HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE REVEREND MARTIN LUTHER KING

"Anybody here seen my old friend Martin?

Can you tell me where he's gone?

He freed a lot of people,

But it seems the good they die young.

I just looked 'round and he's gone."

"Abraham, Martin and John"

written by Dick Holler and first recorded by Dion

Those of us who grew up in the tumultuous 60s and 70s are children of the whirlwind of history. We went through the Cuban missile crisis, the threat of nuclear destruction of the planet, the assassination of John Kennedy, his brother Robert, the advent of the transistor radio, the Beatles and Stones, the moon landing, and Mighty Rock and Roll.

We also experienced an upturning social upheaval as the nation struggled to come to grips with a devastating war (Vietnam) that touched our barrios and rent the social fabric and public opinion. We had the various splinters in the black community with the likes of the Black Panthers, Malcom X, and, of course, the reverend Martin Luther King.

His adherence to the principle of nonviolence set him in an island apart in a sea of turmoil with half the world at war, the Peace Movement, Malcom's call for black liberation "by any means necessary," a brash heavyweight boxing champion of the world who changed his name from Cassius Clay to Mohammad Ali refusing to join the Army saying that "No Viet Cong ever called me ni--er," the burning of draft cards, and the revelations of the Pentagon Papers that the Vietnam war had, after all, been an unnecessary one. 

We're now involved in the longest war in Afghanistan and ask ourselves the same question.

And here came Martin leading protests using a middle-aged and diminutive Rosa Parks fighting to simply sit in front of a bus, blacks getting beaten by Bull Connor's deputies, chewed up by police dogs and assaulted with water cannons just for asking for the right to seat at a lunch counter or to register to vote.

And we saw the backlash from the status quo with jailings, beatings, drummed up charges and FBI harassment and surveillance. Little black girls died in the bombing of Baptist churches. Supporters of the civil rights movement were kidnapped, tortured, and murdered in back country roads in the South by hoodlums of the KKK.

King's answer to that violence against his people was unbelievable.

"Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.... Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that." –Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” –Strength to Love

“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.” –Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” –Letter from Birmingham Jail

“I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.” –Letter from Birmingham Jail

“I submit to you that if a man hasn't discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to live.” –Detroit

“We have been repeatedly faced with a cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same school room.” –Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam


For this, he was shot April 4, 1968 in Memphis by a sniper who no one believed was acting alone.

We had lost a great voice of reason in the world and as we headed into the 1970s, there was no one left to take up his mantle. Bobby Kennedy was next for the assassin's bullet and it took Richard Nixon to pull us, bloody and angry, from the Vietnam quagmire. Some of us still haven't been able to emerge from that abyss.

In trying to assuage the loss, we have stumbled blindly into other useless wars that have drained our blood and treasure. Will there be another one like Martin who will step in and make us see reason?

We didn't know it then, but we had lived and experienced the existence of one of mankind's greatest orators and a purveyor of peace.

Have a happy birthday Martin. And thank you.