Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 18, 1993 TAG: 9301180337
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KEN WOODLEY
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
LET'S CELEBRATE WHAT'S BEST ABOUT LEE, JACKSON, KING
THE IRONIC holiday is here. Lee-Jackson-King day in Virginia.Only in America could there be one holiday memorializing two brilliant Virginia generals who fought for the South in the Civil War - with its reverberations and associations with slavery - and an African-American who was the greatest civil-rights leader in our nation's history.
There are many who believe Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. deserves a separate holiday observance in Virginia. His peaceful but effective war against social injustice is perhaps best appreciated if one contemplates the alternative. Because Dr. King steered millions clear of violent insurrection, our country was saved from a ripping and tearing that we, fortunately, can only imagine.
Dr. King does deserve a separate space in time, but I suspect he would appreciate the irony of being paired with on this Virginia holiday with Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. This irony is fraught with deep meaning, and if we approach the holiday from a certain point of view, Lee-Jackson-King Day in Virginia may hold a more significant message than King-alone holidays in other states.
Lee, Jackson and King are joined together in holiday - manacled, if you will - as all of us are locked in place as human beings living in one society together. Lock two people together, and they will soon learn to live together or they will surely die. Being locked, being forever joined, forces the issue. It cannot be ignored. Side by side. Face to face. Nothing sugar-coated. There's no place to run because, in reality, you'd simply be running from yourself. And you know exactly where you're hiding.
Lee-Jackson-King Day gives us the opportunity to confront, contemplate and celebrate histories, and cultures, and hard truths that contradict, contrast and - finally, if we let them - complement one another.
One wonders, would Dr. King want his name removed as a member of the Lee-Jackson-King trio? The answer might just be "no." Dr. King wasn't seeking a separate peace, or a separate piece of the American Dream, for those who followed him through the thorns and briars. He wanted all Americans to share all America. In fact, he said he looked forward to the day when the sons of former slaves played together with the sons of former slaveholders. We can then assume, without bending credulity, that he might actually prefer sharing a day of honor with Lee and Jackson.
Let us then celebrate what was best about each of these men - their sense of honor and duty, their willingness to risk all in defense of an ideal.
Let us not get bogged down in the debate over whether the Civil War was fought not at all, just a little or a lot over slavery. Let's not argue the degree to which Africans sold Africans to European slave traders. Let's not go down for the count over whether the Emancipation Proclamation was or wasn't really an emancipation proclamation.
At one time or another, virtually every race across the globe bought, sold or seized other people for use as slaves. It was and is a heinous crime to commit. There is no defense. No justification. And we cannot imagine how any individual or society could deem the practice acceptable. Some societies enslaved their own people. That is a part of our human nature which we all share. A part of our common history as inhabitants of this spinning ball in space.
So, too, have there been men and women of every race who abhorred the slavery they encountered. Peace and war, love and hate, a fist and a handshake are our common history. That cannot be changed.
Let's not be slaves of the past. Let us all be men and women who are free enough to seek out what is best in ourselves and in others. I am chained to you in this world, and you to me. We rise or fall as one.
Rejoice that we may celebrate Lee-Jackson-King Day - a very human holiday - together.
Ken Woodley is editor of The Farmville Herald.