I'd intended to write something two days ago, on the anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s death, but things came up & I never did. I thought about him that morning as I drove back from NJ, how I'd read somewhere that right before he stepped out onto that balcony in Memphis, he'd been having a pillow fight in the motel room with his friends.
In the photo above (from a collection in Time that's amazing), "King said in an interview that this photograph was taken as he tried to explain to his daughter Yolanda why she could not go to Funtown, a whites-only amusement park in Atlanta. King claims to have been tongue-tied when speaking to her. 'One of the most painful experiences I have ever faced was to see her tears when I told her Funtown was closed to colored children, for I realized the first dark cloud of inferiority had floated into her little mental sky.'"
As sad as it makes me to think about what he could have gone on to do if he'd lived past 39, I still feel glad that he ever existed at all. He gave this speech the night before he was assassinated:
"We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. I won'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. So I'm happy tonight. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."
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