"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.

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[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

See also this.

B