It started with a call down a city street in New York City. I was walking, midday in winter, away from Grand Central Station toward my office on Madison Avenue and 40th. The light, a soft, yet not just so somber grey, blanketed the city, as it huddled in for the encroaching onset of an early night. I was bundled tight, shirt, scarf, sweatshirt, jacket, thermals, pants, thick socks, and boots, with everything synched tight from the pressing chill. I braced myself with the sound of the tromp of my boots along the walk, their steady rhythm a comfort, the feeling moved with, and through my body.
I took in the city, passing engines, both people and things, the livid motion of sound, and color. Above it all I suddenly heard, like a lover shouting into canyon, the plea, command, and charge of democracy.
“Tyranny will not be tolerated!”
The voice ricocheted down 41st street, off the glass, concrete, and steel stretching to the sky above me, echoing hard in the cold air. It came from a mass of people gathered on the Bryant Park Library steps on Fifth Avenue, an amplified blast that I could feel in a rush that collided with my breath. A tenuous vapor of a sound, hot, and alive, it tingled my skin, and it shook me to my core, hooking my behind my navel and pulling me toward its heat.
“This is not the age of Mein Kampf, or the super man. We refuse to be blinded by the hate which threatened to tear this world apart once before! We refuse to be told that a group of people should be forced to register, or that they should be monitored, or that they are responsible for all the evil of a nation wrought with human flaws. We KNOW BETTER THEN THAT! We know that the step between a Muslim and Jew registry is a tightrope leading us right to a gas chamber! And We WILL RESIST TYRANNY!”
I stood amidst the crowd, held fast in the mass. We cheered, teary eyed, and clapped our hands painfully, despite the chill. Speaker, writers of the America I have known, spoke of the idyllic place, the hope and grandeur, which made the place worth living or dying for. Langston Hughes plead: Let America Be America Again-
…Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)…
Standing shoulder to shoulder with him was Emma Lazarus, the honorary champion of our great nations leading lady immigrant, Liberty, and she gave a rallying cry: The New Colossus -
…A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
“Let not those promises be forgot. We stand here together, to keep liberty safe! A fragile prayer for justice, hope, and equality. But, we must defend her, unless we should become unworthy of her presents. The sick vestiges of our iniquities compiling, and feeding the toxic fumes of hypocrisy, stifling our claim to virtue, opportunity, or our glorious Lady Liberty. Defend the Sacred! Protect our hearts, our lives, the good husbands, wives and children of the honest and decent who began. Began with nothing, but a fervent desire to life free! Ladies and gentleman we are the new colossus, and in the open space of democracy, we, the citizens of the great nation of the United States of America are listening.”
Eruptions catapulted a hope across the open space, a missile of promise shot straight out above us into the sky, and without a whisper, we heard the torrent shout of the hundreds of thousands of voices across our great land cheer in hope. We hope for a day without fear, and from the bottom of our hearts we heard the illustrious voice of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. His sermon on the mount, welling our eyes, filling our throats with a reverent silence.
…I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
We know as a people we learn, we live, and we strive through challenge. This challenge becoming a spiritual transformation, tempering our character through the fires of inequity, disappointment, hardship and wrong. We know that standing out in the cold for one afternoon is not enough to buy back the wrongs that have, are, and will continue to be perpetrated across this great land. Yet here is where we start. Here is where we remember where we came from as a nation. Daring enough to find the hope for a good life for everyone willing to work for it.
For a moment, amidst the jubilant reckoning, we forgot our fear, our chill of more then just the air, but the time to come, as we were content in our unified bliss of understanding. Yet, like a thunder clap, waking us from our slumber James Baldwin rent the air with a blast. “Artists are here to disturb the peace!” His rallying cry shocked our banal ease, reminding us of our purpose, as citizens, as diligent believers in the strength of our voices together. Beside him came the creaking voice of Henry David Thoreau, his Civil Disobedience gently warning us justice must be sought even if the price is our highest cost, "If I have unjustly wrested a plank from a drowning man, I must restore it to him though I drown myself.”
“We will resist tyranny!” The voice echoed over the land, over the rooftops of our great constructions, whirling and drifting contraptions, beyond the reach of our greatest minds. Then suddenly, I was alone. A single person standing before a great stone monument to learning, dedication, and possibility.
“Where am I in this,” I asked myself. My breath streaming before me in grey geysers, to a sea of unknown faces passing by. “Is it a march? A petition? A vote, or even a chance at facing a life of politics that I push myself through these moments of trepidation?”
I checked my feet, my boots still laced, and my limbs tucked safe, the bitting cold at bay. I began to walk, forward, with hope, and purpose. The sacred words of great men and women ringing in my ears. I will do all that I can, for as long as I may, with hope, faith, and courage.