. Blacks called the decision unfair, one that could create a board that fails to reflect the city's diversity.
Perhaps, African Americans expressed an overwhelming, almost palpable joy at October's Million Man March precisely because we have begun to embrace the severity of the current struggle.
Rep. Floyd H. Flake of New York has proclaimed this a new era in the fight for civil rights, a time for blacks and all America to see the power of African-American unity and toil.
Flake has urged us to rejoice at the challenges posed in Congress and in our neighborhoods. And like King, to keep on marching. March to volunteer with youth. March to network with entrepreneurs. March to build up run-down, crime-ridden communities. March to study and draw strength from African culture.
Surely, snapshots of our efforts will go down in history. May they capture us smiling, smiling with the courage of King. by CNB