Remembrance A look at the life, death and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Local events

The top of the wooden pew is covered with small scratches, a web of good and honest wear that has come from belt buckles, purse handles and watch bands. People have worshipped earnestly in this church. They have been baptized here, married here, celebrated here and mourned here.

On the last Sunday in 1997, my family has joined the congregation of Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala.

We came here because this is the church where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. served as pastor from 1954 to 1960. We stood outside shyly in the chilly morning air, wondering if it was appropriate to take part in services. Then a church member arrived and welcomed us in.

It is a small church in light of all the mighty things that began here. The Montgomery bus boycott was planned in its basement, a few days after Rosa Parks changed history by refusing to give up her seat. Civil-rights marchers sought guidance in its pews.

At the front is a small pulpit, elevated slightly above the congregation. The pastor stands alone, with a small, sky-blue dome above him.

It is not difficult to imagine the Rev. Dr. King here. Indeed, his presence is still strong. His words seem to ring from the walls. How these windows and souls alike must have shaken with the power of that voice. Yet the thought runs through my mind, what if Martin Luther King had chosen not to speak?

A powerful voice

But the day came when he had to do it. He had to try out his voice to discover its power.

He had to use his eyes to see, not only the unjust world that lay right outside his door, but a just world that could rise there in the future.

And he had to use his mind and soul to search for the moral imperatives that would stir a hunger for equality and compassion - in a country that preached both and practiced neither.

It took work and foresight to find his gifts. And courage to use them.

In one sense, going to the heart of the South - the scene of intense and violent civil-rights struggles - is both enlightening and discouraging. The Civil Rights Memorial, just a few blocks from the Rev. Dr. King's church, is a silent tribute to 40 ordinary people who stood for good in the face of evil. They were black and white, young and old, rich and poor. They could be any of us. And we, if we were brave enough, could be like them.

But the newspaper box on the corner lists Alabama's top stories for 1997, and among them is the execution of a Klansman for the lynching death of a young black man. Another is a mixed bag of acquittals and convictions for three white teen-agers charged with burning a black church.

Hope can take flame here in Montgomery. And, just as easily, it can go out.

Church's lesson

The nation is divided over affirmative action. Some say equity has already arrived. Some doubt it ever will.

And in personal and public life, when the topic turns to race, it is easy to keep one's head low and stay silent.

That is when I think about the lesson of a small church in the center of Montgomery, Ala. A lesson that its pastor taught his congregation 40 years ago, and his nation as well.

It has not changed. It is that the time has come to speak, that justice takes a human voice in order to be heard.

Krista Ramsey's column appears on Saturdays. Write her at 312 Elm Street, Cincinnati 45202.

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