Welcome to the Nonviolent Jesus Podcast. I'm
John, Father John Deere, and today I'm speaking
with legendary civil rights leader Andrew Young.
This is a project of www .beatitudecenter .org,
where you can find many other podcasts and regular
Zoom programs on the nonviolence of Jesus and
practicing nonviolence and working for a more
just, more nonviolent world. So we always begin
here with a little prayer. So I invite everyone
just to take a deep breath and to relax and to
recenter yourself. And let's all together enter
into the presence of the God of peace who loves
you infinitely and everyone everywhere. And let's
welcome the risen nonviolent Jesus here with
us and ask for the grace to follow him more faithfully
and do God's will. Beloved God, thank you for
all the blessings of life, love, and peace that
you give us. Be with us now as I reflect with
Andrew Young on your call to follow the nonviolent
Jesus and work for a more nonviolent, more just
world. Bless us, inspire us, disarm us, strengthen
us, and send us out to do your will, to do our
part to help end violence. poverty, racism, greed,
injustice, war, fascism, nuclear weapons, and
environmental destruction, that we might be your
holy peacemakers and welcome your reign of universal
love, nonviolence, and peace on earth. Amen.
We will be able to speed up that day when all
of God's children, black men and white men, Jews
and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will
be able to join hands and sing in the words of
the old Negro spiritual, free at last, free at
last, thank God Almighty, we are free at last.
It's a great blessing to welcome civil rights
leader Andrew Young here to the Nonviolent Jesus
podcast. He was Dr. King's right -hand man, his
number one lieutenant, and of course the executive
director of SCLC, the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference, an ordained UCC minister. He was
elected to Congress, then later named ambassador
to the UN, and then was elected mayor of Atlanta
for two terms. It's hard to describe all that
Andy has done, but he was recently featured in
a two -hour documentary by Rachel Maddow. 100
honorary degrees from university and colleges
and many other awards, and I recommend his autobiography
called An Easy Burden. He was born in New Orleans
in 1932 and currently lives in Atlanta with his
wife Carolyn. He's the father of three daughters
and one son, a grandfather of nine, and a great
-grandfather of one. Andrew Young, welcome to
the Nonviolent Jesus Podcast. Now it's a great
-grandfather of two. Congratulations. So I'm
hoping to broadcast this. Time marches on. Yeah.
I'm hoping this will be broadcast on Dr. King's
holiday. So I thought we could talk about your
friend and boss, Dr. King. I've been studying
him and reading him all my life. He changed my
life when I was a boy at his death. And I've
been trying to follow his teachings and yours.
Primarily that has meant for me, Andy, spending
45 years teaching the nonviolence of Jesus through
the Fellowship of Reconciliation and many other
groups. So I'd like to ask, as we begin, from
your perspective, what did you learn about nonviolence
from Dr. King? What does it mean for you? Well,
I learned about nonviolence from Dr. King, but
I guess... Even before I had met Dr. King, I
had learned about nonviolence from my Quaker
professors in seminary. And people like Bayard
Rustin that had been teaching nonviolence all
over the world. But that was 1952. When I was
in seminary and I was surrounded by people who
were raised in a nonviolent faith. And I mean,
there were several of my professors who were
Quakers for life. And it was very easy on a seminary
campus. to surround yourself with people who
were lovers of peace and lovers of humanity and
lovers of Jesus Christ. And it was a good preparation.
And I think that the nonviolent Jesus that I
learned about from my professors and from Dr.
King, lived in a world very much like ours, that
it was not a peaceful world. It was not a loving
world. It was a world where Herod killed all
of the babies trying to kill Jesus. It was a
horrible place. And it was in the midst of that
kind of world that God sent his son. And here
it is. thousands of years later, and we are still
talking about his message. And we're still realizing
that what was revealed in Jesus of Nazareth and
is present very clearly in our New Testament
is relevant and powerfully important for us dealing
with the day -to -day crises of our lives. Did
you and Dr. King talk about Jesus as being nonviolent?
Or was it presumed? See, I never heard him use
that word to describe Jesus, but I'm sure he
did. No, I tell you, we didn't talk about Jesus
so much as we prayed about Jesus and we prayed
to be like Jesus. I mean, it was a very prayerful
movement because we didn't know what we were
doing. I mean, Martin Luther King, I like to
remind people that he was a young minister, had
just been ordained, and he was not even in the
meeting in Montgomery. He was in the back in
the mimeograph room. running off the flyers about
a bus boycott when the meeting was going on in
the front of his church. They came to a kind
of stumbling block between trying to decide whose
turn it was to be the spokesman for that movement.
And there was a disagreement between the Baptists
and the Methodists. And the women in the church
said, well, why don't we... Let this young man
in the back be the spokesman for our first meeting.
And he was not even in the meeting when they
chose him. And he had less than an hour to prepare.
It was almost 7 o 'clock. The mass meeting was
at another church in another part of town at
8 o 'clock. And he then was told that he was
to be the spokesman. So there was no time to
prepare. But his wife was pregnant and could
not come. And so she asked the director of the
choir at their church to record his speech for
her. So that's how that happened. So we have
a good recording. Yeah. And the amazing thing
about that recording is... that when you hear
him speak, and remember, he was running a mimeograph
machine and was not even in a meeting. But in
that speech, when he went to the next church
and began to speak, you hear all of the themes
and messages that propped up in his Nobel Prize
speech and his speech at March on Washington.
in Chicago, in Detroit. I mean, the nonviolent
message was a part of his life. And I don't know
that he ever talked specifically about nonviolence
as nonviolence, a doctrine or theory, but he
talked about the need to unite Montgomery. That
had been fragmented by the fact that they've
disrespected Rosa Parks and took her off the
bus because she wanted to because she would not
get up and give her seat to the white person.
She was not hurt. And it was not an emotional
meeting, but it started. It was economic withdrawal
campaign, which lasted for 381 days and ended
up changing the nation. Yep. So that you see
Jesus in action, though you might not hear his
name. But you also did hear his name in almost
every time Martin spoke. He was referring to.
his relationship to Jesus of Nazareth. It's a
spiritual mystery how the concept of nonviolence
moves across the earth from person to person,
heart to heart, and breast to breast, as we say.
But, well, it popped into my head now that a
song we used to sing in church, it's not with
swords loud clashing. in the role of stirring
drum, but through deeds of love and mercy, the
heavenly kingdom comes. Oh, that's beautiful.
Tell me how you met Dr. King and when you started
to work with him and your early impressions of
him. Our paths crossed several times. He came
to speak in Atlanta and I was there, but I didn't
go up to speak to him. I had heard him speak.
in St. Louis at a meeting of Christian education
directors of churches of different denominations.
But again, I spoke to him, but everybody wanted
to gather around him, but I didn't. I mean, I
just spoke and told him what I thought of his
speech. And it was almost a year later. When
I was invited, I was asked to come to Talladega
College in Alabama because he had been invited
to speak at a Religious Emphasis Week program.
And they were afraid that he was not going to
be able to come. So they called me and asked
me would I come in case he didn't show up. And
we both showed up. And so instead of a speech
or two speeches, we ended up having a dialogue
with the professor. Well, he wasn't a professor
then. He was a student. And it was led by a fraternity.
But we talked for a couple of hours together.
I don't remember what we talked about except
that we didn't disagree, and we were finding
different ways to say some of the same things.
At the end of the meeting, my wife was with me,
and we realized that his wife was not there because
she had just delivered a baby, and I was there
with my baby. Baby girl, both baby girls. And
he invited us to stop by his house on the way
back. We were driving back to Thomasville, Georgia,
and we had to drive through Montgomery. And so
we stopped off at his house to have dinner. But
we never talked about we never talked about anything
but our daughters. And I mean, he was a proud
father and so was I. And then he invited you
a few years later to join the staff of SEO? No,
we didn't see each other for another two years.
And I got a call. See, he lived a very difficult
life. Yeah. And I was aware of it. And I was,
by that time, I had moved to New York and was
working with the National Council of Churches.
in youth work. And I got a call from a friend
of his because a foundation wanted to give him
some money to do a voter registration project.
And he had not been settled down enough to have
a 501c3 clearance approval to receive a... a
grant as a nonprofit corporation. He was still
operating basically as pastor of no church because
by that time he was leaving Montgomery and going
back to pastor with his father. And I got this
call and I ended up going to the United Church
of Christ office and asking them. if they could
find a way to give this money to one of their
church organizations. And they ended up approving
a grant to Dorchester Center in Georgia. And
they approved it and said they would renovate
some of the properties that the church had. across
the South, and that they thought maybe I should
leave New York and go back to Georgia and sort
of be the administrator for that project. So
I really ended up going back to his office in
Atlanta before he got there. He had been stabbed
and had been given some time to recover. studying
in India and was not there. And I showed up with
a grant and a project before he got back. And
then when he got back, they arrested him and
put him in jail in Reidsville, Georgia, because
what they charged him with was driving in Georgia.
With an expired Georgia license or Alabama license
or something. But it was really nothing. It was
trivial. And they just wanted an excuse to arrest
him. So let me stop you there, Andy. I wanted
to definitely ask you about Reidsville. And I
want you to take a little time. And here's why.
A couple of years ago, I did a great Zoom with
a friend, probably your friend, Cornel West.
And I was asking him about Dr. King. And he said
to me, this was total news to me, that in the
1970s, Daddy King said to Cornel, from now on,
everything about Martin begins with Reidsville.
And then last year I had Jonathan E. gone for
a Zoom about his big new biography about Dr.
King. And he told me that you called him after
the book came out and congratulated him on the
book and said you missed one thing, Reidsville.
In other words, that whole experience of being
in the station wagon all night long with the
German shepherd and expecting to be shot and
killed. It wasn't a station wagon. It was a police
wagon. The police wagon. But what happened there
that he was bent over and then he was talking
about the cross from then on? Why is that? Should
that be the beginning of all our understanding
of Dr. King? Because he was. He was really trying
to ease his way out of the movement. He was leaving
Montgomery, coming back to Atlanta, because he
thought Atlanta would be more peaceful. So he's
going to work with his father and everything's
going to be easier? He was going to be the co
-pastor with his father. Remember, he had already
been jailed. He had already been stabbed. His
home had been bombed. And then... And Reidsville
was an attempt to scare the hell out of him,
really, because they picked him up on the street.
He was walking with students who were picketing
riches, but he was just down there as support.
And encouraging them. And the police from another
county came in and picked him up off the street
and took him with them. And nobody knew where
he was. Well, he spent the night in the DeKalb
County Jail, which is about 20 miles from where
he was picked up. But then in the middle of the
night, they put him in the back of this paddy
wagon in chains. And with nothing but him and
a police dog, a German shepherd. And there were
no there were no expressways then. So riding
down Reidsville is about 300 miles from Atlanta
in winding roads through the country. And as
he went around those curves and up and down those
hills, he was rolling from side to side because
he was in chains. And the German shepherd would
growl. And I used to tell him, I said, you know,
that German shepherd saved your life because
you spent more time thinking about calming down
the German shepherd. And it didn't leave you
time to panic. But I said, you know, God works
in mysterious ways. And that. You know, Steve
Biko in South Africa lost his mind in the back
of a paddy wagon like that and came out, you
know, fighting the policeman and they beat him
to death. There was a law tradition in Georgia
of taking people in handcuffs in a paddy wagon,
taking them out to a bridge or... Well, in this
case, it was the Flint River, which runs across
Georgia into the Chattahoochee and down into
the Gulf of Mexico. And that was a notorious
way of killing people and having their bodies
disapposed of. And I'm sure that's what they
wanted him to think. But he couldn't think about
that so much. Because he kept trying to calm
this German Shepherd down. Now, the irony of
it is, and the beauty of it in some way, is that
he had had a German Shepherd puppy, I mean a
dog, as a boy when he was three or four years
old. And so he grew up with a German Shepherd
as his boyhood friend. And so he was not afraid
of this dog. Gosh. So Daddy King told Cornell
that... He was bent over that whole night in
the paddy wagon. And that when they got him out,
he couldn't even straighten up his back. And
he said to his father, He immediately started
talking about the cross and carrying the cross.
And then Cornell was saying on our Zoom, in effect,
from then on, every day he talked about the cross
and that famous saying, unearned suffering love
is redemptive, which seems to be in every speech
he gave. Is that your impression, too? And by
the way, tell me about that, because nobody talks
about the cross anymore, but he talked about
it all the time. Well, and but that was. I think
that that was me. I was guilty of that. His daddy
was guilty of that. And Cornel West would be
guilty of that. But actually, as I remember,
he never talked about the details of his death.
But he would laugh and talk about death. And
it was something that he talked a lot about,
but never in sorrow or in fear. It was always
in yuba. And it was so typical of his life that
when he was finally killed and I was there, my
reflection was back to Elijah. Going to heaven
on a flaming chariot because the bullet hit his
spinal cord and severed it. And because bullets
go faster than the speed of sound, he probably
never heard the bullet. And he probably never
felt the pain because his spinal cord was severed.
And he was laying there. With his pulse still
beating. And I looked up over just beyond the
Mississippi River in Memphis. And the first thing
I thought of was Martin and made it to heaven
in a flaming chariot. Yeah. And because that
was something we used. I mean, we found a way
to talk about death. in a context of humor and
playfulness. It was never serious. It was never
sad. It was, you know, you're going to die. There
ain't no hiding place. You know, it went to the
right. Went to the rock to find, hide my face,
the rock to find out no hiding place. There's
no hiding place down here. If you're born, man
born of trouble is few days and full of trouble.
And you almost look to your death as a blessing.
It's so hard to even talk about all that you
did in the civil rights movement with you and
Martin and all your friends. And we don't have
that much time, but. You know, the genius of
you and the SCLC was, I think, in my opinion,
your strategy after Reidsville, you go to Alabama,
I mean Albany, and that didn't provoke a response.
So you pick Birmingham, and then you pick Selma,
and then you pick Chicago, and then there were
other things, the Poor People's Campaign. We
picked Birmingham, first of all. Yeah. Any memories
about all of that you'd like to tell me about
or something that's still vivid that would help
me understand nonviolence and Jesus? There had
been over 60 bombings of homes in Birmingham
in the early 1960s, 1961 to 63. And in 1962,
I think it was December the 16th. is the day
I remember that Fred Shuttlesworth came to our
office in Atlanta and said that his home had
been bombed. It was a Monday and his home had
been bombed that Sunday. And right after church
and his house was next to the church and his
house, you know, the gables were down on the
ground. The house caved in as a result of the
bomb thrown at the church. And he crawled out
still dressed in his suit and tie and said that,
you know, they can't kill me. They just as well
quit trying. But he came to Atlanta the next
day, that Sunday, that Monday, and asked Martin,
said, we have got to do something. Not violent,
but something more aggressive. We just can't
sit back and wait for them to bomb our homes
and blow up our churches. We need to find a way
to make nonviolence more aggressive. And Martin
said, well, that means you'd want a nonviolent
movement. But there was an election coming up
at the end of the month in January. He said,
we don't want to do anything in an election time
to get people all stirred up. But that'll give
us time to prepare. And he turned to me and he
said, Andy, do you know any white folks in Birmingham?
And I said, I don't know any black folks in Birmingham.
I said, I hardly been to Birmingham. You know,
and he said, well, you got a month to see if
you can find some. Wow. And I said, why me? And
he said, well, you're comfortable talking to
white people. You've been working with white
people in New York. And he said, you won't get
angry and upset. And he said, we need to set
up a conversation with the white business community
and churches and explain to them how a nonviolent
movement works. and prepare them for the things
that are to come. And he said that's, well, he
didn't have to say it, but he did, that that's
the most important part of a nonviolent movement.
Now, that's also one of the reasons why our more
recent nonviolent movements have not been as
successful as they could have been, because we
don't take the time before demonstrations to
prepare for them. And we don't, it's not a judgment,
but we didn't know about a nonviolent movement
until George Floyd's death was on television
in everybody's home for nine and a half minutes.
And there was no time. People just went to the
streets and started demonstrating. But we had
time and we took the time in Birmingham. I set
up a meeting with, well, I went to see the Episcopal
bishop. And he agreed to meet with Martin and
Ralph and Shuttlesworth. And then he agreed that
he would create, he would bring a group of the
business community and what we used to call the
white power structure of the city together to
meet with us. So all of this was going on during
that January before the movement. So that's,
it's just so amazing all that you did. That preparation
is very important. We don't, since we don't have
too much time. So then in those months leading
up to March, you started the campaign marching
through downtown Birmingham and you're calling
for an end of segregation. And then the Good
Friday. Before we got to that, we had the black
community sit down and write a Birmingham manifesto.
And they wrote their complaints to things that
they thought were unjust. And we didn't do that.
That was and Birmingham didn't have a lot of.
Well, it didn't have a black college in Birmingham,
I don't think. And so there were no there were
very few black people with doctor degrees or.
or no intellectuals hardly in this movement group.
It was the doctor's wives and the minister's
wives that brought much of the brainpower to
it. But it was a profound document that we put
in the Birmingham Post -Herald before we started
marching to explain why we were going to be marching.
The ministers then, even though we had talked
to them, the white ministers, they wrote an answer,
but blaming it all on Martin Luther King coming
to stir up trouble, even after we had met with
them. And Martin then wrote the letter from the
Birmingham jail in jail. And it was written around
the margins of the New York Times. And when they
ran out of space in the New York Times front
section, he started writing on toilet tissue.
So you had three documents coming out of Birmingham.
Actually, that's where one of our lawyers left
Birmingham and went to Harvard. He was the one
that wrote the papers about the books. I forget
what they are now. Discrimination, the DEI or
something like that. So let me ask you then,
so the letter from the Birmingham jail, greatest
documents in American history, and then the marches
begin, and then Beville leads the children out
there. I want to ask you about Double D Day,
because when I was studying nonviolence, I think
it's called Double D Day. So around May 2nd,
we're talking 1963. Now the children are marching
and marching in waves. The white police can't
handle it and pulled Connor. And I was taught
nonviolence in college at Duke in the 70s and
the teachers building it all up. And it goes
to this moment, what you guys call Double D Day.
Tell me about that. Here come thousands of singing
kids. Well, what happened? But the fire hoses
were put down. Even when Martin was in jail,
we started having... meetings in the churches
after school. This was 62, 63. There wasn't much,
you know, people didn't have money. There wasn't
much television. People didn't own televisions.
That's large numbers. And so we would put up
movies. We would show movies. And we would have
high school kids in the churches near the school.
And we showed them the movie of the Birmingham,
I mean of... the Montgomery Improvement Association,
and of the sit -ins in Nashville, and of Gandhi's
movement of independence in India with no violence.
And so we had three movies, and for about three
weeks, we showed movies to the students near
the high schools. And so we trained them intellectually.
to understand the meaning of nonviolence and
to go through what we knew might be violence
without fear or without hatred or anger. And
it was almost like it became like a game. They
were singing and they were, I mean, they were
not afraid in the fire hoses, nor of the German
shepherds. It was because they had had several
weeks of discussion and training and understood
that this was not an anger and frustration, that
this was the joy of acting as though you were
free. Even though you knew there would be consequences
because others didn't want you to be free. So
they marched to the fire hoses. Others didn't
want you to act free. You were getting out of
your place. And you were no longer the oppressed,
downtrodden, sad people. You were singing freedom
songs. Ain't gonna let nobody turn me around.
The one that I, you know, let me see, how does
that go? It's one of my favorite freedom songs,
and I'm drawing a blank on it now. I love everybody.
I love everybody in my heart. I feel the love
of Jesus. I feel the love of Jesus in my heart.
That's why you can't make me doubt him. I know
too much about him. I have the love of Jesus
in my heart. And so they would be marching, singing
these freedom songs. And they sang them every
night in church. And they sang them in jail.
So nobody was sad. Nobody was depressed. It wasn't
a time of despair. In fact, we had more people
probably because... We had ministers assigned
to go to jail with the young people, and many
of them had revivals in the prisons and accepted
young people as members of the church while they
were in jail. Wow. Because there was Bible study
and hymns, and all of this was a part—and discussions.
And all of this was a part of growing up in Birmingham.
So, indeed. Here we are today, all these years
later, and we're honoring Dr. King and you and
everybody in the movement and the power of nonviolence
that you showed the world. And we're in this
terrible time. And so my general question is,
as we honor Dr. King and learn from you and the
movement, what suggestions do you have for all
of us now in these times as we try to go forward
and build nonviolent movements to confront? White
supremacy, racism, permanent warfare, poverty,
greed, nuclear weapons, gun violence, catastrophic
climate change. The list goes on and on. And
especially what would you encourage young people
to do? So some general suggestions to our listeners
about Karen. You know, I think that I think in
Martin's preaching, he gave us a number of things.
One, he said that black men and women in slavery
had. sometimes more faith than the prophets of
the Bible. That Jeremiah raised questions. Is
there no bomb in Gilead? Is there no position
there? But black men and women in slavery turned
Jeremiah's question mark into an exclamation
point. And they sang, there is a bomb in Gilead
that makes the wounded whole. There's a balm
in Gilead that heals the sin sick soul. And so
when I get discouraged and think my works in
vain, then I know the Holy Spirit revives my
soul again, because there is a balm in Gilead
that makes the wounded whole. And Martin had
a poetic eloquence about his preaching that gave
it additional power. He was speaking biblically,
but he was mixing it with the songs and the faith
and the suffering of Black people, you know,
throughout our history. And it created a spiritual
power and a spiritual awakening. That puts all
of the suffering in perspective. In fact, it
lifts you up above the suffering of this earth
and allows you to look forward to the kingdom
of God and the life to come. So you said that
in the HBO documentary, King in the Wilderness,
where you talked about the Poor People's Campaign
in Vietnam, and then you're going to Memphis.
And there you said something I never heard before,
that by the time of Memphis, Martin was no longer
speaking and thinking politically so much as
thinking and speaking spiritually, even as a
movement organizer. Is that what you were getting
at? Yeah, very much so. I mean, it was always
a spiritual movement that incidentally had political
implications. For instance, I went with him.
When he won the Nobel Peace Prize, President
Johnson was pretty low. And because he was bogged
down with the war in Vietnam. And we went to
see him. And our appointment was for something
like four in the afternoon. And we got there
early. But we didn't get to see President Johnson
until after six. Because the Vietnam hawks. were
in the Oval Office beating up on him, trying
to get him to escalate. And we met with the vice
president and the district attorney, I mean,
the attorney general in the Justice Department.
And when we went over to the president's office,
they were coming out. But we were two hours late.
And he was, I mean, President Johnson was very
depressed. And he didn't disagree. Everything
Martin said, he said, I agree with you, Dr. King.
I just don't have the power. And he must have
said that 10 times because everything Martin
raised the question about, we didn't fuss at
him about Vietnam. We were talking about feeding
the hungry, clothing the naked, healing the sick,
setting at liberty those who were oppressed.
It was a poor people's campaign. And when we
left there, we did everything but pray together.
But when we left, I was thinking that, well,
I was thinking that Dr. King was tired and that
he needed a sabbatical. And I said, Dr. King.
I said, you know, Martin, you, the president's
right. You really need to take, this was December.
I said, you really need to take, you know, six
months off or so. And just get this movement
together in your mind. And he said, no. I said,
well, what you going to do? He said, we got to
get the president some power. And I said something
else, and he said, no, you're wrong. We've got
to get the president some power. So you went
to Selma. Everything I said, his answer was,
no, we're going to get the president some power.
Wow. And then Mrs. Boynton showed up, you know,
just before Christmas and invited us to come
to Selma. So we're running out of time here,
Andy. We could talk so much and maybe we can
do this again someday about then Selma and Chicago
and the Poor People's Campaign and Vietnam and
then Memphis. Jim Lawson and I used to talk about
what Martin said in those last days in Memphis.
I want to ask you, because I only learned it
about 10 years ago, that Jim said Martin stood
up there one night and announced his definition
of hope. In Memphis, Martin says, hope is the
final refusal to give up. And I think that's
brilliant, original. I'm not giving up. In other
words, it's such a practical definition. And
I think that's very helpful today. I wonder,
do you remember that? And what keeps you hopeful?
And what words of encouragement do you have for
hope? folks to be hopeful, to be in it, the struggle
for the long haul, to keep following the nonviolent
Jesus for life. I'm glad you said that because
I don't remember that. I remember being in the
church, but I also remember that he was really
sick. I mean, he had a fever and he really didn't
want to go out. And he said he would just go
to the church because it was pouring down rain
and the church was packed with people and they
were standing outside in the rain to hear him.
And he got carried away and gave that speech,
which in many ways predicted his own death the
next day. I'm not sure that he spoke that phrase
at that speech at the Mason Temple. You know,
I've been to the mountaintop. But it was in one
of those speeches in that week or two. And Jim
said he heard it. But what gives you hope, Andy?
And how have you been able to maintain your hope
all these years? And what advice do you have
for me and our listeners about hope? You know,
I'm not sure. And I've never thought about it,
but I think that what I learned from Martin King
was what he learned from his father and his grandfather
and his grandmother. And it's the history of
a people who, going all the way back to the book
of Genesis and throughout the New Testament,
are... constantly reminded of visions of a way
out of no way. I mean, hope when there's nothing
to be hopeful about. Suddenly, and he would use
hymns, truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever
on the throne. Yet that scaffold sways the future
for behind the dim unknown. Standeth God within
the shadows, keeping watch above his own. And
we have grown up. I mean, I'm 93 years old now,
and I've been singing these songs since I was
three. And it's not something I have to dream
up. It's something that comes up in moments of
despair and moments when everybody else is giving
up. You see, mine eyes have seen the glory of
the coming of the Lord. He's stamping out the
vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.
He has loosed his faithful lightning from his
terrible swift sword. His truth is marching on.
You know, glory, hallelujah. Glory, hallelujah.
And I mean, I don't know how many times I heard
Martin say that, but there was an extra passion.
When he said it in Mississippi, out in front
of the police station where Cheney and Schwerner
and Goodman were killed, and the police were
around there still making fun of the fact that...
They were killed. When Ralph Abernathy prayed
there, he included in his prayer, the guilty
parties are right here within the speaking, within
the sound of our voice. And somebody in the background,
whom I didn't know and didn't hear, said, you're
damn right. But he kept on praying. And we marched
away from their singing. One of our favorite
songs, Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around.
Keep on marching, keep on walking, marching up
to freedom land. Well, that's a good way to end,
and we'll all keep trying to do that. I just
want to thank you again for this great blessing,
Reverend Andrew Young, for speaking with me today.
Let me thank you, friends, for listening to the
Nonviolent Jesus podcast. You can hear more podcasts
and find other upcoming Zoom programs at BeatitudeCenter
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if you want. May the God of peace bless you all.
Keep on following the nonviolent Jesus on the
freedom road to peace. See you next time.