"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.  

Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." 

—Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

The Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Park and Monument 

In January 2022, the City of Savannah belatedly unveiled its first monument to honor the late great African American civil rights leader: The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  

The monument, found in a park named after Dr. King and located at the northernmost point of Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard, is found in the newest part of Savannah's historic downtown: Plant Riverside District. I was in attendance for the opening ceremony, along with several hundred other Savannahians.  

Creating the monument and constructing the new park was ten years in the planning — a collaboration between the Kessler Collection of Hotels, Georgia Power Foundation, and the City of Savannah. 

Savannah Mayor Van Johnson and Richard C. Kessler, CEO of The Kessler Collection of Hotels, unveiled the new monument. Mr. Kessler's Savannah home (see PFS-74) and an earlier hotel created with historic preservation of an old mansion in Savannah’s Historic District, located directly across the street from Forsyth Park (see PFS-3), have also been subjects for my Postcards from Savannah series. 

The MLK Park and Monument are most certainly appropriate for this representative city of the old American South, given its darkly stained past transgressions into slavery and Jim Crow discrimination. 

As Dr. King once said in a speech over sixty-years ago: "There is something of a civil war going on within all of our lives. There is a recalcitrant South of our soul revolting against the North of our soul. And there is this continual struggle within the very structure of every individual life." 

As a naturalized United States citizen, joining the American team only 16-years ago, I have done my best to educate myself on my new country's history. My reading of MLK's lifework leaves only admiration for how effectively Dr. King captured the true essence of the kind of country America is supposed to be. 

He didn't merely point out how hypocritical and imperfect the Unites States of America was in the 1950s and 1960s. To be sure, more often than not, he focused our attention on the central tenants of the original American Creed — justice, freedom, and equality before the law. 

Indeed, he insisted: We can live up to this visionary American creed. We can do it together as an American family. And, as fellow citizens, we are always capable of being better in reviving our Union. 

Perhaps the most important lesson I have taken away from Dr. King's public ministry is his continuous emphasis on loving your enemies — seeing within each human being a replica of the image of God. 

It becomes our responsibility to cut off the habit of hate. The person who hates you most is someone with harvestable goodness. The person you hate most reveals the worst element within your own soul, requiring its elimination. The strong person is the one who can cut off that link on the chain of hate. 

Everyone knows how hard such a command of loving your enemy is to fulfill. Naturally, we each must keep trying to make headway in the continual struggle. Then, get back up, and do it again tomorrow. 

Dr. King came to Savannah in the summer of 1963 to offer lucky Savannahians who were in attendance at the Second African Baptist Church on Greene Square (see PFS-102) a version of his I Have a Dream speech, later made infamous on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963.