On Sunday, a day before the federal holiday honoring the Rev. Dr Martin Luther King Jr., silence fell over the Washington National Cathedral as the Rev. Andrew Young, one of King’s closest aides, spoke about his final days with the slain civil rights leader.
A former United Nations ambassador, who also served in Congress and as mayor of Atlanta, Young spoke in low tones only a few feet in front of the pulpit where King delivered his final sermon on March 31, 1968, just four days before his assassination. King’s 1968 address was titled “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution.”
“He was committed to do whatever had to be done. That commitment led him to Memphis,” Young told the crowd, explaining why King was in Tennessee at the time he was killed.
During the movement, Young became one of King’s closest aides.
“He was supposed to be in Washington that night before the assassination. I said to him in a meeting with Harry Belafonte, John Conyers of Michigan, Dick Hatcher, mayor of Gary, Ralph Abernathy, and myself, ‘You need to rest. You have been to Memphis twice.’ He replied, ‘No, I’m going to catch the six o’clock plane to Memphis. There is something there,’” Young said. “I think he knew his days were numbered and had decided if he gave his life, he wanted it to be for the least of these, God’s children. That was a term he used all the time.”
He recalled King’s passion for addressing the plight of the dedicated Memphis sanitation workers.
“And the sanitation workers, the garbage workers in Memphis, were a perfect example of people working hard. You can’t run a city if you can’t pick up the garbage. The garbage workers had no benefits, no retirement, and no insurance of any kind and were virtual slaves in our modern democracy,” Young explained.
Despite pushing to go Memphis, Young thinks King knew there was an imminent threat in continuing his activism in the Tennessee city.
“He was determined to go back, and I think he knew, because of the way he acted over the next few days, that he was going to his death,” Young said. “When I heard that shot and I looked up at Martin Luther King and ran to the top of the step, I realized that the shot had entered the tip of his chin and knocked it off and severed his spinal cord. The simple mathematics was that the bullet moved faster than his feelings and he probably never felt that bullet or heard the shot.”
Earlier in his remarks, Young shared the story of being suspended from Sunday School at age 10 for questioning his teacher on the validity of the Biblical story of Elijah going to Heaven on a flaming chariot. However, after looking down at a fatally wounded Dr. King, Young realized, “Yes, maybe it’s true that somebody can go from this life to Heaven on a flaming chariot and if anybody can do it, Martin Luther King can.”
The cathedral guests clung to every word, as people, to this day, are still working to honor King and be inspired by the activist’s work and teachings. Approximately 500 people attended the service in person, which included music and prayers honoring King’s life and legacy. Notable attendees included Marian Wright Edelman, former president of the Children’s Defense Fund, Reta Jo Lewis, president and chair of the Export-Import Bank, and Hilary O. Shelton, national advisor of governance and policy for the NAACP. Over 9,000 viewers watched online.
In his closing remarks one day before his colleague and friend would have turned 95, Young encouraged the audience to continue King’s freedom fight.
“Freedom is a constant struggle,” he said. “Life is not easy. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had one of the toughest lives of anybody I have ever known and, yet, you have to say that his life was triumphant over most of the evils of his time. He inspired and strengthened us so that we must keep on keeping on.”
Young emphasized that Jan. 15 is far more than a holiday and emphasized the great legacy that will help Americans continue working toward justice.
“We are not just celebrating, we are recommitting. This may be the most difficult time in my life, but I remember Franklin Roosevelt saying, ‘We have nothing to fear but fear itself,’” Young said. “And this country, as confused, conflicted, and weak as we are, remains imbued by the power of the living God and his son, Jesus Christ, and his disciple, Martin Luther King Jr., God has blessed us. We must pass on those blessings to the rest of his children.”