"Thank God Almighty WE are free at last."

A speaker I heard today told this story and I immediately needed to look and see if it was recorded anywhere on the internet so I could share it here. This is where I found it.

During the week before the Obama inauguration, I had the opportunity, while in Chicago, to hear from another of the heroes of America’s long slow journey towards the dream of racial justice, the Reverend Joseph Lowery. Lowery, along with Ralph Abernathy and Martin Luther King Jr., co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. They marched together many times. Many Americans knew Lowery as the Black elder statesman of civil rights who delivered the benediction at Barack Obama’s inauguration.

He told those of gathered in Chicago the following story.

He had just been hired for a new administrative position within the Methodist church. Down the street from his new office was a small segregated restaurant. As Reverend Lowery tells it, “I decided to integrate that lunch counter.”

He went there for lunch, sat down on the counter and ordered for himself a hamburger and a “cokey cola.”

The waitress, who apparently knew who he was, looked at him across the counter and said, “I’m sorry, Reverend, I can’t serve you. “ After a while Lowery left. He came back again the next day and as he tells it, “That little white waitress said she couldn’t serve me.”

He took out his sandwich and his thermos of milk and had his lunch. He came back again the next day and the next and next, week after week.

Lowery was called away on church business for few weeks. While he was gone, legislation was enacted that desegregated all public accommodations. When he returned, Lowery enthusiastically headed out to have lunch at that lunch counter.

When the waitress took his order for a hamburger and a “cokey cola,” she asked him, “Reverend, could I buy your lunch for you?”

“Now that’s kind of you, but why would you want to do that?” he said.

The waitress explained that she was a widow, with young children, who really needed her job. So, when she was directed to not serve Black people, she felt she had to refuse to serve him. It was against her beliefs as to what was right, but it was something she felt compelled to do.

“Now Reverend,” she said, “I can do what I know, in my heart, is right.”

Lowery looked at her smiled and called out, “Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty WE are free at last.”

Need I remind you that this story comes from the other reverend too many forget about who gave this wonderful benediction at President Obama's inauguration.