New Morning For The World

In 1982, American composer and educator, Joseph Schwantner debuted New Morning for the World: Daybreak of Freedom, a work honoring the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. As part of the piece, Schwantner included narrations which drew from a variety of Dr. King's speeches spanning a ten year period. Last November, the Quad City Symphony Orchestra performed New Morning and Jared, Thomas, and I were present. Though vacating our rather good seats for the balcony because of Thomas' inclusion into symphony attendance, Schwantner's work and the powerful words narrated by a local African-American social worker who grew up in one of Rock Island's public housing developments, left both Jared and I awe struck and a bit weepy.

Today our family paid homage to Dr. King, Rosa Parks, and all those countless others known and unknown, who were willing to take a stand against the cruel injustice and inequality that suffused this land- men and women, black and white, who were willing to endure beatings, imprisonment, loss of status and reputation, and even their lives because of their dedication to civil rights for all people. Today my sons and I read and talked about Dr. King's life. We viewed images from vintage Life magazines of Freedom Riders boarding buses destined for hostile territories, African Americans being pushed and beaten though unarmed and utilizing tactics of non-violent resistance, and National Guard troops standing in front of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, as the school prepared for desegregation. And we returned to Schwantner and the words of Martin Luther King, Jr.:

There comes a time when people get tired-tired of being segregated and humiliated, tired of being kicked about by the brutal feet of oppression.

We are going to walk non-violently and peacefully to let the nation and the world know that we are tired now. We've lived with slavery and segregation three hundred and forty-five years. We've waited a long time for freedom.

Before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth, we were here. Before the pen of Jefferson etched across the pages of history the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence, we were here. For more than two centuries, our foreparents labored in this country without wages-and built the homes of their masters in the midst of brutal injustice and shameful humiliation. And yet out of a bottomless vitality, they continued to thrive and develop. If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands.

When the history books are written in future generations, the historians will have pause and say, "There lived a great people-a black people-who injected new meaning and dignity into the veins of civilization." This is our challenge and our responsibility.

I have a dream. The dream is one of equality of opportunity, of privilege and property widely distributed; a dream of a land where men will not take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few; a dream of a land where men do not argue that the color of a man's skin determines the content of his character; a dream of a place where all our gifts and resources are held not for ourselves alone but as instruments of service for the rest of humanity; the dream of a country where every man will respect the dignity and worth of all human personality, and men will dare to live together as brothers. Whenever it is fulfilled, we will emerge from the bleak and desolate midnight of man's inhumanity to man into this bright and glowing daybreak of freedom and justice for all God's children.