"I've been to the mountaintop"

[pegkerr]

I was driving to work today and listening to The Morning Show's wonderful selections for the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. First there was Neal and Leandra's "Ready for Memphis," and then Kate Campbell's "Freedom Train," the story of Harriet Tubman, which includes in the chorus quotations from Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I've been to the Mountaintop" speech ("I may not get there with you, but keep on marching just the same"). And I started crying as I drove, thinking of what this nation lost when we lost Dr. King. I thought of Paul Wellstone. I thought of the sorry excuses we have for leadership now, and cried harder.

My first political memory was Lyndon B. Johnson's announcement that he would not run again for President. My second is of the day that King was assassinated. I did not entirely understand why the adults were upset and sorrowful, but I knew that something important and terrible had happened. I remember in my prayers at bedtime, I asked God to bless "this great king who has died."

"No," my mother corrected me gently. "It was not a king who died. His name was Mr. King, but he was just a man."

He was just a man, and what a man he was. We will not see his like for many a day, and oh, how we need him and others like him now and every day in the nation he left behind.

Comments

[adjudicated.livejournal.com]

That is a very lovely memory -- thanks for sharing it.

I think my first political memory was Ford having to take over the Presidency; however, I was still a bit too young (I was born in '69) to understand the catalyst behind the changing presidency.

I was thinking the other day, though, that it's rather amazing that I was actually alive so close to such amazing political and civil events -- the assassinations of MLKjr, JFK, and RFK, etc . . . it's hard to think of "history" as one's present or near past.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

See also this.

B

[redbird]

Just a man, and greater than most kings.