From the Director of "The Mountaintop"
In his final speech, Dr. King began with a familiar theme, one he had preached many times before – an imaginary voyage through all the great moments in history, ending with the events of his own lifetime, and his joy at being allowed to witness this particular historical moment. He’d given this speech before, but this time, at the end, he unexpectedly swerved off his text. “I’ve been to the mountaintop!,” King cried, trembling, his brow drenched in sweat, “And I’ve looked over! And I have seen the promised land! I may not get there with you – but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land!”
Many have speculated about what caused King to say what he did that night. Did he sense that he would never give another speech or lead another march? Was he gifted, suddenly, with a brief vision of the future he wouldn’t live to see? And if he was, how much of the future? Did he see Americans of every color continuing to limp home together from endless wars? Did he see suburban students with assault rifles opening fire on their school cafeterias? Did he see a fatal standoff in the street between a multi-racial Hispanic man and a Black teenager with a bag of Skittles?
Perhaps he did see all of this. Yet Dr. King was not surprised by the evil of human nature, just as he was not surprised by the good. “Each of us is something of a schizophrenic personality, tragically divided against ourselves,” he wrote. “A persistent civil war rages within all of our lives.” He saw the acceptance of the tension between our best and worst impulses as the key to a righteous life, believing that until we could recognize “some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us” we would always be stuck in false dichotomies, never able to “achieve the necessary spiritual transformation… to fight vigorously the evils of the world.” Truly radical love and faith required him to see the world – and each human being in it, including himself – as complex, fallible, and contradictory.
I know that King’s vision of the Promised Land went beyond buses and lunch counters and rainbow-colored children sitting together in the cafeteria. It went even beyond the end of war abroad and poverty at home. His vision was of the human spirit – a promised land of tough minded, tender hearted souls, practicing compassionate love towards their friends and their enemies, moving in complete knowledge of their radical interconnectedness – a space of endless possibility. We know we aren’t there yet – of course we aren’t there yet. I love Katori’s play because it reminds me that the Promised Land is not a destination but a light in the distance – a piercing beacon urging each of us to pick up the baton and carry it forward, trusting that the light that has guided runners before us will continue to burn brightly, with inconceivable beauty and radical hope, long after each of us has run our race.
Megan Sandberg-Zakian
Cambridge, MA
January, 2013
In his final speech, Dr. King began with a familiar theme, one he had preached many times before – an imaginary voyage through all the great moments in history, ending with the events of his own lifetime, and his joy at being allowed to witness this particular historical moment. He’d given this speech before, but this time, at the end, he unexpectedly swerved off his text. “I’ve been to the mountaintop!,” King cried, trembling, his brow drenched in sweat, “And I’ve looked over! And I have seen the promised land! I may not get there with you – but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land!”
Many have speculated about what caused King to say what he did that night. Did he sense that he would never give another speech or lead another march? Was he gifted, suddenly, with a brief vision of the future he wouldn’t live to see? And if he was, how much of the future? Did he see Americans of every color continuing to limp home together from endless wars? Did he see suburban students with assault rifles opening fire on their school cafeterias? Did he see a fatal standoff in the street between a multi-racial Hispanic man and a Black teenager with a bag of Skittles?
Perhaps he did see all of this. Yet Dr. King was not surprised by the evil of human nature, just as he was not surprised by the good. “Each of us is something of a schizophrenic personality, tragically divided against ourselves,” he wrote. “A persistent civil war rages within all of our lives.” He saw the acceptance of the tension between our best and worst impulses as the key to a righteous life, believing that until we could recognize “some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us” we would always be stuck in false dichotomies, never able to “achieve the necessary spiritual transformation… to fight vigorously the evils of the world.” Truly radical love and faith required him to see the world – and each human being in it, including himself – as complex, fallible, and contradictory.
I know that King’s vision of the Promised Land went beyond buses and lunch counters and rainbow-colored children sitting together in the cafeteria. It went even beyond the end of war abroad and poverty at home. His vision was of the human spirit – a promised land of tough minded, tender hearted souls, practicing compassionate love towards their friends and their enemies, moving in complete knowledge of their radical interconnectedness – a space of endless possibility. We know we aren’t there yet – of course we aren’t there yet. I love Katori’s play because it reminds me that the Promised Land is not a destination but a light in the distance – a piercing beacon urging each of us to pick up the baton and carry it forward, trusting that the light that has guided runners before us will continue to burn brightly, with inconceivable beauty and radical hope, long after each of us has run our race.
Megan Sandberg-Zakian
Cambridge, MA
January, 2013