1.   Martin Luther King’s birthday has a special significance for Greg and I, it is one of the reasons we met.  
    I read his January 17, 1993 column published to commemorate King’s birthday, where he promoted the idea of Rev. Wiley Burton of CA, that what people should do on King’s birthday is to invite people of different cultures to their homes to break bread together.
    I’d been concerned by the racial divide in St. Louis, and had realized that addressing it would not work unless it was black-white partnership.  Because of this column I called Greg to see if he saw things similarly.   Coming from very different backgrounds and life experiences, we did indeed.   Out of our discussions, came the Bridges Across Racial Polarization project, marking its 10th anniversary this year; and a close friendship.

2.   In 1969, in a visit to Mexico, I was in Guernavaca at a language school.   One afternoon I listened to an informal outdoor discussion between a group of African-American college students and Rev. Andrew Young, who had been a lieutenant of Dr. King, assassinated the year before.   During the discussion, the students asked him what he planned to do in the future.   He said, he didn’t know as yet, but noted that he’d put in a number of years in the civil rights struggle, and told them “its your turn now”.   As we know, Rev. Young took his turn again in the decades after that.
    Though Greg wasn’t there that day, he’d have only been 13; in effect he picked up Rev. Young’s baton, to advance the building of what Dr. King called a “beloved community”.

3.   In his "Address Before the National Press Club" 1962, Martin Luther King said: “Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable … no social advance rolls in on the wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless effort and persistent work of dedicated individuals”
    Gregory Freeman was such an individual.   Greg’s dedication to diversity, persistent work for social progress and the revitalization of St. Louis were contained in his decade’s worth of columns, his radio show “St. Louis On the Air”, the TV show “Mosaic”, his hundreds of speeches to organizations, the Bridges project, and his years of work on behalf of diversity in journalism.   And I’m barely scratching the surface of the matters on which he worked throughout his life.
    He loved our diverse Skinker-DeBaliviere community, he served on the Community Council, and our neighborhood continued to grow strong over the years Greg, Elizabeth, and Will lived here.   Unfortunately, there are forces at work today, which may make it less diverse, and less convenient as a place to live.
    About 700 people have participated in Bridges, about 400 are still active, and the program we co-founded received national recognition last year, but our dream was to have thousands, not hundreds, of St. Louisans participating in Bridges groups.
    “The tireless effort and persistent work of dedicated individuals” falls to us now.
    Of course Greg leavened this serious side by sharing his human side with his columns on the Three Stooges, the family cats, his son Will. Greg, was after all a human being, a person almost everyone could connect to.

4.   In "The Current Crisis in Race Relations", 1958, Dr. King said about non-violent resistance:
“First, this is not a method of cowardice or stagnant passivity; it does resist. The non-violent resister is just as opposed to the evil against which he is protesting as the person who used violence ... but his mind and emotions are always active, constantly seeking to persuade the opponent that he is mistaken. This method is passive physically, but it is strongly active spiritually
A second basic fact about this method is that it does not seek to defeat or humiliate the opponent, but to win his friendship and understanding ... non-cooperation & boycotts are not ends, but a means to awaken a sense of moral shame within the opponent. The end is redemption and reconciliation. The aftermath of non-violence is the creation of the beloved community, but the aftermath of violence is tragic bitterness.”
    I do not claim that Greg carried out Dr. King’s values of non-violent resistance in his life’s work, but believe it defines his reaction to what I’ll label the incidents of “violent words (of hate)” of calls, letters, and e-mails he received from a few who disagreed with columns or shows.
    Greg was well known for his refusal to let nasty comments or incidents get under his skin. In the memorial service Bill McClellan said: ”I never heard him say a mean word about anybody” … He always gave people the benefit of the doubt ... Honorable, gentlemanly, and without pretension. In my view, Greg lived his life by Dr. King’s precept of constantly striving to “not humiliate an opponent, but to win their friendship and understanding”.

5.   As Dr. King’s life was snuffed out at 39, Greg also did not live a long life, he was only 46 when he died suddenly. But as Dr. King said in "I See the Promised Land", the night before he was killed in 1968: “Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And he’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. 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. And I am happy tonight. I’m not worried about anything.”
  Greg awed me with his ability to overcome obstacles, to be temporarily discouraged, and then to press on.  I believe he never gave up, because I think he could see glimpses of the promised land here in St. Louis.  Racial diversity, equality of opportunity, the revival of St. Louis
  We are not there yet, either in our country or in St. Louis, but we are closer because of the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, and the life of Gregory Freeman.

COPYRIGHT © 2003, Daniel Schesch

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