There’s something to be said for a tour where the walls do most of the talking rather than the guide. Stepping into Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s home is an experience there are no words for, all you can do is stand and absorb your surroundings.
The Montgomery sun was spilling through the windows and highlighting the furniture from the 1960’s. The home was lit up from the beating sun like it was still a place where a family could gather around the dining room table and play cards. The living room was warm and the fireplace was inviting. The beds were made and children’s toys were scattered about. The office had a several lives worth of reading material and a desk that looked like it’s companion had just left to get another cup of coffee fresh from the pot a room away.
It felt like the rooms were lying to it’s visitors. Dr. Martin Luther King and his family couldn’t sit peacefully and play cards, sit around the fire, or eat an undisturbed meal. It became routine for the phone to ring in the middle of the night bearing threats to his home, an assortment of people to be knocking at the door at any hour, and it wasn’t a surprise when his front porch was bombed.
To be standing where the porch, the walls, and the furniture hold so much silent power will you make you feel very and rightfully small.
On the kitchen table was a vase full of fake red carnations, Mrs. King’s favorite. Mrs. King did not understand why the carnations were artificial; after all the years of marriage he had always sent real, beautiful, scented, red carnations. Martin told her he wanted to give her something she could always keep. They were the last flowers she ever received from Dr. King.
It is truly amazing, how many words an artificial flower can say.
I will not give you a history lesson, I will not try to make you feel how I felt looking at the vase of carnations, and I will not try to persuade you to visit Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s home; but I will tell you rather than to stop and smell the flowers, start listening to them.