lorraine motel
Image via Adelle M. Banks / RNS
As tourists move toward Room 306, they can look out a window past the wreath on the balcony across the street to the partially open bathroom window of the boardinghouse from which the assassin’s bullet was released. “Dr. King never uttered a word after being shot,” reads the display in front of the room.
The Lorraine Motel, in Memphis, Tenn., where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Pierre Jean Durieu / Shutterstock.com
The deepest roots of The Shalom Center’s work to revitalize the deep connection between the Spirit and social justice were my weaving in 1968 and ’69 a new kind of Passover Seder — the Freedom Seder. My sense of the need to create the Freedom Seder grew from the deep crisis of American democracy in those years. For me, one crucial aspect of that crisis was the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King on April 4, 1968. It was an act of violence ending the life and disrupting the work of our foremost teacher of nonviolence.
as i walk toward the balcony where my hero fell, i feel strangely drawn in enwrapped by invisible hands of comfort and welcome. hands that welcome the peacemakers of the world "come and witness the place where a fellow peacemaker fell and inherited the kin-dom of god."