Ah, springtime! Buds turn into flowers; the first baseball of the season has been thrown out to the cheers of hopeful fans forgetting a disappointing last year; Mr. Softee trucks are back on the road, driving us crazy with that obnoxious tune—a call to little kids eager to wait in line for that first lick of ice cream; and it’s time to book your summer vacation while worrying, “Will I fit into my swimsuit?”
Ah, springtime!
Much has been written and said about spring and its attractions. Baseball great Ernie Banks said: “Spring training means flowers, people coming outdoors, sunshine, optimism and baseball. Spring training is a time to think about being young again.” Former First Lady, Ladybird Johnson said: “Where flowers bloom, so does hope.” Singer and songwriter Sheryl Crow memorably wrote about spring: “No matter how chaotic it is, wildflowers will still spring up in the middle of nowhere.”
Mother Nature seems to agree with these sentiments, as daylight lasts a little longer and our snow boots get pushed to the back of the closet. It seems that we can finally begin to place the COVID chaos in the rear-view mirror. There’s a feeling that spring has definitely sprung, bringing new beginnings, a fresh start, a clean slate—and inspiration, too.
So much has been written about the season. Toni Morrison, the writer and recipient of the1993 Nobel Prize in Literature, once wrote: “When spring comes to the city, people notice one another in the road; notice the strangers with whom they share aisles and tables and the space…It’s the time of year when the city urges contradiction most, encouraging you to buy street food when you have no appetite at all; giving you a taste for a single room occupied by you alone as well as a craving to share it with someone you passed in the street. Really there is no contradiction—rather it’s a condition.”
The Ghanaian founder of Smart Youth Volunteer Foundation, Lailah Gifty Akita, calls spring “a season for the soul to regain its strength.” Even comedian Robin Williams had an opinion about spring, calling it “Nature’s way of saying ‘Let’s Party.’”
It’s no coincidence that Ramadan, Easter, and Passover are spring holidays. The renewal of nature that comes with spring amplifies the promise of redemption embedded in the historical events being commemorated by all three religions.
Ramadan, a month-long celebration, marks the holiest month of the Islamic calendar. According to tradition, the holy book of the Quran was revealed to the prophet Muhammad during Ramadan. Muslims believe that during this month, the gates to Heaven are open and the doors to Hell are closed. Muslims focus on their connection to God, reflect on their lives, and spend quality time with friends and family.
Easter celebrates the resurrection of Jesus and his victory over death. Around the same time, and often overlapping, Jewish people celebrate Passover, the holiday commemorating the Hebrews’ exodus from slavery in Egypt.
In both of these festivals, nature and history converge with a resounding message of hope. These holidays are about delivery from a state of despair. Easter assures the individual that life is eternal. It offers a way out of a world beyond repair. It celebrates a religion that provides comfort to those who have lost faith in the gods of Rome. It spreads the message that the death of one has the capacity to save many and the resurrection of Jesus is the ultimate affirmation of life. Passover summons Jews collectively into the world to repair it. The message of Passover is that a tyrant like Pharaoh could be overthrown. A nation as powerful as Egypt could be defeated. Slaves could become free. The oppressed could break the shackles of their captivity. Anything is possible, if only we dare to dream the impossible dream.
It was the biblical record of the exodus from Egypt that enabled the spirit of optimism to prevail for the followers of Martin Luther King Jr. in their quest for equal rights, because they were stirred by the vision of Moses leading his people to the Promised Land. In fact, the historic speech that King delivered at the Mason Temple in Memphis, where he went on April 3, 1968, to support sanitation workers in protesting their meager wages of $1.65 an hour and deplorable working conditions, included the prophetic line: “I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the Promised Land.”
He was assassinated the next day. It was ironic that many of King’s supporters, aides, and confidants had urged him against expanding their focus and leaving their comfort zone to take on new causes, such as the Poor People’s Campaign, which he was pushing.
King would have none of it. Instead, he urged the sanitation workers to go on strike, telling them, “You have to escalate the struggle a bit.” He countered the containment argument with, “We have moved into an era where we are called upon to raise certain basic questions about the whole society.”
When we celebrate the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., it is impossible not to recognize that his lessons are similar to the main lesson of spring: Without hope, all will be lost. So much about our nation underscores that sentiment. Even the drawing on America’s official seal, suggested by Benjamin Franklin in August 1776, attested to this belief, with the dramatic scene described in Exodus where Moses divided waters of the Red Sea that is depicted on the seal.
The history of our nation—the hope and sense of rebirth that springtime inspires—has a message that is clear: The impossible can happen; it just takes longer. Dr. King believed that and lived it. We should, too.
Gregory Floyd is president of Teamsters Local 237 and vice president at-large of the General Board of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.