There’s a particular kind of weight that settles on you when you realize you’re standing in a space that holds a story that has been told for generations. Not museum history—polished, cordoned off, protected behind velvet ropes—but the living, breathing kind. The kind that asks something of you.
Last week, I was invited to speak at the United Hebrew Congregation in St. Louis for Shabbat, offering a reflection on the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Before I stood to deliver my message, I sat in a red leather recliner in the synagogue. The same chair where Dr. King took a nap on November 27, 1960, before speaking to over 2,000 people about the future of integration.
Let me tell you—that chair holds ghosts.
The Exhausted Prophet
When Dr. King arrived in St. Louis that November evening in 1960, he was running on fumes. This wasn’t the triumphant King of the March on Washington. This was three years before “I Have a Dream.” This was the King who was still proving himself, still building the movement brick by exhausting brick. He’d come to speak as part of a speaker series sponsored by the Liberal Forum of the Jewish Community Centers Association.
Admission: $1.25.
Rabbi Jerome Grollman invited him to rest before the event. King “almost immediately fell asleep” in that red chair.
I imagine him in that moment—not the marble monument we’ve made of him, not the sanitized soundbites we trot out every January—but a man. Tired. Carrying the weight of a people’s hope and his own doubts. Needing rest before once again standing to declare that America was “standing on the threshold of the most creative period in the development of race relations.”
Sixty-six years later, I sat in that same chair, about to make a similar declaration about walking into the future.
Double Consciousness, Double Time
Sitting in that chair, I was acutely aware of living in two timelines simultaneously. There’s the official timeline—1960 to 2026, sixty-six years of “progress,” of incremental change, of movements and counter-movements. Then there’s the spiritual timeline, where time collapses, and you realize we’re still fighting the same battles, still making the same case for our humanity, still trying to convince people that justice is not a zero-sum game.
Du Bois called it double consciousness. I call it exhausting.
Dr. King told the 1960 crowd that “we must match their capacity to inflict suffering with the capacity to endure suffering.” He criticized President Eisenhower and Vice President Nixon for failing to take a stand against segregation. He expressed cautious optimism about the newly elected JFK but warned about continued Congressional resistance.
Sound familiar?
In 2026, we’re still measuring our progress by how well we endure rather than by the absence of things we shouldn’t have to endure in the first place. We’re still waiting for leaders to take clear stands. We’re still cautiously optimistic about our elected officials.
The red chair reminded me: we’ve been tired for a long time.
What the Chair Taught Me
Sitting in that red chair before my speech, I thought about my own journey. Failures, disappointments, setbacks, self-doubt, and the oppression of silence. If I am not intentional, my quiet moments will ring loud within my ears, echoing inner pain. I imagine Dr. King had similar experiences. Again, I imagine the weight of a movement taking its toll. And on that November night in 1960, exhausted and needing rest, he literally leaned on the hospitality of a Jewish community that opened its doors and their red chair to him. The red chair is a physical reminder that rest is revolutionary. That even prophets need communities that will hold space for their exhaustion. That the work of justice is a relay race, not a solo marathon.
After Dr. King’s 1960 speech at United Hebrew Congregation, he answered questions from the crowd and then stayed for a reception open to all attendees. No VIP sections. No tiered access. Everyone was welcome to engage.
That’s the model. That’s the blueprint.
Dr. King told the 1960 crowd something prophetic: “While the law can’t change the hearts of men, it does change the habits. And, in time, habits change attitudes.” Progress is not linear, and the red chair knows it.
What the Red Chair Demands
The red chair isn’t just a piece of furniture. It’s a question.
It asks: What are you resting for? What dream are you preparing to speak into existence? Whose hospitality are you accepting, and whose burden are you helping to carry?
As the Prophet Micah reminds us: “What does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”
I would add: To walk humbly—together—toward the dream that refuses to die.
Dr. King took a nap in a red chair and then woke up to change the world, one speech at a time, one community at a time, one outstretched hand at a time.
And that red chair is still holding space for the next dreamer who needs to rest before the work begins again.
Dr. Darryl S. Diggs, Jr.
Watch the full Shabbat speech: Click Here
Connect and Book Dr. Diggs: ddiggs@achievementfourall.com
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