In paragraph
14, Martin Luther King is addressing the black and white activists in the audience who came to
the March on Washington. Tribulations are sufferings or persecutions. King specifically mentions
people coming "fresh from jail cells," perhaps where they were incarcerated for civil
rights work. He also says people are arriving after suffering police brutality. He offers them
special praise for their "creative suffering" for the cause.
Tribulation is a word with Biblical overtones. King, a pastor, wants to tie the
struggles of the blacks for full freedom (civil rights) in the United States to the struggles of
the Israelites for freedom from Egypt. Biblical Israelites suffered many tribulations but God
was always with them. Tribulation is also used in the New Testament to refer to a period of
suffering before the faithful are gathered up by Jesus in the Rapture. Both allusions to
tribulation hold the promise of deliverance and a better time coming, which is what King wanted
people to understand was on the horizon.
No comments:
Post a Comment