Today is Martin Luther King Day. Having lived through the turbulent sixties, I marvel at how things have changed. I recall sitting in a junior high classroom and hearing my teacher talk in an angry tone about how disgusted she was at seeing a "nice young white man" give up his seat on a bus to a "colored woman." A few years ago I visited the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit where the bus that Rosa Parks took her historical stance on is displayed. I reached the back of the bus where I found a mom explaining the significance of the event to her two grade school age children. This time it was a White family in the back of the bus.
I once almost had a close encounter with Dr. King. I was in 8th grade and a member of our church basketball team. Our games were played on Saturday morning in the gym at Grosse Pointe High School. Grosse Pointe was, and still is, a very affluent suburb of Detroit. In those days it was highly segregated. Dr. King was scheduled to speak at the school on a Saturday afternoon. His appearance was highly controversial. There was a strong police presence as we left after our 11:00 AM game. Behind barricades stood some angry people. They were holding signs that said some pretty ugly things.
I was home in Detroit on spring break from college on that night in 1968 when Dr. King was shot. I was at church. I had been recruited to sing with the church choir for Easter. A member of the bass section was the one who broke the news. "The King is dead," he said with a smile. There was a real sense of satisfaction in his voice.
Now we have had a Black Man as a President and we tend to view people not by the color of their skin but by what they stand for. I live in a house where my neighbors are Hispanic, Vietnamese and Cambodian. I recently remarked, "all we need is a Black Family to move in to make things complete."
Thank Dr. King for being the catalyst for change.
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