If only, if only ... On the anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King

[HamdenRice]

I was reading this website about the "planetization" movement -- a kind of people's globalization that focuses on peace and justice -- and their home page had these three beautiful portraits.

Although the facts of these three lives and their tragic ends are well known, seeing them together again made me incredibly sad, especially because today is the 38th anniversary of Martin Luther King's assassination in the terrible year of 1968.

What if these three men were alive today, elderly wise men, still guiding our nation as it continued to vindicate and realize the original ideals and promise of America?

These portraits actually brought tears to my eyes this morning.

My God, what we have lost.

[TAPat]

1. If only, indeed...

I think of these three men often and lament the fact that we could have had 4 wise men - the fourth being Jimmy, of course...

I am convinced that this country would have been a much different place today. :cry:

[HamdenRice]

7. What do you think America would be like today?

You wrote, "I am convinced that this country would have been a much different place today."

Today would be a good day to imagine just what America would be like today if they had lived -- not as an exercise in fantasy, but as a way of visualizing our future!

[LisaLynne]

2. Heartbreaking ...

Especially now when we need people like them so much. There are people in this world who hate the very thought of peace or justice. It's so painfully clear.

[HamdenRice]

13. Compare the men in those portraits to these

Yes, there are people who hate the thought of peace and justice, and they are in power:

[stop the bleeding]

3. Thanks for posting about these men and MLK's date today.

People should take a moment

Nominated.

[Neil Lisst]

4. April 4, 1968

I was in Houston for my first physical for military service. I had joined, and was going in the next month. They gave us tickets to an Astro game - I think it was opening day because it was an early day game, and I took a city bus from the induction center in downtown Houston in the old federal building.

I'd never been to the Astrodome or an Astro game before. The seats were out in the orange seats in the deep outfield. It was like nothing I had ever seen, truly the 8th wonder of the world at the time.

The scoreboard and all the boards that gave info were all new to sports, too.

I was sitting there watching the game when a message was posted on the board saying Dr. Martin Luther King was dead from a gunshot in Memphis.

They didn't stop the game, didn't take a break, didn't acknowledge it otherwise.

[HamdenRice]

5. Thanks for that memory, here is mine

I was the third or fourth grade. Even though my parents had purchased from the NAACP a recording of the March on Washington and occaisionally played it and I had a child's knowledge of the civil rights movement, I was not aware until that Spring, who Martin Luther King was. Then about a week before the assassination, the school librarian had given me a children's book -- I still remember the title -- "Martin Luther King: Peaceful Warrior." It seems in my memory I had just finished the book a few days before the assassination, and I was incredibly sad when I learned that evening from the television news that my new hero had been killed.

[Neil Lisst]

8. Thank you for sharing your story. I hope others will, too.

I think it's important to pass these stories on, so people hear first hand from others about the day, and how it was played.

It was certainly news, but truthfully, Dr. King was hated across the South and Texas in those days, and it was a clear minority of whites who cared for him. Many seemed happy about it.

[Anita Garcia]

6. Thanks for posting kicked!

Considering the disenfranchisement of votes in Louisiana and the discussions regarding immigrants (Aren't most of us related to immigrants?), we have a long way to go.

[H2O Man]

9. Remembering Martin .....

I'm reading the third of Taylor Branch's wonderful series on the King years; the book "At Canaan's Edge" covers 1965 to '68. Published this year by Simon & Schuster, the only short-coming I am aware of is that the book is only 1000 pages. Today I am able to trace King's footsteps in Selma.

But I am reminded, both by the book and by the OP (which I will nominate, and hope others do as well), of a section from Dick Gregory's book, "Nigger." The final chapter of that book is the most powerful. "A scared Negro is one thing," Dick tells his readers. "A mad Negro is something else." Then he goes into the speech he gave in Selma.

"It's amazing how we come to this church every Sunday and cry over the crucifixion of Christ, and we don't cry over these things that are going on around and among us. If He was here now and saw these things, He would cry. And He would take those nails again. For us. For this problem.

"It just so happened in his day and time, religion was the big problem. Today it is color. What do you think would happen to Christ tonight if He arrived in this town a black man and wanted to register to vote on Monday? What do you think would happen? Would you be there? You would? Then how come you're not out there with these kids, because He said that whatever happens to the least, happens to us al ...."

On page 769 of his book, Branch writes, "Shortly after the assassination, a grief-stricken Stanley Levison complained that most Americans already distorted the loss of 'their plaster saint who was going to protect them from angry Negroes.' Pride and fear subverted King's legacy from all sides." Yet we need not reduce King to that plaster saint today, any more than we should allow Jesus to be crucified on a stained glass window. We need to keep their spirit alive, with us, in the context of the living, breathing human race.

One of my favorite books about Martin is Ralph Abernathy's "And the Walls Came Tumbling Down." He published it in 1990, as his own time was coming to a close. I was glad that he was able to see the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, and hear the choruses of "We Shall Overcome" as it came tumbling down. Martin was there, and he wasn't found in the plaster wall.

To paraphrase King, we are certainly facing some difficult days. The problems we are confronting are the same ones that Martin and Jesus died for. Neither man was ignorant: they knew that it was not a sacrifice demanded by "God" -- by the life-force of this universe. Rather, it was a part of their confronting the darkness, lighting the way for those of us here, today, to find our way.

As I read Branch's book, I wait for Martin to have a quiet moment, away from the crowd, and I approach him and I ask, "Martin, where do we find you today? What can you tell us today?" And although he is tired, Martin never stops giving of himself. "I'm marching with Cindy Sheehan," he tells me, with a tired smile. "And I'm with those young people in the southwest. I'm feeding the poor and helping rebuild homes from the victims of Katrina."

Martin's not gone from us. We just need to know where to find him. And we need to be willing to sacrifice. Like Dick Gregory suggests, we need to stop being scared. Today. I'll end with a few more lines from Dick in Selma:

"So it's coming down to this. You have to commit. You're going through the same things today that folks went through when the Lord was crucified. 'Who else is with Christ?' the Romans asked. And everyone just stood there. And prayed silently. And they went back and said: 'I prayed.'

"No, sister, I didn't even see your lips moving. Were you there when they crucified the Lord? It's a nice song to sing. But this time you have an opportunity to be there. Sure would be a heck of a thing, twenty, thirty years from now, when they're singing songs about these days, and your grand-kids and great-grand-kids can stand up and say: 'Yeah, baby, he was there, my grandfather was there.'

"And when they ask you, you can nod your head and say: 'Yeah. I was there.' "

[HamdenRice]

10. Thank you so much Waterman! So moving ...

I don't ordinarily consider myself a religious person anymore, but having grown up in the evangical African American Baptist Church of the civil rights era, I do believe in the Christian tradition of the struggle for justice. For me, that's enough.

[H2O Man]

12. Thank you for the OP

and the opportunity to participate in a meaningful discussion.

[Binka]

11. It Is The 2nd Anniversary Of Casey Sheehans Death Too

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x835617

[HamdenRice]

14. Why is it that so may of the very the good die so young

and mean old men live long? It's a matter of courage and daring and risk, I suppose.