I’ve been having flashbacks this week. This extraordinary week bookended by the celebration of the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the inauguration of America’s 45th President. My recurring flashback is to when I was barely 16, with a driver’s license a few months old, driving my father’s big, new shiny car to pick up my sister before heading to work. Distracted by a glimpse of a pretty girl out of the corner of my eye, I foolishly ignored what was most important — the car right in front of me — and collided with it as it stopped to make a left turn.
Staring at the crumpled, tent shape of my car’s front hood in disbelief, I actually pinched myself. This could not be real; it must be a dream; I needed to wake up! The crumpled hood remained. I glanced back over to the pretty girl; she wasn’t so pretty after all. Stupid! I pinched myself again, harder this time.
If it had worked then, my arm today would be black and blue trying to change the reality of America today. A reality that feels like a tempest storm coming in from the sea bringing with it crashing cross currents of despair, of determination, of optimism, of redemption, of hope. No one seems to be unaffected. You either feel like you are in the midst of a slow motion car crash about to happen or you just averted a disastrous one. Such is the reality of America today. No pinching please, it will not change anything.
So what DO we do?
I’ve always found inspiration in the words and actions of Martin Luther King, Jr. so I start there for guidance. Looking beyond the eloquent and familiar, I found this sage advice from him: Don’t sneeze.
In his famous “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech delivered the evening before he was assassinated on April 4, 1968, Dr. King shared a story little known today about an unsuccessful attempt on his life. In 1958, while at a book signing in Harlem for his first publication, “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story” a well dressed black woman approach the 29-year-old Dr. King, asked him to identify himself and stabbed him in the chest.
With the letter opener still in his chest and perilously close to his heart, Dr. King was taken to Harlem Hospital for emergency surgery. X-rays showed that the tip of the blade was on the edge of his aorta. More likely than not, if Dr. King had sneezed before his surgery, he would have died.
Commenting on his good fortune, Dr. King shares the opportunities he had to reshape this nation resulting from his steadfast focus in a time of crisis, and provides excellent advice for us:
“If I had sneezed, I wouldn’t have been around here in 1960, when students all over the South started sitting-in at lunch counters. And I knew that as they were sitting in, they were really standing up for the best in the American dream, and taking the whole nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
If I had sneezed, I wouldn’t have been around here in 1961, when we decided to take a ride for freedom and ended segregation in inter-state travel.
If I had sneezed, I wouldn’t have been around here in 1962, when Negroes in Albany, Georgia, decided to straighten their backs up. And whenever men and women straighten their backs up, they are going somewhere, because a man can’t ride your back unless it is bent.
If I had sneezed I wouldn’t have been here in 1963, when the black people of Birmingham, Alabama, aroused the conscience of this nation, and brought into being the Civil Rights Bill.
If I had sneezed, I wouldn’t have had a chance later that year, in August, to try to tell America about a dream that I had had.
If I had sneezed, I wouldn’t have been down in Selma, Alabama, to see the great Movement there.
If I had sneezed, I wouldn’t have been in Memphis to see a community rally around those brothers and sisters who are suffering.
I’m so happy that I didn’t sneeze.”
The reality of America today is that it has not one, but several daggers close to its heart, threatening its existence as we know it. There’s the dagger of injustice – whether social, economic, political or environmental. There’s the dagger of hyper-concentrated wealth that is the wellhead for societal breakdown and economic instability. There’s the dagger of political benign neglect that stymies the will of the people and disenfranchises the under-represented. There’s the dagger of divide-and-conquer that denies us our equal status as American citizens.
Confronted with this reality, we must not sneeze. We must not panic. We must instead begin anew with greater determination the delicate, deliberate and urgent surgery to remove these dangers from our national body. We must do so with a vision for America worthy of our children and their children. Not with the goal of making America great again — we already are. But rather with the goal of making America better again.
Choose your role. Find your collaborators. Build a bridge. Open a door. Give somebody a break. Take that leap of faith. Imagine walking a mile in someone else’s shoes. Be ethical and smart. Make a difference.
I’ve chosen to make a difference by addressing the financial exclusion experienced by innovative yet overlooked founders who are of color and women. Through Reinventure Capital, our team is tapping into new networks and building bridges to old ones, helping to lay the foundation for success as America transforms into an advanced multicultural society within the short span of a generation.
Our door is open to you. Let’s take that leap together. Be our advisor, investor, partner or friend. Join us. We’d love to hear from you. Contact me at: ed@reinventurecapital.com.