Read Dr. Reginald Hildebrand's Full Remarks from the 37th Annual Durham Tech MLK Celebration Event

One day last month, I saw two striking news stories, right next to each other. The first announced that the Pfizer pharmaceutical company was opening a brand new clinical manufacturing facility in Durham at a cost of 68 and a half million dollars, that would bring new jobs and opportunities to the city. The headline of the other story said: “Pistol found at scene of Durham shooting that left 2 teens dead, 4 injured.”

That story was about the violent deaths of two young people who were 19 and 15 years old, and the wounding of four children as young as 12 and 13.

Last year in Durham many beautiful buildings were built.... and many beautiful lives were lost.

In the words of Charles Dickens, “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It was the age of wisdom. It was the age of foolishness. It was the spring of hope. It was the winter of despair. We had everything before us. We had nothing before us.”

The title that Martin Luther King chose for his last book poses a critical question that demands a real answer from us. The title of the book was, “Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?”

In times of confusion and despair, people and communities need a dream...a dream powerful enough to lift them and guide them and keep them moving forward, even when the way forward is difficult and dangerous and costly....Rev. King understood that. Of course, he provided leadership, organization, tactics, plans and strategies and proposed legislation...but he lifted, inspired and encouraged us with a dream.

Using the words of Howard Thurman, we could say that King was “the authentic embodiment of a dream. He lived it, talked it, felt it, and thought it, until at last the magic of its power became to many what it was to him. He gathered into the sweep of his concern the tragic plight of all victims of injustice and hate. With them he made common cause.”

King spoke of the American dream, of the dreams of his people, and of the dream instilled in him by his faith. Through his dedication to pursuing justice through inclusive, courageous, nonviolent direct action he worked to move us toward achieving the dream of becoming what he called “the Beloved Community.” He was indeed the authentic embodiment of a dream...a dream for which he lived and died.

It was just a few weeks after the triumph of the March on Washington and his “I Have a Dream” speech that Rev. King performed one of the most difficult duties he ever had to perform during his entire career as a leader and as a minister. He delivered the eulogy for three of the four girls who were killed in the racist bombing of the 16th street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Three of girls were 14 years old and the other was just 11. They were so young. Their lives were so precious. How could they have been the victims of brutal, bloody violence? King had seen a lot and been through a lot...but their deaths affected him greatly.

Can anyone doubt, how Rev. King would have reacted if he had been living in Durham in August 2019 when nine year old Zyon Person was shot and killed while riding in the back seat of his aunt’s car to get snow cones? Or when 12 year old Tyvien McClean was shot and killed in July of 2020 by a stray bullet that came from outside while he was inside just visiting a friend? And on April 4th, last year, the date of the anniversary of Rev. Kings assassination, on that day a 15 year old boy was shot to death in Durham, by another 15 year old boy and a 16 year old. Regrettably and tragically, it seems that we cannot protect our children....from our children....and that for too many young people a happy, safe childhood is just a dream.

During the summer of 1966, Rev King said: “I’m sick and tired of violence. I’m tired of shooting. I’m tired of hatred.” Violence. Whoever inflicts it, violence is a source of fear. It is the bedrock of all oppression. It reduces people to things, merely objects to be eliminated or just collateral damage. It wounds families, a wound so deep and so enduring that it is beyond description. For too many young men, violence and guns are as seductive as they are destructive. And some young men feel that the only way they can avoid becoming victims of violence is to get their own firepower and demonstrate that they have the capacity to inflict violence on others. Communities in the grip of fear believe that providing information about shooters could make them and their families the targets of retaliatory violence. So they remain silent.

The fact is that our society, our nation, and our popular culture are addicted to violence. In music and in movies, we romanticize and celebrate, gangstas and gangsters. My generation grew up watching “Gun Smoke,” “The Rifeman,” and “Have Gun Will Travel.” A president is never more popular than when he commits the nation to war, and never more unpopular than when he says that a war is no longer serving a purpose and has to end. We don’t build monuments for people who make peace.

In his last book, Rev. King wrote: “Violence is the antithesis of creativity and wholeness. It destroys community.” He knew that for justice to prevail, violence itself had to be overcome. He dreamed of communities where “none shall be afraid.” When he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, King said: “I refuse to accept despair. ... I believe that wounded justice, lying prostrate on the blood-flowing streets of our nations, can be lifted from this dust of shame.” He went on to say that he was not just concerned about physical violence. He explained, “I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits.” He warned against creating lonely islands of poverty surrounded by material prosperity. He referred to “Glistening towers of glass and steel easily seen...from slum dwellings.”

That was his dream then, and it must be our dream now.

Fortunately Durham is blessed with some remarkable dreamers. There are many groups and individuals doing good work. Among them are the Religious Coalition for a Nonviolent Durham; the violence prevention program called, Bull City United; the strong courageous women who organized the group called, “Guns Down, Heart Up”; and the new community center on East Main Street. I believe that Rev. King would refer to the leaders, members and supporters of those organizations, as drum majors for peace and justice, healing and hope. If he were here today, I believe that he would want to work with them, and to be a part of their vigils and demonstrations, and support their programs for youth. He would pray with them, and encourage them, and join them in the work of healing. With them he would make common cause.

And aren’t we blessed to have a prophet named Sidney Brodie who made a beautiful memorial quilt out of the ugliness of killings, each carefully crafted patch is a remembrance of a life lost, and helps us understand what Rev. King meant when he said: “We are tied together in a single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

And so my friends and colleagues at Durham Tech, we - each of us - must do whatever we can, to help tip the balance, in order to make this the best of times, not the worst. To make this the age of wisdom, knowledge, skills, opportunity and safety, not the age of foolishness, and ugliness, and violence. To make this the age of homes and families and communities, not the age homelessness and poverty, and fear. During this celebration of the life of Martin Luther King, we must rededicate ourselves to that Dream.

Dr. Reginald Hildebrand
Retired Instructor of History at Durham Tech