Martin Luther King, Jr

I was not privileged to see the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr in person.  But I do remember that he could move my father to tears, and I remember that the entire family wept at the supper table the night that he was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.  It seemed to be unreal - this wonderful, articulate man that we had listened to on the radio, and, occasionally, on the television, could not have been killed...
  Martin Luther King, Jr was born on on 15 January 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia - but, with the "odd" decision of the US Government, it's a floating United States holiday that happens (today, this year) in January.  The Reverend Doctor King was born with the first name of Michael, but had it legally changed to Martin.  He grew up and attended segregated schools, graduating from high school at the age of 15. In 1948, he graduated from Morehouse College, in Atlanta; both his father and grandfather had matriculated there.  He earned his B. D. after three years of study at Crozer Theological Seminary in 1951 - and he was elected the President of the Senior class there, although it was a predominantly white school.   With his fellowship from Crozer, he enrolled in Boston University for his graduate studies. While in Boston, he met and married Coretta Scott, an extremely artistic and intellectual young woman.  They had four children.
  Reverend King's grandfather served as the pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta from 1914 until 1931, then his father took over the pastorship.  Dr King was the co-pastor there from 1960 until his death in 1968.  In 1954, Martin Luther King became the pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.  He was already an executive member of the NAACP, working for civil rights. In December 1955, Dr King accepted a leadership role in the first great African American nonviolent demonstration in the United States - the bus boycott.  The boycott lasted 382 days; and during that time,
Reverend King was arrested, he was subjected to personal abuse, and his house was fire bombed.  But on 21 December 1956, the Supreme Court of the United States declared that it was unconstitutional to demand segregation by race on a public bus.
   In 1957, Dr King was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; he took it's operational techniques from Mahatma Ghandi, and it's ideals from Christianity.  He stepped to the forefront of humanity with his leadership regarding desegregation in the South and his passionate pacifism.  In 1963 he was named The Man of the Year by Time Magazine; in 1964 he received the Nobel Peace Prize.  He donated the cash prize from his Nobel winnings "to further the Civil Rights movement."
  On 4 April 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr was standing, in reflection, on a hotel balcony in Memphis Tennessee.  He was going to lead a march in support of striking garbage workers in that city the following day.  He was killed by an assassin's bullet.
   The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr was a good man. (He had his foibles, but each and every one of us is human, and we have them, also.) He worked throughout his life for peaceful equality for all.  I believe in his dream.