Poet channels King's legacy

Author: Kelly Janis

Poet, playwright and activist Sonia Sanchez kicked off the College's week-long celebration of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on Jan. 15, delivering a keynote address titled "The Consistent Relevancy of Martin Luther King, Jr. in the 21st Century." In a lecture comprised by personal anecdotes, historical musings and, occasionally, song, Sanchez - who has spent three decades at the forefront of African-American literary and political culture - insisted that without a radical revolution of values, the earth will "swallow us whole" and wait for new life to emerge from the sea.

"It reminds me of herstory every time I enter a chapel," Sanchez said as she peered out at the audience in Mead Chapel, a familiar perspective for a writer and professor who has lectured at over 500 colleges and universities across the nation. "Women didn't come up here. I hope you young people understand what I'm saying."

As the author of 16 books, winner of the Robert Frost Medal in poetry and a former presidential fellow at Temple University, Sanchez has done plenty to lead women out of a past in which "they weren't allowed to speak."

Sanchez recited key moments in African-American history, from the Middle Passage to the election of Barack Obama, as justification for speaking now.

"We are here because the questions of the 21st century are not about slavery," she said. "They are about genocide, AIDS, famine, death squads, hunger, malaria, corporate greed, corporate greed, corporate greed."

She decried a "culture of fear and intimidation" in which people can "kill each other and be killed while the world looks on in ceremonious silence," in which "genocide can take place with impunity."

Sanchez invoked King at numerous junctions throughout her address, drawing particularly heavily from a speech the Reverend made at Riverside Church in 1967.

"We've got to make it known that until our problem is solved, America may have many, many days, but they will be full of trouble," King said at the time. "There will be no rest, there will be no tranquility in this country until the nation comes to terms with our problem."

"And you wonder whether he's relevant today?" Sanchez asked.

She pointed to Obama's "message of longing, hope and solidarity" as a chief means of confronting the contemporary problems she articulated, and congratulated the young people who played a role in electing him.

"Thank you for having more vision than your elders," she said, before wondering aloud whether the public at large is truly prepared for an African American president.

"Can white folks handle it?" Sanchez asked. "Can Asian folks, Latino folks, handle it?"

Sanchez said that Obama's ability to clinch one of the most powerful offices in the world has utterly transformed the political and social landscape.

"When Obama was elected, the earth tilted," she said. "It tilted away from people who want to continue war."

Sanchez learned the price of opposing war when she was arrested during a sit-in at an enlistment office two years ago.

"Take us," Sanchez and her partners said, "not our children.

"When we came out against the war, we got slapped," she said. "We weren't nice poets anymore."

Sanchez said that the belief that joining the military is a vehicle for securing access to education or getting out of a small town is based on "old memories."

"At some point, we have to erase old memories," she said. "This is a different war. We're talking about peace. Period. No wars."

Making progress toward peace, Sanchez said, is contingent on remaining engaged in the political process.

"You can't say, 'now that Obama's been elected, I can go back to partying this year. Let's get down,'" she said.

Instead, Sanchez urged the audience to practice the "ancient, holy, political" art of resistance.

"Woke up this morning with my eyes on change," Sanchez sang. "Gonna resist, gonna resist, like Martin did."

Sanchez said that much of this resistance can manifest itself in everyday interactions.

"We must stop worrying about the threat we think we pose to each other," she said, and curb our impulse to "talk against each other" out of envy. Sanchez recalled that when she challenged her students to spend a week refraining from "twisting and curling their tongues" with unkind language, they complained that it was too difficult a task, that they would rather write villanelles. Had they complied, Sanchez said, the "poisons" would have dropped out of their bodies.

Throughout her lecture, Sanchez sought to link the struggle for civil rights to other social justice movements. She recounted an occasion on which she was invited to a church to receive an award and listened in horror as the preacher characterized AIDS as the righteous wrath of God. When the sermon concluded, a man Sanchez believed to be gay stood up to lead the choir in song.

"Thank you, my dear brother, for making this church holy again," she told him.

It is experiences like these, Sanchez said, that lead her to believe that "if Jesus were to return to earth, he would be lynched and nailed to another cross."

Sanchez railed against the use of religious beliefs as a crutch.

"Don't just thank Jesus," she said. "Do Jesus's work."

Sanchez delegated this work to the students seated in Mead Chapel.

"I'm a child of the 20th century. I've been given some time in the 21st century that I'm grateful for," she said. "This is your country. This is your time. You must walk toward this time with a vision."