"Wait, hold up... My Preacher-sense is tinglin'..."
Ernestine Campbell along with her husband owned the Trumpet Hotel located by the Lorraine Motel. Moments before and after Dr. King was shot she made the following observation…
No one had ever talked to her or asked her about what she saw on that fateful afternoon.
Ernestine said she left the hotel and started for home just before 6 p.m., driving her gold-bronze Cadillac up Butler and turning right on Mulberry. As she passed the Lorraine driveway on Butler, she saw Dr. King standing on the balcony.
She didn’t hear anything because she had the car windows up and the radio on.
As she turned the corner on Mulberry she looked up and saw Dr. King lying on the balcony. She thought he’d had a heart attack.
She stopped for a minute or two at the driveway, wondering why people weren’t racing to the balcony. Possibly she had arrived at the driveway when everyone was still in a state of shock.
Her attention was in particular drawn to Jesse Jackson who she said had one foot on the first step of the stairway looking up to the balcony while bent over …putting something into a suit bag.”
Jesse Jackson looked startled when Ernestine Campbell noticed him putting something in a suit bag.
What item could Jesse possibly be placing in the suit bag? Was the suit bag noticed by Ernestine the same tote bag Don Rose noticed Jesse carrying around Chicago shortly after Dr. King’s assassination?
Jesse’s startled appearance suggests that he was placing something in the suit bag that he did not want anyone to notice.
A Drum Major may look as though he is leading from the front, but in reality, he always is marching to the beat of somebody else's tune.
"Where are all our 'responsible' black leaders...?"
Translation: "Where are all the Negroes we pay to come and attack this fool?"
Ah, yes...
On the evening of April 4th 1968, Memphis, Tn. was a City on lockdown, amidst the largest federal manhunt in history.
(Made necessary by James Earl Ray's street smarts when hearing news of the assassination over the gas-station radio in driving his White Mustang quickly AWAY from the rooming-house above Jim's Grill, rather than back towards it, where he would have been immediately arrested by the Memphis cops laying in wait for him there.)
All bridges, tunnels, roads, freeways, trucks, trains, planes and automobile exits from Shelby County were closed and subject to Police roadblocks and searches.
All plane flights grounded until the following day.
Except for one plane, carrying one negro man aboard, back to Chicago, released by the Control Tower at the direct request of the FBI.
Meanwhile, the rest of the King entourage and senior leadership of SCLC were stuck right where they had been at 6.03 pm, where circumstances forced them into wearing the clothes they had the night before:
NOTE: Instructions given to the back-up 111th Airbourne Sniper Team, stationed on the roof of the firehouse adjacent to the Lorraine Motel, at their 4pm final briefing, April 4th 1968:
"Friendlies will not be wearing ties."
Jackson was long gone from Memphis whilst Abernathy and Young, the only two men senior to him in the national SCLC hierarchy were held incommunicado and subject to a Federal Investigation, ironically under the terms of the 1965 Civil Rights Act...
But before he left, he spoke to The Press:
[April 4, 1968]
JESSE JACKSON: I need to see Dr. King. Can I get a ride to see Dr. King?
[Everyone else in the entourage was driven, under police escort, in a motorcade to the hospital - "getting a ride to see Dr. King" was not his immediate concern]
REPORTER: Say, Reverend...
JESSE JACKSON: Can you excuse us, Jack?
REPORTER: Will you tell me just what happened, please?
JESSE JACKSON: Can it wait a little while?
REPORTER: Would you tell me just what happened so can get this film in, please?
CALVIN MORRIS:
Jesse always senses the moment, and it was an epochal moment, and he was there.
[Because he got away from the others - and the Memphis Police - by ducking out of riding in the ambulance or travelling in the convoy to the hospital by saying he was sick.]
JESSE JACKSON:
The black people's leader, our Moses, the once in a 400 or 500-year leader has been taken from us by hatred and bitterness.
Even as I stand at this hour, I - I cannot even allow hate to enter my heart at this time, for it was sickness, not meanness, that killed him.
People were_ some were in pandemonium, some were in shock, some were crying, hollering,
"Oh, God!"
And I immediately started running upstairs to where he was and I caught his head and I tried to feel his head and I asked him, I said,
"Dr. King, do you hear me? Dr. King, do you hear me?"
And he didn't say anything and I tried to hold his head. And by that time...
"When I see you here, so much alive, asking what to do, where to turn - I am available now.
I am more convinced than ever that every time that there is a crucifixion in right and righteousness, that inevitably and universally there is a resurrection."
JESSE JACKSON:
[April 12, 1968]
Nice watch, Jesse.
MARSHALL FRADY:
King aides, long resentful of Jackson, saw his behavior as brazen opportunism. They were already angry that he had spoken to the press in the hours after the assassination and furious that he had so dramatically inflated his own part in the story of King's final moments.
ANDREW YOUNG:
A lot of those resentments that had been buried in the movement, and that allowed us to work alongside each other, but never expressed, got expressed in the emotion and frustration of Martin's assassination.
MARSHALL FRADY:
Some began retailing the story of the last meeting at Ebenezer just days before the assassination.
As their story went, King had exploded at Jackson, told him to go do his own thing and leave him alone.
Andy Young was standing next to Jackson when the exchange took place.
At that meeting, in a study at Ebenzer church, King “just jumped on everybody,” says Young.
“He said we’d let him down. That we all had our own agendas and constantly left everything up to him. "
He said, ‘I can’t take all of this on by myself. I need you to take your share of the load.’”
Finally came his outburst of exasperation, far more widely retold, with Jackson, who had kept pressing for alterations of the Poor People’s Campaign: King had fumed out of the room, with Jackson trailing after him, along with Young. Jackson called from the top of the stairs as King and Abernathy were turning on the landing below, “Doc?Doc?”
Young recalls, “Jesse tried to encourage him, but it was sort of a glib thing, you know, ‘Don’t worry, everything’s going to be all right.’”
At that, King wheeled and pointed a finger up at Jackson:
“Jesse, everything’s not going to be all right. If things keep going the way they’re going now, it’s not SCLC but the whole country that’s in trouble. I’m not asking, Support me. I don’t need this. But if you’re so interested in doing your own thing, that you can’t do what this organization’s structured to do, if you want to carve out your own niche in society, go ahead. But for God’s sake don’t bother me!”
Jackson was left with a blasted and desolate stare.
Young remembers,
“It was shocking in a sense that he never talked to anybody like that. Though he’d often been mad at me, nobody had ever seen him mad like that before.”
…That challenge turned out to be the last substantive words King ever passed on to Jackson.
He remembers King's message to Jesse was much deeper than a simple rebuke.
ANDREW YOUNG:
It was shocking, in the sense that he never talked to anybody like that.
And the thing that happened was that Jesse tried to encourage him - you know,
"Don't worry. Everything's going to be all right."
And he turned and said,
"Everything is not going to be all right"
and he saw the problems that we were going into not as his problem, not as Jesse's personal problem or my personal problem, but America's problem. But he felt that the only thing that could save us was us working together to try to really and truly redeem the soul of America.
MARSHALL FRADY:
That angry challenge was the last substantive thing Martin Luther King said to Jesse Jackson.
ANDREW YOUNG:
No, it - and he's never forgotten it.
Senator Bulworth: You know who Huey Newton was?
Nina: (slowly she nods her head) Yes.
Senator Bulworth: You know a lotta people I talk to, the blacks your age, they have no idea who he was.
(long pause)
Huey.
(long pause)
Why do you think there are no more black leaders?
Nina: Some people think it's because they all got killed.
But I think it's got more to do with the decimation of the manufacturing base in the urban centers.
Senator, an optimistic population throws up optimistic, energized leaders. And when you shift manufacturing to the Sun Belt in the Third World, you destroy the blue-collar core of the black activist population.
Some people would say that problem is purely cultural.
The power of the media that is continually controlled by fewer and fewer people, add to that the monopoly of the media, a consumer culture based on self-gratification, and you're not likely to have a population that want's leadership that calls for self-sacrifice.
But the fact is, I'm just a materialist at heart.
But if I look at the economic base, higher domestic employment means jobs for African Americans. World War II meant lots of jobs for black folks. That is what energized the community for the civil rights movement of the 50's and the 60's.
An energized, hopeful community will not only produce leaders but more importantly it'll produce leaders they'll respond to.
Now what do you think, Senator?
Bulworth: Maybe it's because they just all got killed.
"You can kill my body, and you can take my life but you can never kill my soul. My soul will live forever!"
Last words of Huey P. Newton, 1989
"When I was a young boy,
My father took me into the city,
To see a marching band.
He said, 'Son, when you grow up,
Will you be the saviour of the broken?
The beaten and the damned...?'
He said, 'Will you defeat them?
Your demons and and the non-believers?
The plans that they've made....'"
Welcome to The Black Parade.
The March on Washington represented a coalition of several civil rights organizations, all of which generally had different approaches and different agendas.
The "Big Six" organizers were:
James Farmer, of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE);
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC);
John Lewis, of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC);
A. Philip Randolph, of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters;
Roy Wilkins, of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP);
and Whitney Young, Jr., of the National Urban League.
Gerard Way was working as an intern for Cartoon Network in New York City during the September 11, 2001 attacks. Seeing the effects of the attacks first-hand prompted Way to change his views on life in the following weeks.
He told Spin magazine,
"I literally said to myself, 'Fuck art. I’ve gotta get out of the basement. I’ve gotta see the world. I’ve gotta make a difference.'"
To help deal with the emotional effects the attacks had on him, Way wrote the lyrics to the song "Skylines and Turnstiles".
In many interviews, Way has stated that music turned out to be an effective outlet to deal with his longtime battles against depression, alcoholism and prescription drug abuse
On 4 February 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. preached ‘‘The Drum Major Instinct’’ from the pulpit of Ebenezer Baptist Church.
Ironically, two months before his assassination on 4 April 1968, he told his congregation what he would like said at his funeral:
‘‘I’d like for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to love somebody’’
(King, ‘‘The Drum Major,’’ 185).
Excerpts were played at King’s nationally televised funeral service, held at Ebenezer on 9 April 1968.
This morning I would like to use as a subject from which to preach: "The Drum Major Instinct." "The Drum Major Instinct." And our text for the morning is taken from a very familiar passage in the tenth chapter as recorded by Saint Mark. Beginning with the thirty-fifth verse of that chapter, we read these words: "And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came unto him saying, ‘Master, we would that thou shouldest do for us whatsoever we shall desire.’ And he said unto them, ‘What would ye that I should do for you?’ And they said unto him, ‘Grant unto us that we may sit, one on thy right hand, and the other on thy left hand, in thy glory.’ But Jesus said unto them, ‘Ye know not what ye ask: Can ye drink of the cup that I drink of? and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?’ And they said unto him, ‘We can.’ And Jesus said unto them, ‘Ye shall indeed drink of the cup that I drink of, and with the baptism that I am baptized withal shall ye be baptized: but to sit on my right hand and on my left hand is not mine to give; but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared.’" And then Jesus goes on toward the end of that passage to say, "But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your servant: and whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all."
The setting is clear. James and John are making a specific request of the master. They had dreamed, as most of the Hebrews dreamed, of a coming king of Israel who would set Jerusalem free and establish his kingdom on Mount Zion, and in righteousness rule the world. And they thought of Jesus as this kind of king. And they were thinking of that day when Jesus would reign supreme as this new king of Israel. And they were saying, "Now when you establish your kingdom, let one of us sit on the right hand and the other on the left hand of your throne."
Now very quickly, we would automatically condemn James and John, and we would say they were selfish. Why would they make such a selfish request? But before we condemn them too quickly, let us look calmly and honestly at ourselves, and we will discover that we too have those same basic desires for recognition, for importance. That same desire for attention, that same desire to be first. Of course, the other disciples got mad with James and John, and you could understand why, but we must understand that we have some of the same James and John qualities. And there is deep down within all of us an instinct. It's a kind of drum major instinct—a desire to be out front, a desire to lead the parade, a desire to be first. And it is something that runs the whole gamut of life.
And so before we condemn them, let us see that we all have the drum major instinct. We all want to be important, to surpass others, to achieve distinction, to lead the parade. Alfred Adler, the great psychoanalyst, contends that this is the dominant impulse. Sigmund Freud used to contend that sex was the dominant impulse, and Adler came with a new argument saying that this quest for recognition, this desire for attention, this desire for distinction is the basic impulse, the basic drive of human life, this drum major instinct.
And you know, we begin early to ask life to put us first. Our first cry as a baby was a bid for attention. And all through childhood the drum major impulse or instinct is a major obsession. Children ask life to grant them first place. They are a little bundle of ego. And they have innately the drum major impulse or the drum major instinct.
Now in adult life, we still have it, and we really never get by it. We like to do something good. And you know, we like to be praised for it. Now if you don't believe that, you just go on living life, and you will discover very soon that you like to be praised. Everybody likes it, as a matter of fact. And somehow this warm glow we feel when we are praised or when our name is in print is something of the vitamin A to our ego. Nobody is unhappy when they are praised, even if they know they don't deserve it and even if they don't believe it. The only unhappy people about praise is when that praise is going too much toward somebody else. (That’s right) But everybody likes to be praised because of this real drum major instinct.
Now the presence of the drum major instinct is why so many people are "joiners." You know, there are some people who just join everything. And it's really a quest for attention and recognition and importance. And they get names that give them that impression. So you get your groups, and they become the "Grand Patron," and the little fellow who is henpecked at home needs a chance to be the "Most Worthy of the Most Worthy" of something. It is the drum major impulse and longing that runs the gamut of human life. And so we see it everywhere, this quest for recognition. And we join things, overjoin really, that we think that we will find that recognition in.
Now the presence of this instinct explains why we are so often taken by advertisers. You know, those gentlemen of massive verbal persuasion. And they have a way of saying things to you that kind of gets you into buying. In order to be a man of distinction, you must drink this whiskey. In order to make your neighbors envious, you must drive this type of car. (Make it plain) In order to be lovely to love you must wear this kind of lipstick or this kind of perfume. And you know, before you know it, you're just buying that stuff. (Yes) That's the way the advertisers do it.
I got a letter the other day, and it was a new magazine coming out. And it opened up, "Dear Dr. King: As you know, you are on many mailing lists. And you are categorized as highly intelligent, progressive, a lover of the arts and the sciences, and I know you will want to read what I have to say." Of course I did. After you said all of that and explained me so exactly, of course I wanted to read it. [laughter]
But very seriously, it goes through life; the drum major instinct is real. (Yes) And you know what else it causes to happen? It often causes us to live above our means. (Make it plain) It's nothing but the drum major instinct. Do you ever see people buy cars that they can't even begin to buy in terms of their income? (Amen) [laughter] You've seen people riding around in Cadillacs and Chryslers who don't earn enough to have a good T-Model Ford. (Make it plain) But it feeds a repressed ego.
You know, economists tell us that your automobile should not cost more than half of your annual income. So if you make an income of five thousand dollars, your car shouldn't cost more than about twenty-five hundred. That's just good economics. And if it's a family of two, and both members of the family make ten thousand dollars, they would have to make out with one car. That would be good economics, although it's often inconvenient. But so often, haven't you seen people making five thousand dollars a year and driving a car that costs six thousand? And they wonder why their ends never meet. [laughter] That's a fact.
Now the economists also say that your house shouldn't cost—if you're buying a house, it shouldn't cost more than twice your income. That's based on the economy and how you would make ends meet. So, if you have an income of five thousand dollars, it's kind of difficult in this society. But say it's a family with an income of ten thousand dollars, the house shouldn't cost much more than twenty thousand. Well, I've seen folk making ten thousand dollars, living in a forty- and fifty-thousand-dollar house. And you know they just barely make it. They get a check every month somewhere, and they owe all of that out before it comes in. Never have anything to put away for rainy days.
But now the problem is, it is the drum major instinct. And you know, you see people over and over again with the drum major instinct taking them over. And they just live their lives trying to outdo the Joneses. (Amen) They got to get this coat because this particular coat is a little better and a little better-looking than Mary's coat. And I got to drive this car because it's something about this car that makes my car a little better than my neighbor's car. (Amen) I know a man who used to live in a thirty-five-thousand-dollar house. And other people started building thirty-five-thousand-dollar houses, so he built a seventy-five-thousand-dollar house. And then somebody else built a seventy-five-thousand-dollar house, and he built a hundred-thousand-dollar house. And I don't know where he's going to end up if he's going to live his life trying to keep up with the Joneses.
There comes a time that the drum major instinct can become destructive. (Make it plain) And that's where I want to move now. I want to move to the point of saying that if this instinct is not harnessed, it becomes a very dangerous, pernicious instinct. For instance, if it isn’t harnessed, it causes one's personality to become distorted. I guess that's the most damaging aspect of it: what it does to the personality. If it isn't harnessed, you will end up day in and day out trying to deal with your ego problem by boasting. Have you ever heard people that—you know, and I'm sure you've met them—that really become sickening because they just sit up all the time talking about themselves. (Amen) And they just boast and boast and boast, and that's the person who has not harnessed the drum major instinct.
And then it does other things to the personality. It causes you to lie about who you know sometimes. (Amen, Make it plain) There are some people who are influence peddlers. And in their attempt to deal with the drum major instinct, they have to try to identify with the so-called big-name people. (Yeah, Make it plain) And if you're not careful, they will make you think they know somebody that they don't really know. (Amen) They know them well, they sip tea with them, and they this-and-that. That happens to people.
And the other thing is that it causes one to engage ultimately in activities that are merely used to get attention. Criminologists tell us that some people are driven to crime because of this drum major instinct. They don't feel that they are getting enough attention through the normal channels of social behavior, and so they turn to anti-social behavior in order to get attention, in order to feel important. (Yeah) And so they get that gun, and before they know it they robbed a bank in a quest for recognition, in a quest for importance.
And then the final great tragedy of the distorted personality is the fact that when one fails to harness this instinct, (Glory to God) he ends up trying to push others down in order to push himself up. (Amen) And whenever you do that, you engage in some of the most vicious activities. You will spread evil, vicious, lying gossip on people, because you are trying to pull them down in order to push yourself up. (Make it plain) And the great issue of life is to harness the drum major instinct.
Now the other problem is, when you don't harness the drum major instinct—this uncontrolled aspect of it—is that it leads to snobbish exclusivism. It leads to snobbish exclusivism. (Make it plain) And you know, this is the danger of social clubs and fraternities—I'm in a fraternity; I'm in two or three—for sororities and all of these, I'm not talking against them. I'm saying it's the danger. The danger is that they can become forces of classism and exclusivism where somehow you get a degree of satisfaction because you are in something exclusive. And that's fulfilling something, you know—that I'm in this fraternity, and it's the best fraternity in the world, and everybody can't get in this fraternity. So it ends up, you know, a very exclusive kind of thing.
And you know, that can happen with the church; I know churches get in that bind sometimes. (Amen, Make it plain) I've been to churches, you know, and they say, "We have so many doctors, and so many school teachers, and so many lawyers, and so many businessmen in our church." And that's fine, because doctors need to go to church, and lawyers, and businessmen, teachers—they ought to be in church. But they say that—even the preacher sometimes will go all through that—they say that as if the other people don't count.
(Amen)
And the church is the one place where a doctor ought to forget that he's a doctor. The church is the one place where a Ph.D. ought to forget that he's a Ph.D. (Yes) The church is the one place that the school teacher ought to forget the degree she has behind her name. The church is the one place where the lawyer ought to forget that he's a lawyer. And any church that violates the "whosoever will, let him come" doctrine is a dead, cold church, (Yes) and nothing but a little social club with a thin veneer of religiosity.
When the church is true to its nature, (Whoo) it says, "Whosoever will, let him come." (Yes) And it does not supposed to satisfy the perverted uses of the drum major instinct. It's the one place where everybody should be the same, standing before a common master and savior. (Yes, sir) And a recognition grows out of this—that all men are brothers because they are children (Yes) of a common father.
The drum major instinct can lead to exclusivism in one's thinking and can lead one to feel that because he has some training, he's a little better than that person who doesn't have it. Or because he has some economic security, that he's a little better than that person who doesn't have it. And that's the uncontrolled, perverted use of the drum major instinct.
Now the other thing is, that it leads to tragic—and we've seen it happen so often—tragic race prejudice. Many who have written about this problem—Lillian Smith used to say it beautifully in some of her books.
And she would say it to the point of getting men and women to see the source of the problem. Do you know that a lot of the race problem grows out of the drum major instinct? A need that some people have to feel superior. A need that some people have to feel that they are first, and to feel that their white skin ordained them to be first. (Make it plain, today, ‘cause I’m against it, so help me God) And they have said over and over again in ways that we see with our own eyes. In fact, not too long ago, a man down in Mississippi said that God was a charter member of the White Citizens Council. And so God being the charter member means that everybody who's in that has a kind of divinity, a kind of superiority. And think of what has happened in history as a result of this perverted use of the drum major instinct. It has led to the most tragic prejudice, the most tragic expressions of man's inhumanity to man.
The other day I was saying, I always try to do a little converting when I'm in jail. And when we were in jail in Birmingham the other day, the white wardens and all enjoyed coming around the cell to talk about the race problem. And they were showing us where we were so wrong demonstrating. And they were showing us where segregation was so right. And they were showing us where intermarriage was so wrong. So I would get to preaching, and we would get to talking—calmly, because they wanted to talk about it. And then we got down one day to the point—that was the second or third day—to talk about where they lived, and how much they were earning. And when those brothers told me what they were earning, I said, "Now, you know what? You ought to be marching with us. [laughter] You're just as poor as Negroes." And I said, "You are put in the position of supporting your oppressor, because through prejudice and blindness, you fail to see that the same forces that oppress Negroes in American society oppress poor white people. (Yes) And all you are living on is the satisfaction of your skin being white, and the drum major instinct of thinking that you are somebody big because you are white. And you're so poor you can't send your children to school. You ought to be out here marching with every one of us every time we have a march."
Now that's a fact. That the poor white has been put into this position, where through blindness and prejudice, (Make it plain) he is forced to support his oppressors. And the only thing he has going for him is the false feeling that he’s superior because his skin is white—and can't hardly eat and make his ends meet week in and week out. (Amen)
And not only does this thing go into the racial struggle, it goes into the struggle between nations. And I would submit to you this morning that what is wrong in the world today is that the nations of the world are engaged in a bitter, colossal contest for supremacy. And if something doesn't happen to stop this trend, I'm sorely afraid that we won't be here to talk about Jesus Christ and about God and about brotherhood too many more years. (Yeah) If somebody doesn't bring an end to this suicidal thrust that we see in the world today, none of us are going to be around, because somebody's going to make the mistake through our senseless blunderings of dropping a nuclear bomb somewhere. And then another one is going to drop. And don't let anybody fool you, this can happen within a matter of seconds. (Amen) They have twenty-megaton bombs in Russia right now that can destroy a city as big as New York in three seconds, with everybody wiped away, and every building. And we can do the same thing to Russia and China.
But this is why we are drifting. And we are drifting there because nations are caught up with the drum major instinct. "I must be first." "I must be supreme." "Our nation must rule the world." (Preach it) And I am sad to say that the nation in which we live is the supreme culprit. And I'm going to continue to say it to America, because I love this country too much to see the drift that it has taken.
God didn't call America to do what she's doing in the world now. (Preach it, preach it) God didn't call America to engage in a senseless, unjust war as the war in Vietnam. And we are criminals in that war. We’ve committed more war crimes almost than any nation in the world, and I'm going to continue to say it. And we won't stop it because of our pride and our arrogance as a nation.
But God has a way of even putting nations in their place. (Amen) The God that I worship has a way of saying, "Don't play with me." (Yes) He has a way of saying, as the God of the Old Testament used to say to the Hebrews, "Don’t play with me, Israel. Don't play with me, Babylon. (Yes) Be still and know that I'm God. And if you don't stop your reckless course, I'll rise up and break the backbone of your power." (Yes) And that can happen to America. (Yes) Every now and then I go back and read Gibbons' Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. And when I come and look at America, I say to myself, the parallels are frightening. And we have perverted the drum major instinct.
But let me rush on to my conclusion, because I want you to see what Jesus was really saying. What was the answer that Jesus gave these men? It's very interesting. One would have thought that Jesus would have condemned them. One would have thought that Jesus would have said, "You are out of your place. You are selfish. Why would you raise such a question?"
But that isn't what Jesus did; he did something altogether different. He said in substance, "Oh, I see, you want to be first. You want to be great. You want to be important. You want to be significant. Well, you ought to be. If you're going to be my disciple, you must be." But he reordered priorities. And he said, "Yes, don't give up this instinct. It's a good instinct if you use it right. (Yes) It's a good instinct if you don't distort it and pervert it. Don't give it up. Keep feeling the need for being important. Keep feeling the need for being first. But I want you to be first in love. (Amen) I want you to be first in moral excellence. I want you to be first in generosity. That is what I want you to do."
And he transformed the situation by giving a new definition of greatness. And you know how he said it? He said, "Now brethren, I can't give you greatness. And really, I can't make you first." This is what Jesus said to James and John. "You must earn it. True greatness comes not by favoritism, but by fitness. And the right hand and the left are not mine to give, they belong to those who are prepared." (Amen)
And so Jesus gave us a new norm of greatness. If you want to be important—wonderful. If you want to be recognized—wonderful. If you want to be great—wonderful. But recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. (Amen) That's a new definition of greatness.
And this morning, the thing that I like about it: by giving that definition of greatness, it means that everybody can be great, (Everybody) because everybody can serve. (Amen) You don't have to have a college degree to serve. (All right) You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don't have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don't have to know Einstein's theory of relativity to serve. You don't have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. (Amen) You only need a heart full of grace, (Yes, sir, Amen) a soul generated by love. (Yes) And you can be that servant.
I know a man—and I just want to talk about him a minute, and maybe you will discover who I'm talking about as I go down the way (Yeah) because he was a great one. And he just went about serving. He was born in an obscure village, (Yes, sir) the child of a poor peasant woman. And then he grew up in still another obscure village, where he worked as a carpenter until he was thirty years old. (Amen) Then for three years, he just got on his feet, and he was an itinerant preacher. And he went about doing some things. He didn't have much. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family. (Yes) He never owned a house. He never went to college. He never visited a big city. He never went two hundred miles from where he was born. He did none of the usual things that the world would associate with greatness. He had no credentials but himself.
He was only thirty-three when the tide of public opinion turned against him. They called him a rabble-rouser. They called him a troublemaker. They said he was an agitator. (Glory to God) He practiced civil disobedience; he broke injunctions. And so he was turned over to his enemies and went through the mockery of a trial. And the irony of it all is that his friends turned him over to them. (Amen) One of his closest friends denied him. Another of his friends turned him over to his enemies. And while he was dying, the people who killed him gambled for his clothing, the only possession that he had in the world. (Lord help him) When he was dead he was buried in a borrowed tomb, through the pity of a friend.
Nineteen centuries have come and gone and today he stands as the most influential figure that ever entered human history. All of the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, and all the kings that ever reigned put together (Yes) have not affected the life of man on this earth (Amen) as much as that one solitary life. His name may be a familiar one. (Jesus) But today I can hear them talking about him. Every now and then somebody says, "He's King of Kings." (Yes) And again I can hear somebody saying, "He's Lord of Lords." Somewhere else I can hear somebody saying, "In Christ there is no East nor West." (Yes) And then they go on and talk about, "In Him there's no North and South, but one great Fellowship of Love throughout the whole wide world." He didn't have anything. (Amen) He just went around serving and doing good.
This morning, you can be on his right hand and his left hand if you serve. (Amen) It's the only way in.
Every now and then I guess we all think realistically (Yes, sir) about that day when we will be victimized with what is life's final common denominator—that something that we call death. We all think about it. And every now and then I think about my own death and I think about my own funeral. And I don't think of it in a morbid sense. And every now and then I ask myself, "What is it that I would want said?" And I leave the word to you this morning.
If any of you are around when I have to meet my day, I don’t want a long funeral. And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy, tell them not to talk too long. (Yes) And every now and then I wonder what I want them to say. Tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace Prize—that isn’t important. Tell them not to mention that I have three or four hundred other awards—that’s not important. Tell them not to mention where I went to school. (Yes)
I'd like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to give his life serving others. (Yes)
I'd like for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to love somebody.
I want you to say that day that I tried to be right on the war question. (Amen)
I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to feed the hungry. (Yes)
And I want you to be able to say that day that I did try in my life to clothe those who were naked. (Yes)
I want you to say on that day that I did try in my life to visit those who were in prison. (Lord)
I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity. (Yes)
Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. (Amen) Say that I was a drum major for peace. (Yes) I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter. (Yes) I won't have any money to leave behind. I won't have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind. (Amen) And that's all I want to say.
If I can help somebody as I pass along,If I can cheer somebody with a word or song,If I can show somebody he's traveling wrong,Then my living will not be in vain.If I can do my duty as a Christian ought,If I can bring salvation to a world once wrought,If I can spread the message as the master taught,Then my living will not be in vain.Yes, Jesus, I want to be on your right or your left side, (Yes) not for any selfish reason. I want to be on your right or your left side, not in terms of some political kingdom or ambition. But I just want to be there in love and in justice and in truth and in commitment to others, so that we can make of this old world a new world.
