Honoring King's legacy
By Steve Herring
Published in News on January 16, 2017 8:58 AM
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News-Argus/STEVE HERRING
Judge Carl Fox hugs longtime friend Helen Greenfield as he talks to her daughter, Sherry Mack, following Sunday’s Dr. Martin Luther King. Jr. celebration in Mount Olive.
MOUNT OLIVE -- Judge Carl Fox remembers the large Ku Klux Klan billboards that used to stand at Smithfield and praying that his car would not breakdown anywhere between them.
Years later after being appointed to the Superior Court bench, Fox, who was the state's first black district attorney, was scheduled to preside over court in Smithfield.
"So you can imagine when I was assigned there, and I walked into the courtroom, and everyone stood up," he said. "In my mind there was a little bubble like in the cartoons and it said, 'Can you believe this? Did you ever think for one second you would be in Smithfield, N.C., and people would be standing up when you walked into the room?'"
Fox's comments drew laughter from the nearly 75 people attending Sunday afternoon's Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration sponsored by the Carver High School Alumni and Friends Association.
Fox, a graduate of Southern Wayne High School, Dudley, is senior resident superior court judge for District 15B for Orange and Chatham counties.
The theme of the celebration was "The King in You; United We Serve: Where Do We Go From Here?"
Fox said he and others have benefited from the Civil Rights movement and King's leadership.
"He sacrificed his life for the greater good, not just for African American people, but for all people," he said. "He laid down his life for freedom, for justice, for equality and for peace."
Fox said that following King's assassination, people had waited for a long time for someone to take King's place, and there have been leaders, such as Rep. John Lewis, a hero of the Civil Rights movement, he said.
But none have been able to do what King did, Fox said.
"In truth, we were probably setting ourselves up for inaction to wait for another leader like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. because it simply didn't happen," he said. "So where do we go from here? There has to be a plan, a roadmap to the desired destination.
"Without directions we won't get very far or we may get lost or simply go around in circles. I suggest there should be short-term plans of five years or less and long-term plans for 10 years or more. The plans should include clear, well-defined goals and we must believe that we can accomplish these goals."
Secondly, there must be an organization since an individual can accomplish little on his or her own, Fox said. But a group of well-organized, dedicated people who believe in the organization and its goals can accomplish much, he said.
Fox said he does not like the term self-made.
People must have the help and support of others to reach any significant point, he said.
"In the end we must remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends according to Dr. King," Fox said. "During the Civil Rights movement churches and religion were the logical places to start the Civil Rights movement. So the organization must be inclusive rather than exclusive.
"Third, there must be action. The group must do more than meet and discuss or socialize, and you know that is what a lot of groups do. They get together, talk about something for a little while, then they socialize. But they don't accomplish a lot that way."
The group must take risks, recruit other believers and work to accomplish each and every goal of the plan, he said.
"Finally, there must be reflection," he said. "The group must examine its plan, recognize its accomplishments and failures and decide how to move forward. You can't learn a lot from success, but you can learn a great deal from failure.
"So to move forward the King in you must understand that it matters that you vote and for whom you vote. It matters that you organize and take voters to the polls. Four years from today we will know how much or how little it mattered who was elected president of the United States last November."
Fox said he had heard so many people prior to the election say it didn't matter if a person voted, or who they voted for.
'That may be true, but we will only to be able to say that in hindsight at some later point," he said. "We can't say that today because we do not what to expect, and we do not know what our new president will do. But I can tell you this -- we have lived through tougher times.
"President-elect Donald Trump is not former (Alabama) Gov. George Wallace. He is not former (Mississippi) Gov. Ross Barnett. He not the former leader of the Klan, David Duke. Whoever our new president is, we will have overcome worse. I can assure you of that."
It also matters whether people take unifying or divisive positions, Fox said.
"Dr. King said that injustice anywhere, is a threat to justice everywhere," he said. "I have seen leaders take positions against equal rights for some of our brothers and sisters. They seem to forget that the very rhetoric directed against those groups was directed against African Americans, too. Millions of people who work like us, act like us, contribute to the economy like us will soon be deported form this country because they want to be citizens like that creed on the front of the Statue of Liberty.
"Millions of Americans who have lifestyles different from us, orientations different from us who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender face a tide of opposition forcing against them and threatening equal treatment and access."
Also millions of Americans do not receive equal pay for equal work, he said.
"We should be very careful talking about the people that we don't want in this country in 2017 because the folks we don't want in this country were the people who settled this country," Fox said. "Now we may disagree about the gains that we have made over the past 50 years, but I won't. I am unabashed about that.
However, one thing that people do know today is that millions are on the verge of losing their health care, Fox said.
"I can tell you as a person recovering from cancer every person in this country deserves to have health care," he said. "Whether you know it or not, health care related costs are the No. 1 cause of bankruptcy among individuals in this nation and Congress has already been laying the groundwork to kill the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. I am ashamed that newscasters can't call that law by what it is.
"On the front of that law it does not say Obamacare. It doesn't mention the president's name. If you poll people and use that (official) name as the name for health care, they are overwhelmingly for it. But if you repeat that same bill and say Obamacare, so many people are against it. Every one of our allies provides some kind of health care for its citizens."
The same people who are against health care were against Social Security and Medicare, he said.
People are working two to three minimum wage jobs to make ends meet and have no prospect of seeing that wage increase.
"Yes, black lives matter, but not just when black lives are being taken by police. That is what we seem to focus on. That kind of thing represents a very small minority of what happens in communities around this country."
Black lives have to matter when there are no cameras to tell what is going on; when there are no law enforcement officers involved; when people are victims of collateral damage because they are trapped in their own homes and cannot feel secure because of gun violence and the scourge of illegal drugs, substance abuse and addiction, he said.
"If we are going to be organizing, marching and demonstrating about lives matter we should be doing it every time a life is taken in the community; every time somebody sets up shop to sell drugs; every time a child drops out of school," Fox said. "Black lives matter, but blank lives matter. You fill in the blank with whomever you wish.
"Dr. King said darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive hate, only love can do that and there is simply too much hate and too much darkness in our society and in our word today."
According to Dr. King the first principle of value that people need to rediscover is that all reality hinges on moral foundations, Fox said.
"In other words that this is a moral universe and that there are moral laws of the universe just as binding as the physical laws," he said.
People can have a dream, Fox said.
"But a dream will just continue to be something you can see in your mind until the King in you decides to work to make your dream a reality," Fox said. "You will not be judged by the contents of your dreams but by the dreams you made into reality. As Dr. King said, 'Our lives begin to end when we become silent about things that matter."
Things will remain status quo until people act and not wait on someone else, he said.