As in past years, I would like to remember the man by considering one of the phrases for which he is best known. In his I Have A Dream speech at the 1963 March on Washington, Dr. King declared, “we will not be satisfied until ‘justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.’”
Amos
Dr. King was quoting perhaps his favorite prophet, Amos.
Among the Old Testament prophets, Amos has been called a minor prophet. Amos even said of himself, “I am not a prophet.” (Amos 7:14.) Prophet or not, Amos was an in-your-face type of guy.
Amos preached to those reclining at ease on beds of ivory in their winter and summer houses of well-hewn stone, who enjoyed pleasant gardens and vineyards, fig trees and olive trees, who drank wine while anointing themselves with the finest of oils and listening to the music of a harp. (3:15, 4:9, 5:11, 6:1, 6:4-6.) (Even today, a double magnum bottle of wine is called a Jeroboam, named after the King of Israel in Amos’ day.)
Amos declared that they had pushed the afflicted out of their way, oppressed the poor and crushed the needy, hoarded up violence and devastation in their citadels, cheated with dishonest scales, took bribes, and bought helpless slaves for money -- in sum, that they had turned justice into wormwood and poison. (2:7, 3:10, 4:1, 5:7, 5:11-12, 6:12, 8:5-6.)
Amos prophesized that “thus says the Lord God . . . :”
I hate, I reject your festivals, nor do I delight in your solemn assemblies.
Even though you offer up to Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings, I will not accept them; and I will not even look at the peace offerings of your fatlings.
Take away from Me the noise of your songs; I will not even listen to the sound of your harp.
But let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
(Amos 5:21-24.)
Dr. King
Amos inspired Dr. King’s entire ministry.
In 1952 or 1953, while studying for his doctorate in divinity, Martin Luther King wrote these notes:
5:21:24 -- This passage might be called the key passage of the entire book. It reveals the deep ethical nature of God. God is a God that demands justice rather than sacrifice; righteousness rather than ritual. The most elaborate worship is but an insult to God when offered by those who have no mind to conform to his ethical demands. Certainly this is one of the most noble idea[s] ever uttered by the human mind.
One may raise the question as to whether Amos was against all ritual and sacrifice, i.e. worship. I think not. It seems to me that Amos' concern is the ever-present tendency to make ritual and sacrifice a substitute for ethical living. Unless a man's heart is right, Amos seems to be saying, the external forms of worship mean nothing. God is a God that demands justice and sacrifice can never be a substitute for it. Who can disagree with such a notion?
Amos' emphasis throughout seems to be that justice between man and man is one of the divine foundations of society. Such an ethical ideal is at the root of all true religion. This high ethical notion conceived by Amos must alway[s] remain a challenge to the Christian church.
On May 2, 1954, as a 25-year-old minister giving his first sermon as pastor at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, he preached, “I have felt with Amos that when God speaks who can but prophesy.” (Amos 3:8.)
On December 5, 1955 -- the first day of the Montgomery bus boycott -- Dr. King was just 26 years old when he was elected President of the Montgomery Improvement Association, which had called the boycott. He was beginning the second year of his ministry and needed 15 hours to prepare his Sunday sermons, but that evening had only 20 minutes to prepare the most decisive speech of his life to the thousands who packed the mass meeting at Holt Street Baptist Church:
We are here this evening for serious business. We are here in a general sense because first and foremost we are American citizens, and we are determined to apply our citizenship to the fullness of its means. We are here because of our love for democracy, because of our deep-seated belief that democracy transformed from thin paper to thick action is the greatest form of government on earth. But we are here in a specific sense, because of the bus situation in Montgomery. We are here because we are determined to get the situation corrected.
. . .
My friends, I want it to be known that we're going to work with grim and firm determination to gain justice on the buses in this city. And we are not wrong, we are not wrong in what we are doing. If we are wrong, then the Supreme Court of this Nation is wrong. If we are wrong, the Constitution of the United States is wrong. If we are wrong, God Almighty is wrong. If we are wrong, Jesus of Nazareth was merely a Utopian dreamer and never came down to earth. If we are wrong, justice is a lie. And we are determined here in Montgomery to work and fight until justice runs down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.
On January 30, 1956, during the bus boycott, white supremacists firebombed Dr. King’s house while Dr. King was away speaking. His wife Coretta Scott King and their baby daughter Yolanda were at home but escaped without injury. When he returned, he spoke to an angry crowd that had gathered at his house. He told them to go home, saying “We must learn to meet hate with love.” Five days later, he received a telegram from Julian Grayson, an undergraduate classmate at Crozer Theological Society who had become a Methodist minister. It read simply, “FIGHT ON AMOS GOD IS WITH YOU.”
His first book, Stride Toward Freedom, published in 1958, shed light on his calling:
Any discussion of the Christian minister today must ultimately emphasize the need for prophecy. Not every minister can be a prophet, but some must be prepared for the ordeals of this high calling and be willing to suffer courageously for righteousness. May the problem of race in America soon make hearts burn so that prophets will rise up, saying, “Thus saith the Lord,” and cry out as Amos did, “. . . let justice roll down as waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”
In his April 1963 Letter from a Birmingham Jail -- written less than five months before the March on Washington -- Dr. King compared the struggle for civil rights to “the prophets of the eighth century B.C. [who] left their villages and carried their ‘thus saith the Lord’ far beyond the boundaries of their home towns . . . .”
Like Amos, Dr. King, in his I Have A Dream speech, called it like it is. Just as Amos’ God did not accept the iniquities of 8th century BC Israel, Dr. King declared why segregation was unacceptable:
There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?”
We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities.
We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one.
We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote.
No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
Inspired by Amos, Dr. King reminded America that the 1963 centennial celebration of the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation should not be an empty ritual, that equal justice was the foundation of our society, that a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal could not oppress an entire class of its citizens, and that our ethical ideals rooted in the American dream remained a challenge to our country.
Years later, speaking of a big downtown white church in a major American city that was looking for a pastor that would preach the gospel but not talk about social issues, Dr. King observed, “Whenever a church gets like that, it will stand in the midst of the injustices of life and yet refuse to say anything about them. Whenever a church gets like that, it will refuse to hear Amos cry out, ‘Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.’”
Even in his final words -- his I’ve Been to the Mountaintop address -- given the night before his assassination, Dr. King returned again to Amos:
Who is it that is supposed to articulate the longings and aspirations of the people more than the preacher? Somehow the preacher must have a kind of fire shut up in his bones. And whenever injustice is around he tells it. Somehow the preacher must be an Amos, and saith, “When God speaks who can but prophesy?” Again with Amos, “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Imagery
The power of the phrase flows from more than merely its Biblical resonances and Dr. King’s delivery. Its imagery evokes water’s elemental power to merge together and to wash away, to cleanse and to purify, to quench thirst and to bring life itself.
These words take physical form at the Civil Rights Memorial, a few blocks away from Montgomery’s Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. When its designer Maya Lin read Dr. King’s quote in I Have A Dream from the Book of Amos, “I knew that the whole piece had to be about water,” Lin said. The names of civil rights martyrs are inscribed on a circular, black granite table. Water emerges from the table’s center and flows over the top. Behind the table, water cascades over a curved black granite wall engraved with the words “…until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
“At the dedication ceremony, Emmett Till’s mother was touching his name beneath the water and crying,” Lin recalled, and “I realized that her tears were becoming part of the monument.” And, in a larger sense, a mother's tears merged with the tears and sweat and blood of others as part of a mighty stream.
TIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
Joan Walsh
Salon.com
Comments
Coincidence? I don't think so, especially because Dr. King actively studied Gandhi (even traveling to India). They both used the power of text, and the ability of textual re-interpretation, to push justice forward and inspire their followers.
Further, very interesting to see how Amos' ridicule of people who were wealthy, complacent, apathetic, and self-indulgent influenced Dr. King's passion for fighting economic inequality. Key parts of Dr. King's work at the later stage of his life, some of which tend to be overlooked, include his advocacy on behalf of poor workers in Memphis and Chicago. He fought for economic equality just as hard as he fought for racial equality. To him, both were interconnected.
Sadly, economic inequality, and it's direct correlation with racial inequality, continues to plague the world- whether inner city Chicago, rural Alabama, rural Uganda, or urban Mumbai. Dr. King would frown upon the horrific state of global poverty today, especially global apathy and complacency towards it.
Thank you for continuing his legacy through your posts and creating a space for dialogue.
You may be interested in a 1959 address by Dr. King that was broadcast on All India Radio and was rediscovered in the last year or so. You can read the text and listen to a recording at http://chicago.indianconsulate.com/2PressAndPublicity/PressReleases.html.
Art