Sunday, January 16, 2011

MLK


As I sat down to play Dominoes, a game I initiated with my brother and his friend's 10 yr old child, I realized once again, how I am a completely different around children. Different in the way that instead of retreating around strangers, with children I automatically reach out and connect.

This 10 year old sat down to play the piano. I expected some loud banging. However, the music he played was Incredibly Gentle. I could hardly believe it. I asked when he finished to take a photo of his hands.

I am so grateful to have caught most of King's Last March on NPR this evening. Towards the end of the show I sat still completely riveted by it. Here is the premise of the program -

"Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968. Four decades later, King remains one of the most vivid symbols of hope for racial unity in America. But that’s not the way he was viewed in the last year of his life." American Public Media


Vincent Harding
: Martin was one of these "crazy" members of the Christian community who really took Jesus seriously.

It was EXACTLY (to the day - isn't that amazing?) one year before his death that King made his first major policy speech criticizing the Vietnam War. This was well before the country turned against the war so it wasn't a popular thing to do.

King: We spend approximately $500,000 to kill every enemy soldier in Vietnam, while we spend only $53 per person in the so-called "War Against Poverty."

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