Never sleep through a revolution
By John S. Rainey
Editor's note:This commentary

was published in TFheeb rCuoalruym 2b5,ia2 0S0ta5r.

One of Dr. Martin Luther King's most thoughtful, articulate, and reasoned speeches was made almost two years after his more famous "I Have A Dream" oration at the Lincoln Memorial in R19e6m3.aining Awake Through a

Great Revolution, King's speech at Oberlin College in June of 1965 is one of my favorites, having come to my attention only in recent years.

Dr. King recalled Washington Irving's story about Rip Van Winkle, who fell asleep for 20 years. When he began his extended nap, a sign at a nearby inn had a picture of King George III of England emblazoned on it. When Rip awoke two decades later, the sign had a picture of George Washington on it.

The most striking fact about the story, Dr. King reminded his Oberlin College audience, was not that Rip had slept for 20 years but he had slept through a revolution.

"There is nothing more tragic than to sleep through a revolution," Dr. King said. He then went on to make a remarkable speech challenging all Americans not to sleep through the revolution that was sweeping the nation out of the struggle for human dignity.

When Dr. King said there are too many people in our midst who, in periods of social change, fail "to achieve the new mental outlooks the very situation demands." He was speaking to me and other white southerners then of age who had many opportunities to understand, embrace, and work for social change in those early years of confrontation over the social and legal order in the Old South, but did nothing.

Many older than I had an opportunity at the time of the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955 and when sit- ins and demonstrations pressed the case for equal access for all Americans to hotels, restaurants, and movie theatres. I and others had chances at the March on Washington in 1963 and at Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965.

In S.C. in 1968, we could have helped to heal the deep divide that followed the Orangeburg Massacre.

In 1969, we could have reached beyond conventional thinking and supported the MUSC hospital workers in Charleston who were seeking a raise from their $1.30 an hour wage. In 1970, we could have taken a stand for peaceful integration of our public schools following the turning over of a school bus full of children in Lamar.

But while many South Carolinians of good will stepped forward in those days, many of us also did nothing, metaphorically sleeping (it was in many cases a troubled sleep) through a revolution. Put more directly, so many of us simply failed to do our duty as the times demanded. Fortunately, time has been forgiving to those who needed another opportunity to do the right thing, while simultaneously it has been cruel in allowing injustice, inequity, and inequality to remain embedded in our society, forcing the revolution to continue.

Many of us have learned, some gradually, that honest dialog, frank communications, mutual respect, and solid effort can open the door to collaboration for genuine social progress. The newest example of the embodiment of these ideas has come in the special leadership of S.C.'s own U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, first acknowledging the genius of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s vision and leadership, then poignantly pointing to the basic unfairness in the growing disparity of funding of public education in S.C.'s imperiled rural communities.

Before a packed audience at the Columbia Urban League's breakfast on MLK Day, Senator Graham said what so many of us consciously or unconsciously thought over the last 40 years when he asked: "How many of us wished we had met Dr. King at the other side of the bridge, shook his hand and said 'You are right, Dr. King'?" He then sided with the eight rural school districts that have brought a lawsuit over their inability to fund an adequate education for children in their public schools. "The merits of the claim are real," Graham said, citing "…years and years of neglect."

Senator Graham said "Knock down walls built out of neglect. If you take the hatred out and replace it with caring and attention, anything is possible."

As we look to genuine solutions to S.C.'s unfinished business of racial reconciliation, economic development, and educational improvements, I believe we have a basis of renewed optimism. I for one am grateful I woke up to take part, before the revolution is over.

Mr.Rainey is a Columbia attorney

and presently serves as

Chairman of the State Board of

Economic Advisors