The rafters nearly shook Wednesday as the guest speaker gave the sixth annual C.S. Lewis Lecture at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Aldermanbury.
Distinguished guest Marvin A. McMickle, president of Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School in Rochester, New York, delivered an impassioned lecture, "Addressing Racism, Poverty and Militarism 50 Years after the Death of Martin Luther King Jr."
McMickle, 69, was introduced by ordained minister Clifford Chalmers Cain, who serves as the Harrod-C.S. Lewis Professor of Religious Studies at Westminster.
"He (King) had a dream, but the dream did not die with him," Cain said. "We gather today then to investigate the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King 50 years after his death."
King, a Baptist minister, drove the Civil Rights movement in America during his short life. He is remembered for his famous "I Have a Dream" speech given Aug. 28, 1963, at the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
"Most Americans think of Martin Luther King Junior from one moment in time; one frozen moment in time," McMickle said. "Most think of his 'Dream' speech. I hope to deconstruct and rearrange people's understanding of what his dream was and what it entailed."
But first, McMickle noted his surroundings - the granite church designed and built in 1600s London, England, by Sir Christopher Wren. During the Nazi blitz in the Second World War, Hitler's airplanes bombed the tiny but elegant church and it lay in rubble until the 1960s when Westminster College officials brought over the bits and pieces to crown the National Churchill Museum.
"I was always aware that Winston Churchill gave that historic Iron Curtain speech here in 1964," McMickle said. "I never dreamed I'd be here giving a speech. Just to be here, surrounded by all this history, is an honor."
McMickle was not shy about his feelings on the subject of discrimination and the slowness of change since King was gunned down April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee - almost 50 years ago.
"It was just last year that people carried confederate flags and Nazi flags in Charlottesville - the same Nazis that bombed this church," he said.
The Charlottesville demonstrators chanted "Jews will not replace us" and "Blood and soil," a key slogan of Nazi ideology, as they marched at the University of Virginia last August. One person died in the fray, and soon after, President Donald Trump made a statement in the lobby of Trump Tower with which many took umbrage.
"His speech was, 'There were very fine people on both sides.' What is a fine Nazi?" McMickle said. "Racism is still here 50 years later and so is poverty, driven in part by the division between the wealthiest among us and the poorest among us."
McMickle said he wanted to know where all the money is going. He cited a comparison in military spending. In 1965 during the Vietnam conflict, the country spent $500,000 a day on the war. Now - yesterday, today, tomorrow, he said - $100 million is spent every single day.
"We spend $598 billion a year in defense. That's $100 million a day, every day, until you graduate," he said. "$12.8 billion went into an aircraft carrier, the Gerald R. Ford, which cannot be used because there's not enough planes."
But cuts to social services and benefits to everyday citizens are regularly being made, McMickle added.
"Inside this country that we are defending are people - men, women and children - who still need services (such as health care)," he said. "Fifty years after Martin Luther King, we still have needs."
Upset the status quo
In 1963, King was sitting in a jail cell, solitary confinement, in Birmingham, Alabama. He was thinking about as letter he'd just received from eight white religious leaders from that city: Protestant, Catholic, Jewish church leaders, McMickle said.
"Those leaders wrote to him, asking him to postpone his civil rights demonstrations," he added. "They said, 'If you wait, things will work themselves out.'"
They also called King an "outside agitator," McMickle said. King had seen the big churches with their towering spires and wondered about what went on in there.
"He thought, what kind of people worshiped in those churches? Who is their god?"
In those days, particularly in the American South, there was a three-pronged system of oppression: Limit financial opportunities, thus tying people into impoverished lifestyles. Secondly, make people politically powerless.
"And third, keep them as terrorized as possible," McMickle said. "Keep them poor, keep them powerless, and keep them terrorized."
His 60-year-old great-great uncle went to the Jefferson County, Kentucky, registrar in 1930, wanting to register to vote.
"He was told, 'No. N-----s do not vote in Louisville.' He said, 'Nevertheless, I've come to register.' He was told again, N-----s do not vote and will not vote," McMickle said.
The next edition of the Chicago Defender newspaper reported the registrar had shot McMickle's uncle dead and was arrested. When asked for a motive, the registrar said it was "self defense," McMickle said. No one questioned the event.
"It's not simply an ancient history that religious leaders have been giving cover to racism," he added.
McMickle chided two evangelist preachers for not standing up recently for decency, saying these preachers would overlook misconduct if it means getting their agendas through. He encouraged his audience to challenge deliberate ignorance and those who willfully ignore problems - racism, sexism, poverty and educational imbalances, for example.
He recognized witnessing -seeing problems and speaking up - takes courage.
"The question is: 'How will this affect me?'" McMickle said. "At least one person in here can't wait for me to leave town. But I'm not looking for consent."
McMickle is a member of the Martin Luther King Jr. Board of Preachers at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. As a young man in Chicago, McMickle worked as a graphic designer on Playboy magazine.
"I read in the (newspaper) Martin Luther King was going to be at Liberty Baptist Church in Chicago, so I went," he said. "By association and example, I saw an image of what life could be like and suddenly, Playboy was meaningless."
He was ordained in 1973, teaching and preaching and serving his causes. While senior pastor of Antioch Baptist Church in Cleveland, Ohio (1987-2011), he led the church in establishing a ministry for people infected with or affected by HIV/AIDS. It was the first church-based program of its kind in the country, according to his biography.
In the audience listening to McMickle on Wednesday was local pastor Aaron White of First Presbyterian Church, Fulton.
"The first thing that occurs to me is it changes what I'm going to preach on this Sunday," White said.
A question a student asked McMickle about leaders who do not positively lead inspired White's thoughts.
"We need to ask, we need to see where our leadership is coming from today," White said. "Those of us here today were called to consider how to do the work of witnessing."