Tea Garden - I met Dr. Martin L. King at Church

This post is obviously not about modern day celebrities that grace the cover of popular magazines.  It's not about fashion forward glamazons or musical artists and their antics.  Today I'm pouring tea on the first time I came to realize who Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was. 

My mother always sent me to my granny in the Summer.  As a young girl I looked forward to the drive to Brighton a small suburb of Birmingham, AL.  I would watch the skies for signs of animal shaped clouds and birds flying in flocks to some Utopian destination I had created in my mind.  I would day dream listening the R&B music that filled the air in our car as we sped down I-20 towards my granny's big welcoming arms.  That journey always soothed me, made me feel like I was on my way to forever. 

 

Vacation Bible School and Sunday School were not optional during my sweet Summer sabbaticals.  I didn't mind at all.  I loved catching up with my Alabama peers and bragging to them about how living in Atlanta was nothing like the slow paced way of life in little old Brighton.  During one visit to Sunday school, I happened to notice a photo of MLK hanging next to a photo of Jesus.  He had on a blue suit, a white shirt and a black tie.  His right arm was raised and his mouth was open.  Beneath his torso "I Have A Dream" was written in block letters.  I clearly read "I Have" but, had to sound out "D-R-E-A-M".  I had to ask who was that?  Why was he next to Jesus?  Was he in the Bible?  Did he have a dream about Jesus?

My granny explained to me that Black people weren't always viewed as equals in our country.  She said that Martin Luther King helped people to understand that we are all the same and should be able to enjoy the same things in life.  We should be able to share schools, bathrooms, offices, buses and anything else we wanted.  She said skin color isn't important but, what we do and what we stand for...is.  She made it so easy to understand.  She reminded me of the waiting rooms in her doctor's office.  It was the late eighties and we would still sit on the "Colored" side in that waiting room.  His name was Dr. Brooks.  Damn Dr. Brooks and his racist, conformist ass for that.  I never asked her why we sat there.  I wish I had.

Years later, that conversation was the foundation for what would be many coloring sheet forays, politically correct lectures in class, "I Have a Dream" writing exercises, Black History Month programs and countless discussions with my mama about a myriad of topics Civil rights related.  To this day, I think of that poster taped to the wood paneled wall in Sunday school.  Beckoning to me, to understand that the dream was something that was for me and every other person in that room.  The dream was radical and revolutionary but, it was righteous. 

I met MLK at church.  The same place that I met Jesus, Moses and the first Preacher I'd ever known.  It was poignant and powerful.  That church family revered Jesus and MLK so much that they placed them side by side.  Deities in their own right.

Now that I'm an adult, and no longer a Christian, I truly understand why that poster was next to Jesus. Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a God like figure - a savior that sacrificed his safety, personal peace and his earthly body for the idea that all people deserved to be free from all injustice.   Jesus, (whom many believe) was a savior, a champion of morality, justice and equality was an almighty God that sacrificed his earthly body to salvage the corrupt and wretched souls of man.  How could they not share the same space on that wall?