Martin Luther King, Junior Day

Today should be a day that is celebrated with quiet, peaceful gatherings, and with speeches celebrating the Reverend's peaceful life-long battle for the equality of all people on this planet.  There are marches and rallies planned across our nation today to celebrate this man and his dream, and I really hope that all of them will be quiet, respectful, and peaceful.

   Today should be celebrated with LOVE for everyone.

 

Photos - Martin Luther King, Jr and John Lewis

1963 March on Washington:  (l-r) Whitney Young Jr; Martin Luther King Jr;

Walter Reuther; Eugene Carson Blake; John Lewis

Doctor King at the microphones - 1963

Martin Luther King, Jr (center) and John Lewis (right)

A smiling Reverend King

The man down on the grass is John Lewis being attacked on Bloody Sunday

Mug shots taken of John Lewis in Nashville, Tennessee -

opponents tried to use these against him when he first ran for Congress

President Obama presenting the Medal of Freedom to Representative

John Lewis in 2010

Celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr

Today is the United States day to acknowledge a wonderful leader - the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr.  This is the designated Martin Luther King Day, even though his birthday was actually yesterday - 15 January.  H was born 88 years and one day ago in Atlanta, Georgia.  He rose to prominence in America because of his Civil Rights work, his peaceful demonstrations, his glorious dream of a nation and world where all people were equal, and his assassination on 4 April 1968 shook the world.  He is best known in the US for his "I Have a Dream" speech; but almost every single speech or event at which he allowed his words to flow, there are great jewels of thought to sit and contemplate. I was able to hear the man speak in person only once, but it was an unforgettable event.  He brought most of us to tears that day, including my father.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.

   I saw my father cry very few times when I was a child - I remember he cried the day that President Kennedy was assassinated; he cried the day he received the telegram stating that his father had died; he cried at the Martin Luther King, Jr speech we attended; he cried when Dr King was assassinated; and he cried when Bobby Kennedy was assassinated.  Those were all markers in my life when I was growing up.  Each time I felt the world had changed - and only at Dr King's speech had it felt like the change was for the better.
   I am also a follower, even a "fan," of Representative John Lewis.  I was very happy when President Obama awarded the Medal of Freedom to Rep Lewis in 2010.  I supported his sit-in last year in the House of Representatives.  Representative Lewis is a citizen of the United States of America.  Rep Lewis was a student activist during the Civil Rights Movement - he stood by Martin Luther King, Jr.  Rep Lewis marched, protested non-violently, and convinced other students in colleges and universities to support the Civil Rights Movement.  John Lewis was beaten, arrested, hounded, and attacked for his views during that time.
  Representative John Lewis has served the 5th Congressional district of Georgia since 1987.  He is a true gentleman, in every respect. Last week, Rep Lewis stated that he did not feel that the President-Elect is the legitimate winner of the Presidential election - given all the reports by the US Intelligence agencies that Russia  has been tinkering with our news, Twitter feed, and the Wiki-Leaks trash - and that he would be missing the Presidential Inauguration for the first time in 30 years.  The President-Elect immediately denigrated Representative Lewis on Twitter, saying that Lewis was "all talk, no action" and that he had better concentrate on fixing his district which is "falling apart."
   I will say only one thing:  While the President-Elect was getting deferments from fighting in Viet Nam, John Lewis was getting almost beaten to death in the South, trying to get equality for all people.
   Guess who I'd give my life for?

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.

Fifty Years Ago Today...

I honestly have no immediate memories of this Friday, 50 years ago today.  I was seven years old, a student in second grade in Mrs. Baxter's class at Lake Forest Elementary School in Gainesville, Florida.  I don't have a class photo from that year, but I think that Carolyn Davis, Jane Bergadine, Bonnie Hall, Richard Shuler, Alan Rogers, and Riley Dean were in my class.  The school was seven blocks from the house I grew up in, and my Mother usually met me after school and walked home with me from the playground until I was in fourth grade.
   The only things that I can definitely say about my memories of the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy are that they revolve around my family.  It was the first time I saw my Father cry - and that made a huge impression, since I was a "Daddy's girl."  I can remember watching the TV with Walter Cronkite broadcasting, and seeing him wipe away a few tears - and seeing Mom, Dad, and Kathy doing frequent group hugs and crying.  I was too young to grasp what had happened - to the President, or to the country.
  Embarrassingly, I do remember being angry about the television coverage of the President's funeral; I wanted to see my usual programs - Sky King, Fury of Broken Wheel Ranch and Hopalong Cassidy.  I was very upset when we had hours of coverage of people I didn't know in uniforms and civilian clothes - it was boring.  I remember that Dad tried to get me interested in the black cavalry horse with boots reversed in the stirrups - but I wanted my cowboys and adventure.
  I do remember a sob coming from the other three members of my family when the cameras showed the little boy saluting the horse-drawn casket.  I was amazed, and, at the same time, frightened.  My parents and my elder sister were upset, crying and frightened.  My world seemed to be coming apart - nothing was right.
   Looking back, I feel as if I was living under a balanced rock for the next five years - between LBJ and the Viet Nam War and the Cuban Missile Crisis (which was, I admit a bit earlier) and the antagonism against the Civil Rights Movement - I don't think that I ever really felt safe.  I know I was shocked and grieved when the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr was assassinated in April of 1968.  I was watching the news when Robert Kennedy was assassinated in June of 1968.  I remember my sister, then 18, hugging me and crying, and saying, rather wildly, "Oh, my God, Betty - They are killing all of the good men!"
   Who were "they?" People we held in esteem were being murdered and we, the American people, were helpless.  I think that I lost my innocence fifty years ago today.  I lost my trust in my fellow humans, I lost my trust in society, and I lost someone who might have changed history, had he not been killed...