Reaching the Promised Land In his lifetime, Martin Luther King empowered African-Americans. By his death, he stimulated Southern, evangelical whites to search their hearts and embrace all children of God.   Last week marks the 40th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination. In his death, King came to symbolize the triumph of millions of Americans.   The tragedy represented a watershed not just in American history but Southern culture. I say "Southern" because the victory of Civil Rights meant something very different in the South than it did to the rest of the country. Southern culture developed parallel societies for black and white from 1619 forward. That parallelism has been captured in many writings. It touched a nerve when I read "To Kill a Mockingbird" for the first time two summers ago. (I was born before the book made my name, Atticus, so popular with a very likable hero. I saw the movie as a child, but never had read the book before). The criss-crossing of race in a small Southern town in the 1930s rang true to my observations as a kid in the 1950s and 60s. Thomas Sowell showed the negative aspects of the parallel worlds in "Black Rednecks and White Liberals." Oddly, or ironically, much of what still separates Black and White Southerners are social concepts they hold in common but separately - especially personal pride. So, the story of Southern history is this tale of two societies inextricably intertwined and, yet, separated - until the late 1960s. Dr. King's genius was to apply the right tactic (non-violence), with the right reasoning and rhetoric (Evangelical Christian), at the right time (after initial legal victories) with the right ideas (natural law and Christianity). Violence was the wrong way to win in the South. Violence would have been crushed by a society that exhibits a hair-trigger response to threats - and, frighteningly, absolutely no limits when responding to threats to family, faith or freedom. The North of that time would have nodded smugly and done nothing. I was a senior at Yorktown High School in Arlington when Dr. King was killed. The discussion in the days that followed was less about his murder and more about the mayhem and riot across the river. Would the rioters come over? I remember the menfolks chatting out in the street, John Marshall Drive, about having their guns cleaned and ready. (I've written before about being in D.C. on the first day of rioting. I had a job as an electrician's helper for the Cherry Blossom festival and was working about the Washington Monument. I saw the people rioting on 14th Street about 2 blocks away from Independence Ave. I was there when the U.S. Army put a cordon of soldiers around the White House.) The violence in response to to the assassination was something to behold. Conversely, before his death Dr. King created the situation that the Romans had during Diocletian's persecution of Christians. Christians, and their families, were savagely tortured and killed for the most innocuous reason - refusing to put a few figures of Roman gods on the household altars that good Roman citizens had. The punishment far outweighed the crime. Likewise, meeting men and women simply marching to vote with dogs, water cannons, and truncheons was overkill. It struck the nation as fundamentally wrong. As, indeed, de jure segregation was wrong. Slavery, segregation and racism are sins against God. My gg-grandfather Holland and his brothers said slavery was a sin when they fought to defend their sovereign state against an invading Army. Mr. Lincoln said the great and terrible war was an atonement for slavery in his Second Inaugural address. In my reading of world history no group, sub-culture or culture, ever went as far, as fast, as high, as well, with as much dignity, over such hurdles as black Americans from 1865 to 1965. None. (The lowland Scots uplifted themselves mightily from 1700-1760, but their accomplishments paled in comparison.) The victory over de jure segregation in the South was climaxed in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. After that it was the denouement. The South, meaning the white majority, submitted to the Rule of Law because Southerners believe it in their bones. Which points to another point of Dr. King's gift. All three branches of government had stood together for de jure racial segregation. Yet, what was legal defied Natural Law. It was morally wrong. Conservatives understand this. Every individual must decide to obey or resist immoral laws. Every individual must face the consequences of obeying or resisting. This is at the root of the civil war we call our American Revolution. It is enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. It is what will empower conservatives to win the Great U.S. Culture War. It gives the moral authority for Christians to be citizens, not subjects of the state. This points to tremendous unsung victory of Dr. King's words. The appeal to Christian thought, the Bible and Jesus, struck white, Southern Christians in the heart. Once the Rule of Law made them bend a knee to change their laws, then they had to think about changing their hearts. The transformation of the heart that can only be done by the person and deity of Jesus happened. It has been remarkable. Most white, Southern Christians believe that judging others by the content of their character, not the color of their skin, is the morally ascendant idea - and they teach it to their children. Since I came home from Germany 19 years ago, I have not been to a Virginia wedding, the most intimate of family affairs, that didn't have black persons as guests.   In the rural South blacks and whites had personal relationships, in an intertwining of their parallel societies -- relationships that were lacking throughout much of the rest of the country. Blacks and whites have always known each other as human beings. And, despite the sins of slavery, segregation and racism, most Southern blacks and whites have cared for persons of the other race - as people. The black people who wept at the funerals of my uncle in West Tennessee and my mother and father in NoVa were crying in their humanity. Yet last week there was much beating of the breasts and bleating about the unfinished work of Dr. King. The unfinished work is the defeat of racism. But the sin of racism, we should remind ourselves, is not restricted to one race only.   Christian love, agape love, is the answer. Not laws, judges making up laws, people whose job is their race. Not the intolerance of Tolerance. Not the inherent racism of identity politics. Not the insidious discrimination of the theology of Diversity. Nothing that comes from the fundamentally flawed thinking of Liberal Human Secularism - but perhaps from the Liberals' emotional humanity - their true love for others. Love one another as you love yourselves. That is the answer. Actually, it is a commandment. And it is the path to the complete triumph of Civil Rights in the South. Sen. Jim Webb talked about being the bridge between races. He almost could be, but he won't. When he walked away from evangelical Christianity he walked away from his family, his clan, and his connections to blacks. The final bridge, which could be built in this century, will have capitalism in the bridge abutments, and it will be paved with Christianity. The intermarriage among races - the ultimate threat of racists - will make the issues of race moot. That is supreme and joyful irony. Like the white Southern Anglican churches which leave their apostate leadership to seek succor and supervision from Black African Anglican leaders - who are full of Christ Jesus. Because the bridge between races in the South, and for new legal immigrants too, will be capitalism, family (marriage), and Christianity, the persons who lead the way in ideas, voices and political faces to see will be conservatives. Again with the irony. No one loves his black brothers and sisters more than the descendants of white Confederates - because both black and white unite in love and worship of the sovereign, risen, living Jesus. Thank you, Dr. King, for following Christ Jesus. You showed us the way to our promised land here in the South.   -- April 7, 2008