In 2025, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is almost universally respected and loved as an icon of the Civil Rights Movement — a martyr for the cause, the closest thing the movement has to a saint.
But in 1968, in the weeks leading up to his assassination on the Lorraine Motel balcony, he was none of those things. And Cornel West took considerable time to remind those at the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc., Sigma Rho Lambda, Prayer Breakfast of the sacrifices that King made — and why he made them.
“In America, it’s so easy to pluck a Black man out of his context — to make him into some isolated icon,” said West, noted philosopher, theologian, political activist and social critic. “Then you start sanitizing him, sterilizing him, deodorizing him. And once you do that, you can celebrate the image without wrestling with the message.
“But we gon’ keep it funky this morning,” West said to the crowd’s approval. “Because if you don’t keep it funky, you lose the funk of the truth. You lose the funk of the blood, the funk of the sacrifice, the funk of the sorrow and the sweetness and the soul. That’s what they try to do with Martin — make him respectable, manageable, acceptable.
“But he wasn’t trying to be acceptable. He was trying to be faithful. He was telling the truth, and the truth made people uncomfortable.”
In a half-hour no-notes address inside the National Civil Rights Museum — just steps from where King was gunned down in 1968 — West delivered what felt less like a speech and more like a reckoning.
He wove scripture with street wisdom, theology with social critique, blues with Black prophetic fire, riffing on everything from the blues to the church elder who sang soulfully, if not always in tune. Here’s a sampling:
On the Blues: “What is the blues? Catastrophe, lyrically expressed. That’s what Martin was dealing with. Don’t talk to me about America having a ‘race problem.’ No — America has had catastrophes visited upon Black people. And you don’t respond to catastrophe with a management strategy. A catastrophe demands transformation.”
On Music, Soul and Substance: “Thank God for the men’s choir at Shiloh Baptist Church. Three weeks out of the month, some of them never sang in tune — and that’s all right. These days, everybody wants to sing in tune but don’t have enough soul to touch your heart. I don’t want seven words sung eleven times. I want the real thing. I need drama. I need nurture. I need a story in my song. Music isn’t just entertainment — it’s constitutive of who we are. It sustains our sanity and our dignity.”
On Speaking Life Into Young People: “One of my Vacation Bible School teachers used to tell me, ‘Little Cornel, don’t you ever forget — the kingdom of God is within you. You ought to leave a little heaven behind.’ That’s what Martin heard. That’s what so many of us were given by grandmamas and daddies and uncles and deacons and ushers — a transference of dignity and love that this country couldn’t take from us.”
But for all the riffs and rhythms, West always circled back to King’s radical, sacrificial love — a love that cost him dearly. Especially when he spoke out against the war in Vietnam. And particularly when he decided to take on the cause of impoverished garbage workers in Memphis.
“People said he went too far,” West said. “That he was gonna mess up the Civil Rights Movement by getting involved in the anti-war movement. But Martin said, ‘You never understood me.’ He said, ‘A Vietnamese baby has the same value as a baby in Tennessee.’ Because he heard that in church: Jesus loves the little children — all the children of the world.”
That unflinching global compassion — from Memphis to Vietnam to South Africa — came at a cost. West reminded the audience that at the time of King’s death, more than 70 percent of Americans disapproved of him. Even among Black Americans, support had waned.
“Everybody loves him now,” West said. “But back then? He was dangerous. Because he was telling the truth — and the truth is costly.”
Then, West brought the audience into one of the most human moments of King’s life — his arrest in Georgia, where he was transported for hours in a paddy wagon with a German shepherd beside him.
“Brother Martin was hunched over when he got out,” West said, his voice softening. “He couldn’t even walk a straight line. And all he could do was look up at his daddy and say: ‘This is the cross we must bear for the freedom of our people.’”
For West, that moment was not just history — it was instruction.
“You don’t just talk about the cross,” he said. “You’ve got to carry it. And if you really love like Martin loved — if you’re really committed to the least of these — you’ve got to be willing to die on it.”
In addition to West’s stirring keynote, the Alphas also recognized three individuals whose lives and work exemplify the spirit of service and leadership championed by King. The chapter presented its annual awards during the breakfast, celebrating contributions in education, faith and community uplift. This year’s honorees:
- Dr. Christopher B. Davis, president of LeMoyne-Owen College, who received the Servant Leadership Award for his visionary leadership and commitment to empowering students through education.
- Dr. Velma Lois Jones, a lifelong Memphian and dedicated mathematics educator at Cypress Junior High School, who was honored with the Trailblazer Award. Jones is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. and has inspired generations through both her teaching and community service.
- Bishop Marvin Frank Thomas Sr., the 62nd bishop of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church and a native of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, received the Faith in Action Award for his commitment to ministry, justice, and uplifting communities across the country.
In the end, West’s message wasn’t about nostalgia. It was a call to courage. A call to service. A call to truth, even when truth makes people uncomfortable.
“The greatest among you will be your servant,” he said. “Not the one with the most followers, not the one with the brand. The one who loves the deepest. The one who sacrifices the most.”
