Today marks the 40th anniversary of Dr. King’s death. Since then, every good-hearted human being owes him a debt of gratitude. Widely hailed as a hero from U2 to Jesse Jackson, King had charisma and integrity unmatched in modern times.
What would it have been like to have met this man? Having had the opportunity to spend time with him and learn from him. With refrains in his speeches that reflect good old-fashioned church homily, he caught the world’s attention, changing it irrevocably.
I must admit that I am in awe of this man, and perhaps that needs to be controlled; admiration and the deepest respect certainly for the courage and firmness of him to give his life for the cause of righteousness, justice and equity.
When King was shot to death around 6 p.m. on April 4, 1968, and was pronounced dead an hour later, it sent the nation into deep anger with riots in more than 100 cities, such was the anger and wrenching pain that experiment.
However, King’s spirit lives on. Not having achieved all that he dreams of, the United States, the Western world, and the entire world population have not experienced the full scope of his desire; for everyone to walk free and stand up to be counted. Let true freedom sound…
The “I have a dream” speech is perhaps the best known; oh, how nice it would have been to have been at the Lincoln Memorial that day, August 28, 1963. To Dr. King as he preaches ‘Ring Freedom’:
And when this happens, when we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every town and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we can hasten that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jew and Gentile, Protestants and Catholics, may join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual,
“Free at last, free at last.
Thank God Almighty, we are finally free.”
© Copyright 2008, Steven John Wickham.
