Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Abraham Lincoln – Transitions

By Coletha Albert

October 3, 2021 – Harvard Rhetoric Course Assignment

If I could change one thing about the world, my country, and my community it would be removing the veil between the living and the dead. It is important to know fully about our existence on this planet. I want people to think more about life in terms broader than consumption and sexuality. I might persuade them by my research and examples.

Maybe it could happen with the re-examination of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream Speech”.

Picture it, 1963 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial stands Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with mostly adult males surrounding him. Can you see the military officials there in attendance, two holding the colors and the Stars and Stripes? Look at all of the men that are wearing sunglasses. Can you see that only men are standing behind Dr. King? Not one woman is on the stage. Can you see all these men? In the audience in folding chairs are men and women. All the audience members are clean, clothed respectfully, healthy-looking. None of these in the audience appear malnourished, brutalized, or uneducated. They are even smiling!!! Why? Where are all the poor Americans? Where are the farmers? Where are the ranchers?

How can persons who have been bitten by police dogs, beaten by police officers, and suffered broken bones by gushes of forced water through fireman’s water hoses be sitting in front of the Lincoln Memorial skinning and grinning? Standing, clapping, with not one tear in their eyes?

Wait…Look! There is a commotion as folks on stage begin to clear space as more audience members approach. Who are they? Dr. King continues to speak. He is joined by:

1. People born on this soil before the colonizers arrived
2. People who were “Strange Fruit” swaying from poplar trees
3. People who were torn from American jails and hung without a trial
4. People with keloid skin from dog bits and whips
5. People without arms, legs, groins, and eyeballs
6. People from the dungeons of London
7. People massacred by the north American crusades
8. People who died in factories working never seeing 10 years old

The living gasp but make room for the “transitioned”. Look at them. So many have paid the price for this moment at The Lincoln Memorial but they are not invited. Yet the “transitioned” can not be barred. Physical barriers can not stop them. No human act nor law can resist them. They are restricted by universal law. No mortal foil can stop them. Look at them all. Can you see them? Look! President Abraham Lincoln makes his way to sit among them all. He is followed by George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, James K. Polk, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield Chester A. Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Woodrow Wilson. Grown men now stand to their feet on every step of The Lincoln Memorial. Hats are removed. Sunglasses are removed from beaming eyes. There is silence as Dr. King continues.

John Wilkes Booth stood looking on shaking his head as he wondered, “Where is my memorial? I made Lincoln infamous after all?” Samuel Francis Smith placed his left hand on the Booth’s shoulder as he says: “Let it go, he’s getting to my favorite part. We enjoyed watching on as he practiced this one.”

Just then Dr. King goes on to state:

“…Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that: Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring. And when this happens, and when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, 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!”

I am beginning to edit this op-ed right now and I ask Dr. King if it’s alright and he says, “It’s okay.” Then he winks his eye at me as he and George Floyd turn and leave my apartment.  

Coletha Albert is a writer from Houston, Texas who enjoys time to travel and be inspired. This paper is an assignment for a Harvard Rhetoric course she is currently taking. First Draft. Coletha’s dream job? Ghost Writer

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Y’all I am so glad to be in year 2022 of our Lord! I wrote this a quarter ago and it feels like another dimension! Please let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

Little known fact

Did you know he was in fact in love with a White lady? Per Politico, her name is Betty Moitz and she was in seminary school with Dr. King. According to Betty they were madly in love.

What if he would have followed his heart? He would be alive today and Black Americans would be independently wealthy and self-sustaining. If Martin had stayed up North and started a church with Betty there never would have been projects builts to house free Blacks. Black families would be strong and in tact. The Prison Industrial System would never exist and the White communities could focus on manufacturing, the Appalachia children as well as all of their own societal ills without having to put on airs in front of Black Americans…

If Martin had married Betty instead of Coretta, the United States would be a far better place for all Americans.

Cyril Pyle is a manipulator and a destroyer of Black America. Had he minded his own business we would all be living in a better world right now.

At the age of 89, Ms. Betty Moritz passed away. I believe that she and Dr. King are finally together. Don’t you?

Fact:…interracial marriage in the United States has been fully legal in all U.S. states since the 1967 Supreme Court decision, Loving v. Virginia, that decreed all state antimiscegenation laws unconstitutional. Many states, of course, had chosen to legalize interracial marriage much earlier.

Ugh…let America reap what she has sown…