Catholics reflect on life and vision
of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Click here to see pictures from the event

By Mary Ann Wyand

“From Dream to Action” was the theme for a prayer service celebrating the life and legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on Jan. 16 at SS. Peter and Paul Cathedral in Indianapolis.

The prayer service for King’s birthday was sponsored by the archdiocesan Multicultural Commission and featured testimonials about how King’s vision and his work for racial equality influenced people’s lives.

Children from St. Rita Parish in Indianapolis performed a liturgical dance to a recording that included excerpts from the slain civil rights leader’s speeches.

“In past generations, the people had much bigger obstacles to overcome and they faced those obstacles with prayer,” Father Kenneth Taylor, director of the archdiocesan Multicultural Ministry office and pastor of St. Michael the Archangel Parish in Indianapolis, told about
60 people at the prayer service.

“As we gather in prayer,” Father Taylor said, “[we pray] that … the challenges of life that are still ahead for us and for our people may be overcome through the power of God and through the Holy Spirit.”

St. Thomas Aquinas parishioner Al Bynum of Indianapolis remembered King as “a man who was a drum major for justice, … a man whose life was steeped in the old, old story of God’s justice, God’s peace, God’s abundant love.”

Bynum challenged the gathering to pray for peace and “to pledge ourselves yet again to marching to that drumbeat which is justice.”

St. Mary parishioner David Hittle of Indianapolis said he was born in 1968, the year that King was killed.

Hittle recalled a class discussion at St. Monica School in Indianapolis about King’s commitment to equality and ­nonviolence.

“Dr. King represents a direct crystallization of the teachings of Jesus Christ, of the lessons of the Gospel,” Hittle said. “He showed tangibly that loving one’s enemy is a powerful and earthshaking thing, and he reminds us that there are no footsteps more difficult to follow—but none more rewarding—than those of Jesus.”

Hittle said he remembers hearing about King at home, at church and at school.

“It’s our great duty and our great privilege to ensure that the message is nurtured and known,” he said. “I don’t know how things might have been different had Martin Luther King never lived, but I’m eternally grateful that I’ll never have to find out.”

Gilbert Holmes, president of the IndyGo bus service in Indianapolis, said that as a young man in the 1960s he “carried a lot of anger with me in those days, a lot of frustration,” about racial discrimination so he moved to Mexico.

But Holmes decided to return home after a newspaper vendor in Mexico City asked him why he wasn’t participating in a civil rights march with King held in Birmingham, Ala.

“It was like a great light came on,” Holmes said, “and I decided I had to go home. … I decided that I had to do in my own way what I could for my country and for my people. … I chose to become a career military person, thereby hopefully affecting it from the inside.”

On April 4, 1968, the day King was killed, Holmes was leading a combat force in Vietnam to liberate American soldiers, and “found myself facing my enemy even though I didn’t hate them, but wanting to protect my troops.”

Holmes said “King’s life taught me many things … to be resilient, … not to flee from oppression and bigotry, but to do in my own way the best I could to [work to] overcome those things. … I found a very fulfilling life teaching my family to do this as well … and in trying the best I could to be a public servant, and to see that as a high calling and as a way to help other people find a better way of life. I feel that the threads of Doctor King’s teachings followed me all of my life, and for that I am grateful.”

St. Thomas Aquinas parishioner Evelyn Ridley-Turner of Indianapolis, former commissioner of the Indiana Department of Correction, said King’s legacy made it possible for her to become the first woman to head the second largest agency in state government. She served the late Gov. Frank O’Bannon and former Gov. Joseph Kernan.

“When I started working with the Department of Correction, I worked with young people,” she said. “I was a juvenile parole agent, and I saw that a lot of our young people were headed in the wrong direction, and I saw for me an opportunity to redirect them and their energies. We all know that there are a lot of young people of color who are ending up in our prison systems, and I saw this as my way of trying to make a difference in their lives.”

Ridley-Turner said she believes that King’s life and work opened the doors that allowed her to become commissioner of the Department of Correction as well as for other African-Americans to advance in careers. After those doors were opened, she said, her mother encouraged her.

“I also believe that those of us who have had some degree of success in whatever field we chose to enter, we just can’t rest with that,” Ridley-Turner said. “We need to be there to pull someone along, to help someone along, and if we truly want to live the dream, of keeping the dream of Doctor King alive, we have to be there to see that it doesn’t end with us and that we support and encourage and bring along those who are following us. And we all have to live the dream.”

Dr. James Trippi, a St. Thomas Aquinas parishioner and cardiologist who founded the Gennesaret Free Clinics in Indianapolis 17 years ago to help homeless and low-income people, said he is inspired by King’s courage and single-mindedness in his efforts to bring about the kingdom of God.

“My memory of Doctor King sees him as a catalyst of change and a risk-taker,” Trippi said. “He was a prophet of peace. … He was a champion for the respect, dignity and justice of all persons. … He gave his entire self to this godly mission.” †