Three years earlier, in March 1965, Doc told the White House that, no, he could not accept an invitation to a joint session of Congress where the president was introducing the Voting Rights Act. Doc had worked tirelessly for the legislation, but his heart led him to Brown Chapel in Selma, Alabama. There he delivered a eulogy for Reverend James Joseph Reeb, a white man who had become a Quaker social worker in the Boston tenements before joining SCLC’s campaign. While marching for civil rights, Reeb was attacked and murdered on the streets of Selma.
Doc began the eulogy with lines from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
And if he should die,
Take his body, and cut it into little stars.
He will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night.
“These beautiful words… so eloquently describe the radiant life of James Reeb. He entered the stage of history just thirty-eight years ago, and in the brief years that he was privileged to act on this mortal stage, he played his part exceedingly well. James Reeb was martyred in the Judeo-Christian faith that all men are brothers. His death was a result of a sensitive religious spirit. His crime was that he dared to live his faith; he placed himself alongside the disinherited black brethren of this community.…
“Naturally, we are compelled to ask the question, Who killed James Reeb? The answer is simple and rather limited, when we think of the who. He was murdered by a few, sick, demented, and misguided men who have the strange notion that you express dissent through murder. There is another haunting, poignant, desperate question we are forced to ask this afternoon.… It is the question, What killed James Reeb? When we move from the who to the what, the blame is wide and the responsibility grows.
“James Reeb was murdered by the indifference of every minister of the gospel who has remained silent behind the safe security of stained glass windows.…
“He was murdered by the irresponsibility of every politician who has moved down the path of demagoguery, who has fed his constituents the stale bread of hatred and the spoiled meat of racism. He was murdered by the brutality of every sheriff and law enforcement agent who practices lawlessness in the name of law. He was murdered by the timidity of a federal government that can spend millions of dollars… in South Vietnam, yet cannot protect the lives of its own citizens seeking constitutional rights. Yes, he was even murdered by the cowardice of every Negro who tacitly accepts the evil system of segregation, who stands on the sidelines in the midst of a mighty struggle for justice.
“So in his death, James Reeb says something to each of us, black and white alike—says that we must substitute courage for caution, says to us that we must be concerned not merely about who murdered him, but about the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced the murder. His death says to us that we must work passionately, unrelentingly, to make the American dream a reality, so he did not die in vain.…
“So in spite of the darkness of this hour, we must not despair.… We must not become bitter nor must we harbor the desire to retaliate with violence; we must not lose faith in our white brothers who happen to be misguided. Somehow we must still believe that the most misguided among them will learn to respect the dignity and worth of all human personalities.…
“So we thank God for the life of James Reeb. We thank God for his goodness. We thank God that he was willing to lay down his life in order to redeem the soul of our nation. So I say—so Horatio said as he stood over the dead body of Hamlet—‘Good night sweet prince: may the flight of angels take thee to thy eternal rest.’ ”