Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.
Martin Luther King, Jr. April 3, 1968
I was only 15 when MLK was shot. I lived in Ohio, south of Cleveland. My folks were poor and white. They didn't have time to worry about race relations in my mostly white town. I remember when I was young and we walked to the doctor's office, there were a couple of black children playing. I wanted to say hello, but was pulled away.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in 7th grade, I had to share a locker with a black girl because our school was crowded. My mother was horrified, but Deb became my closest friend. She was year book editor in high school, and I was her business manager. She was band President and I was her VP our senior year. I loved that girl. We spent a week at Ohio University at journalism camp, surrounded by incense and the sounds of "My Girl" on transistor radios. Our senior year, the black football players walked out of practice, refusing to return unless there was a black candidate for homecoming queen. There was, she ended up being voted onto the court, and we won the game.
I went to Akron U with her twin sister; Debi headed to Kent State. She died of a brain tumor three years later. I still hear her laugh, see the pain in her eyes from the headaches she got in high school.
Oh, and my mom came around. My aunt used to take us to a mall before Christmas (we had no car) and I was allowed to invite Deb one year. We had a great day wandering the mall, buying gifts, and were oblivious to the stares that must have come our way back in 1968. Her brother was at Kent the day of the National Guard shootings. We held hands as we waited for word that he was safe.
So I have a dream too. That we see all people, all religions, as children of this Earth. That we stop dividing by things that don't matter: color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, political party, the country you were born in. That we start to love each other, respect each other, and believe that people are worthy of love and respect. Because if we starting seeing people as people, we stop seeing them as the enemy.
And here's a prime example;
ReplyDeleteIf Saratoga Springs Mayor Mia Love wins her bid for Congress, she will be the first black Republican congresswoman in history.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/01/14/aspiring-first-black-gop-congresswoman-dont-put-me-in-a-box/#ixzz1jckzsCa0
http://dailycaller.com/2012/01/14/aspiring-first-black-gop-congresswoman-dont-put-me-in-a-box/
Bristol in Hollywood... "I have a dream"
ReplyDeleteBristol in Wasilla... "oops, it was just a nightmare"
Many miles. Thanks for posting.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if "Sambo Hater" is throwing a party.
ReplyDeleteSenator Michele Obama - 2016 ??
ReplyDeleteI like it !
http://news.yahoo.com/speculation-michelle-obama-senate-2016-173913308.html
@ Sally in MI
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your story. I really enjoyed reading it.
I also believe that people are just people, and that good and evil can come in any guise.
Love & Peace :)
The "Yankees" confiscated my mother's grandparents' farm. But when I was in 8th grade, Mother checked out MLK's books and left them by my bed. Progress, even in SC.
ReplyDeleteBTW it's "how many miles yet LIE before us," if you choose to be correct rather than colloquial.
Thanks for the correction Anonymous 7:06.
ReplyDeleteAs a Canadian, I didn't experience first-hand or see the bigotry, racism that was displayed in 1968. We'd be aware by watching news, learning history, and seeing it on screen with our own eyes, however. Then, years later, in the US, I was at a basketball game where my son was playing. For the first time saw a angry hateful glares from two odious characters towards an African-Canadian couple that I was friends with. It shook me to the core.
ReplyDeleteThe deep tensions and hurt and fear and negative emotions that the African-American community must have suffered is a force that a man like Mr. King had to endure and in spite of that, he still wanted to believe that men's attitudes could change, and that there were tears in the night, but joy came in the morning.
When that sweet young President Obama and his family stepped on the stage in 2008 as the First Family, I had tears and knew that those prayers from past generations were not lost, but bottled up and remembered by God in heaven, and that someday together we'd find that mountain, both physically and spiritually. There's still work to do, but I really agree, I get happy knowing the African-American community, and all other communities, all Americans, aspire to not to fear any man, like MLK said, but to get to that literal and figurative promised land and rejoice together.
I HATE that massive statue of him. It looks like something you'd have seen in Red Square.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your memories, Sally in MI. I was also 15 when MLK was shot. It seems like yesterday....
@ Sally in MI
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your story. I really enjoyed reading it.
I also believe that people are just people, and that good and evil can come in any guise.
Love & Peace :)
Me too.
This is off subject just a tad, but I have to note this. The Anchorage Daily News (their only newspaper!) does not reflect anything about Martin Luther King until you reach Page 7 under their Opinion Page and there is an article entitled "I Have a Dream" w/a photo.
ReplyDeleteAlaska is a majority Republican state and I think this is terrible and reflective of how far we have NOT come! It should also be noted that I am white.
Are we the only state - with the largest newspaper - that handled this occasion in this manner? I'm curious.
Rip Patton, one of the Freedom Riders, is speaking in my hometown, today. He is 'Dr.' Patton, now, because Tennessee State University bestowed a Doctorate of Humane Letters upon him in 2006 to help heal the wounds created when he was expelled from that college for joining the Freedom Riders in 1961.
ReplyDeleteI've been chilled, stirred, AND shaken whilst reading about their plight to integrate bus and rail stations, ACCORDING TO FEDERAL LAW, in 1961.
I was VERY dismayed to find out that US Attorney General, Robert Kennedy, did NOT do his part due to a personal friendship with Alabama's governor, John Patterson! I had to read 7 different accounts of the events to fully understand the ramifications of this travesty of blind-eye US justice.
I don't want to fill up Gryphen's comments section with a book report, but let me just say that i could go on and on about the merciless beatings, burnings, and jailings. Strangely, the cops were always 20 minutes 'late'.
Yet, more protesters kept showing up to replace the ones too injured to continue...
Would any of us participate in a protest if one of the pre-requisites was to sign a Last Will and Testament in case we didn't come out of it alive?
Would we... ?
I was in 6th grade when this happened and remember my Dad shouting "GOOD!" at the dinner table when Walter Cronkite announced it. I was appalled, and to this DAY am sickened at racial and religious hatred that goes on in this country.
ReplyDeleteI was SO PROUD to vote for and watch President Obama be elected. I thought we'd turned a corner.....was I ever wrong.
Good post Gryphen! Thank you.
ReplyDeleteThose remarks were made the day before he was killed.
ReplyDeleteHe knew it was coming, eventually if not sooner.
Turns out that it was sooner. The man had tons of courage.
The hit job and cover-up involved elements of the federal and local governments, and a local mobster:
http://susiemadrak.com/2012/01/16/who-killed-mlk/
I wonder if this is one of the reasons for Obama's extrme caution in office.
Bloody good picture!
ReplyDeleteMLK didn't just go to the top of the mountain, he literally moved the mountain.
ReplyDeleteGod tells us that faith can move mountains,and the Civil Rights Movement did.
He made us push and pull and move than mountain, made LBJ call in his IOUs. His movement shamed the bigots and basically forced those of us who were not bigots to help with the pushing.
The Civil Rights movement fought a Civil War the way it should be fought, and enough of the country's leaders, instead of taking up arms against it, stood aside or lent a hand.
For those too young to know, it was a horrible ugly and frightening time to live through especially since the anti war movement was growing in volume and violence along with the violence within and against the Civil Rights Movement. And of course the Chicago Race Riots and then the Watts Riots followed with more blood shed, assassinations and destruction.
That's why the cops are so determined for it to not happen again and the politicians are terrified, but repression of people's expression of their frustration and anger is the wrong way to go.
Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteSenator Michele Obama - 2016 ??
I like it !
5:59 AM
Get a Dim in the WH in 2016 Michelle for Sec of State, Obama to the UN to eventually become Sec Gen or the UN.
Sometimes words can't do justice, but when I watched President Obama elected into office, what the first time I actually felt Rev. King was truly at rest.
ReplyDeleteThe bittersweet irony is that racism is alive and well, to this day, in our country and around the world, but the dream endures and will never die.
Thanks, Great Post and Comments!