Death, Burial And Resurrection: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And The Unfinished Business

By: Joseph Evans, Ph.D., Dean, Morehouse School of Religion

Something For Sunday

On the Lorraine Motel’s balcony, and standing outside room 306, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr was fatally shot. He was killed by an assassin’s bullet. Since April 4, 1968, that gunshot continues to ring around the world. Over fifty years ago – we continue to hear the effects of that fatal shot in the voices of King’s colleagues; men who stood on that balcony with him. We hear them lament and continue to claim that anyone of them would have taken that bullet for Dr. King. However, the disciples of Jesus of Nazareth could not protect him from similar factions: established religion, its benefactors or zealots. Thus King’s loyalists could not protect him from Empire’s intentions. And in the queerest irony, like Jesus, King too was humiliated by public crucifixion.

April 9, 1968, orators spoke well of Dr. King. After hymns, psalms, and prayers, his body was placed on a borrowed tomb, a mule train – and the dirge began. For four miles, the distance between Ebenezer Church and Morehouse College, the Du Boisian Silent March began. It was King’s last organized liberation march. On the College lawn, the eminent Dr. Benjamin Elijah Mays awaited King’s remains and proved to the ancient African scholar, Tertullian; there is a relationship between Athens and Jerusalem.  May2, 1968, the Poor People’s Campaign occurred in Washington, DC.  It became known as Resurrection City. The muddy conditions covered the tents in bivouac.  Without a living King, the Campaign was without political support.

For those of us who did not understand the aforementioned parable and how it connects Jesus to King and Jesus to us through King, hear it in a short brief explanation: Focus on Dr. King’s resurrection and not his death. Fifty years after King’s death and burial – we witness his resurrection. We boldly tell the living world that King’s vision and work remain unfinished. Dr. King did not finish the Poor People’s Campaign and therefore; that privilege, responsibility and burden have been bequeathed to us. King’s resurrection is our unfinished business that lifts the veil over abuses of power and the manipulation of race, economics and politics which are laden and hide beneath the veil of income and wealth inequalities.King’s resurrection is noticed in 21^st century prophetic abolitionist’s ministry. To experience King-like resurrection, we passionately pursue abolishment of income and wealth inequalities – we do so by abolishing racism. Yes he was crucified publically and laid in a borrowed tomb – but his spirit that is, Dr. King’s spirit, he was raised from the dead because of the unfinished business – that has been bequeathed to us!