By Dr. Jessica Johnson
Guest Column
I happened to catch the recent CBS Morning news interview of Yolanda Renee King, the only grandchild of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King. While promoting her new children’s book honoring her grandparents titled “We Dream a World,” Yolanda gave a profound answer when asked what she would say to them if they were alive today.
“I think I would first start off with an apology,” she said, which was surprising to CBS host Nate Burleson, who immediately asked the young activist what she meant by her response. Yolanda continued, “An apology to where we are right now, as a nation and really as a world.”
Yolanda is only 15 years old, and it is evident that she has a deep understanding of what her grandparents fought for as leaders of the civil rights movement. In August of last year during the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Yolanda boldly declared that her generation would “be defined by action, not apathy.”
As Yolanda is growing up before our eyes, she has the youthful exuberance of her grandfather’s resolve and displays the dignified grace of her grandmother. Yolanda saying she would apologize to her grandparents for our nation not yet reaching the potential they believed in should make us thoughtfully reflect on how Dr. King also warned about becoming apathetic.
Many people, as King once said, are “[t]oo unconcerned to love and too passionless to hate, too detached to be selfish and too lifeless to be unselfish, too indifferent to experience joy and too cold to express sorrow, they are neither dead nor alive; they merely exist.”
Apathy is a brutal paralyzer of life. It can cause us to be ensnared in a dangerous mode of stagnation emotionally, spiritually, and sometimes physically. Apathy also triggers entitled disinterest in our society.
In 2021 Tom Nichols, an instructor at Harvard Extension School and the U.S. Naval War College, asserted in an interview with “The Harvard Gazette” that “narcissism and nihilism” are the primary threats to our country’s democracy and societal relationships. Elaborating on the latter, Nichols said that many people ask why our society is “so mean and heartless and awful,” but many of them do not contribute anything to make their communities better or they will vote against policies that affect their well-being due to “narcissistic beefs.”
“We have become surly villagers,” Nichols maintained, “me, my family, my little plot of land, and everybody else can go to hell.”
This type of sullen attitude is what Yolanda is urging our country to overcome as she is an emerging voice on critical issues such as gun violence and homelessness. As she continues to attentively study the Godly principles that enabled her grandfather to be that drum major for justice who changed the course of our nation, I am reminded of two of his sermons where he encouraged his followers to live with purpose and passion and to shower others with Christian love.
The first sermon is titled “But If Not,” a 1967 message that King delivered at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church. King expressed that the “ultimate test” of our faith is when we get to a “but if not” moment in life, a moment where we have to travel along an arduous journey with no other option but to lean on God’s promises.
This passage stands out to avoid being gripped by apathy during a spiritual test: “… somewhere along the way you should discover something that’s so dear, so precious to you, that is so eternally worthful, that you will never give it up.”
The second sermon is “Levels of Love,” an Ebenezer address King gave in 1962. He implored the congregation to “rise to agape, to Christian love” because “[t]he greatness of it is that you love every man, not for your sake but for his sake. And you love every man because God loves him.”
It is remarkable that Yolanda exemplifies the love and compassion her grandparents demonstrated as she diligently works to uplift others. She is blazing her own path, and it is truly inspiring to watch it unfold. She probably has not had a “but if not” moment yet in her young life thus far, but I have no doubt she is developing the character and strength to face the challenges she knows are coming.
Dr. Jessica A. Johnson is a lecturer in the English department at The Ohio State University-Lima. Reach her at [email protected] or on Twitter @JjSmojc. Her opinion does not necessarily represent the views of The Lima News or its owner, AIM Media.
