Arts Entertainments

Maya Angelou lashes out at the paraphrase at the new Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial, and she’s right

Author’s program note. To understand the point of this article, the point of Maya Angelou’s complaint about paraphrasing the great words of one of the most influential speakers in history at his very monument, you must love both language and precision. And above all you must love the truth.

Angelou is an honest woman. She is a woman who tells the truth. And she is a woman who understands and can effectively handle the correct words in the correct order. Most people will call her a writer, and she is a writer. But I prefer to call her a poet, because she is too.

A poet is a person who strives to generate maximum impact with minimal words … who works with the demons of truth, the difficulties of language, and who works obsessively (because every poet is obsessive) to deliver the correct meaning. .and this is difficult.

For such a person, endowed with the scourge of outrage, the rude behavior of the officials in charge of the new National Monument to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is deeply painful … and utterly outrageous. Not only because, in a truly rude way, they had no idea that their seemingly innocent action would produce justifiable rage.

But before I delve into that, I want you to listen to Maya Angelou, a poet, read her acclaimed works, because few poets have gained as much recognition as her … listening to the woman while reading her words will make it clear why. . Go to any search engine. Hear the cadence, feel the way it strokes the language, lovingly each word before delivering it to an expectant world. She is in love with language and the great power of language … and is at war with the unenlightened who, by killing language, erase the meaning and leave us the poorest.

The bottom.

In the late 1960s, Martin Luther King gave a haunting sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. In it he discussed the eulogy he could and should receive in the event of his death. Death and prophecy were in the air that day; Tensions were high on both sides of the civil rights issue, those who embraced her and her leader and those whose words indicated uncompromising opposition. The people, and not just those in the congregation, were restless, anxious, and in need of the comfort balm …

… and so the mahatma of the movement, rose to the pulpit that no one could grace like him, and spoke, as he always spoke, with a heart, this time loaded with thoughts of eternity and fragile humanity. He wanted to admonish them, enlighten them and, above all, prepare them for a reckoning with a destiny that he felt was his and theirs.

This is what he said …

“If you mean I was an older drummer, say I was an older drummer for justice. Say I was an older drummer for peace. I was an older drummer for righteousness. And all the other superficial things won’t.” to import. “

And the people knew that their revered leader was talking about his legacy and what they must do to ensure his right and proper recognition and that his message of justice and peace will endure when he is not around.

It was only a couple of months after this prophet of equality and justice was shot and killed … and thus he entered history.

His words and his monument.

In due course, the nation chose to honor the man, and above all to honor his message, in a great civic temple in the nation’s capital. On the towering walls of this building designed for the ages, key passages from his world-changing thoughts would be etched, signaling even the most casual of visitors what was important and what they must live to remember and even appreciate. The words of his sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church were selected … then mutilated, insulted, diminished by the very people charged with venerating and protecting the great man’s legacy. These, by gutting his words, became the killers of his message. Little men, they took it upon themselves to rethink, rewrite and paraphrase what was already perfect and did not need their help to resonate resolutely through the ages.

Paraphrase.

The culprits of this drama, the organizers of the monument, decided to paraphrase the original and searing words of a man who felt the culmination of his life and work … and thus they set in stone the crucial words of his last Atlanta sermon as follows:

“I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness.”

Thus they outraged the man, his message, his meaning. Because what they chose to engrave in stone was profoundly different from King’s comments and purpose. These people, thinking of the good they were doing, were instead transgressing in lofty and powerful matters, matters that they should have left alone.

Why did they do it?

They could not fit the famous passage into the space provided by the architect … they did not want to leave it out … and so they decided on the expedient of the paraphrase. In doing so, they rewrote the passage, put it in quotation marks so that readers wrongly assumed the words were accurate, thus sacrificing what they had been charged with preserving. To read the dictionary definition of paraphrase is to see how wrong they were:

“a reformulation of a text, passage or work giving the meaning in another form”.

But these words, from this man, spoken at a time and place like this, needed tender care … never to be altered or manipulated.

Imagine what would have happened if the Lincoln Memorial organizers, like Dr. King’s, had paraphrased the Gettysburg Address, so …

“87 years ago, our ancestors created a great nation of freedom where all men are created equal …

Now we are in a civil war to test whether this great nation with its great ideas can continue to exist … “

Simply paraphrasing the great words of the great Lincoln instantly makes it clear how outrageous paraphrase can be … and shows why diminished words and their diminished meaning must be instantly eliminated. If space can be found for them, so much the better, but if not, the right thing to do should be to tear them down immediately.

The organizers, of course, will complain about the extra work, the inconvenience, and especially the cost. They will also tell you that they executed their ridiculous and insulting plan to paraphrase before the United States Commission on the Fine Arts, which was overseeing the design. They, all Philistines, had no problem with the proposal, indicating that they are not fit for their job.

Here comes the honesty and anger of the poet. Because Maya Angelou knows that “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” (John 1-1). Every poet knows it, and it is surely Angelou’s enduring creed. They are also the words of Our Savior, whose words “Noli me tangere” (John 20-17), so neglected by the organizers of the monument, are very appropriate and should constitute the last word on the matter.

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