PORT ANGELES — Dion Jordan, a nationally known inspirational speaker who came to Peninsula College last week, did not want people staying in their seats for his speech.
This talk was about what Martin Luther King Jr. means to the individual, on the 82nd anniversary of the civil rights leader’s birth — which was Saturday and which is celebrated today — and nearly 43 years after his murder.
But Jordan had other questions for his audience Thursday, queries about their musical skills and about how sharp they consider themselves to be.
“How many here know how to sing?” he asked. “How many know how to dance?”
Stand up if you do, Jordan said, and some in the Little Theater did.
Next came: “If you think you look good, stand up,” and “If you believe you might be smarter than the person you’re sitting next to, stand.”
Again, some did, but many stayed down.
Jordan then explained that he’s had opportunities to talk with kindergartners, business people and professional athletes.
The kindergartners, unlike the other groups, stood up every time for every question. Often they started dancing.
Impossible dream?
“The strange thing,” Jordan said Thursday, “is what happened to you. Somehow you lost what we call that kindergarten confidence . . . here you are, college students and beyond,” bereft of that belief in yourselves.
Somebody told you, or maybe just hinted, that you couldn’t sing or dance, or that you’re not all that smart.
“Thousands of people told Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., ‘You can’t do it,'” Jordan added.
They told him his nonviolent protests — of segregation, of the Vietnam War, of economic injustice — would never work.
And there were times when King thought of stopping, Jordan said.
He could have gone and had a nice life as president of Morehouse College, for instance.
But as King famously said, a dream of equality, a vision of people treating one another as brothers and sisters, ran deep in him.
That dream kept calling, Jordan said. King used it like a marathoner uses water.
But he also saw his world clearly.
Three simple things
“A true leader has the ability to see something as it is; then they have the ability to see something better than what it is,” Jordan said.
“The question is, can you do that? Can you look at your own life, at all your insecurities, all the things you do bad, and not have a pity party about it?”
And can you look, Jordan asked, at what you’ve done well and not get too cocky?
“Do you dare to see yourself as a better person, a person making more of a difference?”
King changed a nation’s minds and hearts by leading groups of people in doing three simple things, Jordan said.
First, there was “just sitting,” as in the sit-ins at lunch counters in Greensboro, N.C.
Second was standing, sometimes arm to arm, on the streets of cities in the South.
Third was walking, walking for 382 days during the Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott of 1955 and ’56.
“What amazes me is how we’re afraid to stand,” said Jordan, “afraid of losing our status, our own privileges.”
And all too often, we lack the confidence, he said, to stand up for a better world, nation and community.
But “one simple fact I carry to this day is: It doesn’t matter what other people tell you. The only thing that matters is what you tell yourself.”
King knew how to change his inner conversation, and how to “keep on keeping on.”
That’s the legacy we live with today, Jordan said.
“Do not for a moment think the battle is already won,” for equality and justice, he added.
“Sit, stand and walk for the right reasons, and you can change the world.”
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Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-417-3550 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
