Recently, I heard the niece of the heroic, beloved Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., speak twice here, and each time, I felt her uncle’s spirit moving among us.
Earlier the day of her visit, Dr. Alveda King joined a Concerned Women for America of North Dakota rally, which drew together several hundred pro-life citizens near the Moorhead Planned Parenthood.
The gathering included talks from King and two local women who, like her, have suffered the effects of post-abortion trauma. One shared of her deep and lasting regret, saying, “I couldn’t get my child back no matter how many tears I cried, no matter how much pain I felt.”
Stories like these remind us that abortion is the great lie that keeps us in chains, binding us individually and as a nation. They challenge the deceiving mantras like “My body, my choice,” waking us to the reality that in every pregnancy, there are two bodies deserving consideration.
Even though these courageously-told stories didn’t make the front page, I’m grateful for the media’s presence that day, and the amplification of these heart-wrenching reflections to everyone present.
Dr. King spoke again that evening at Shanley High School’s annual Cupcakes for Life event. After leading a beautiful rendition of “How Great Thou Art,” she recounted the ways in which her life had both diverged from and intersected with her uncle’s. For a time, she admitted, she lost sight of his wise sentiments, like, “The Negro cannot win if he’s willing to sacrifice the futures of his children for immediate personal comfort and safety,” and “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
But Alveda’s own abortion grief and a spiritual conversion changed her heart, causing her to later draw parallels between abortion and racism, noting how both involve “thinking that when someone stands in the way of our wants,” we believe we’re justified in “getting them out of our lives.” And both “stem from the same poisonous root: selfishness.”
King shared how her mother, a college student at the time of her pregnancy, had planned to abort her until her granddaddy, Martin Luther King Sr., stepped in, revealing a dream he’d had of a granddaughter “with light skin and red hair” destined “to bless many.”
It seized me, the stark continuity between two life-changing dreams within this family: one Alveda’s grandfather shared privately, and another her uncle announced publicly. The first led to an unrepeatable and unique life; the other, to the world’s increasing awareness of every human’s inestimable value.
Dr. King inspired me to remember her uncle’s dream, and hold close her grandfather’s. She reminded us that inside everyone runs red blood, uniting us into one human family, heralding not death, but life.
[For the sake of having a repository for my newspaper columns and articles, I reprint them here, with permission, a week after their run date. The preceding ran in The Forum newspaper on Nov. 4, 2017.]
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