Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I remember well the evening I heard Dr. King had been shot. I was living in Fort Campbell KY and was just leaving my Boy Scout meeting when some kids rode up on their bikes and told me. I didn't believe them at first but when I got home my parents were glued to the TV. My earliest memory of Dr. King was when I was ten and reading my Weekly Reader in class, it was focusing on Dr. King and saying he had just one the Nobel Peace prize. 

This was1964 and I did not have much exposure to segregation. Yes, I was born in the South but my father was in the Army. When I was six my dad was stationed in West Germany. In the military quarters we lived in I recall a black family with three children. There dad was the stairwell coordinator due to being the highest ranking NCO in the stairwell. The stairwell coordinator was in charge of filing out the rotation board with which family had a turn at cutting the grass. Another job of the coordinator was ensuring that each floor did there part in keeping the stairwell clean. The point of writing this is to show even at an early age I lived with and went to school with people of color. And I can proudly say my parents did not use derogatory words in front of me or my siblings. As far as I could tell they never used those words at all.  This was the way of the military community for me and as a teen I went to Department of Defense schools. This was in the mid to late sixties at a time when there was a lot of racial strife in our nation but again I did not experience that in my life. 

In the early seventies I came across a book Dr. King wrote named "Why We Can't Wait". The main text was the letter he wrote while in the Birmingham jail. I purchased that book and have read and re-read it numerous times. This book truly inspired me and opened my eyes to a number of injustice black Americans faced not only in the South but over all this nation. It was then that I made a promise to myself. It was a promise that I believe I have kept to this day. It is a promise concerning how I would treat others. I took Dr. king's speech to heart when on the steps of the mall in Washington DC he told me a person should be judged by the content of who he is not color of skin. I believe that and have tried to live that way in my life and hopefully have passed that same attitude and way of treating people to my son.

Today we have made many strides as a nation and as a people to work together on racial issues but we are not where we should be. That is due to the power of sin over us. As a sinful people we are not perfect and that is very evident in some parts of our cities and nation. The hate is strong in many areas. Pray for God to heal our land, pray for us to be more like Jesus when looking upon our fellow man and by doing so we judge the person not the skin color.

Below is a portion of the speech Dr. King gave just before he was killed. A speech that I think was divinely inspired. Each time I hear or read this portion of the speech I am reminded to live my life in a way that each day could be my last. Being obiedent to God and the way Jesus has taught me to live, I pray I will not live without honor. When I look on my life I want to know that I tried to do the best without regrets. As you read his words take time and read carefully what Dr. king said. He was a great man. Yes, he had flaws but which man doesn't. He tried to make all of us better by teaching with his life to treat each other kinder.

We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’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. And so I’m happy tonight; I’m not worried about anything; I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.