Today is the holiday known as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day. If I have that incorrect don’t shoot me. I know today is a day off for most. Some people in our future won’t even understand the impact of the man’s work. Others won’t care to remember, they’ll just relish in the privilege of having the day off.

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks seeking out info on someone who may have been around the day that MLK was shot. I have asked all my friends, not realizing that most of them aren’t that old. I ended up asking my mother. She seems to be the only one who was of age at the time.

She remembers the day as if it were yesterday. Noticing the change in her facial expression, I realize it must have had an impact on her.

“I was sitting in class and the Principal announced over the PA, “Martin Luther King has been shot. School will be ending early. You are to go directly home…

 It wasn’t but moments later when the Black Panthers showed up at the school. They marched right into the building and went straight for the Principals office. Before you knew it, he was out on the street getting a beat down. I never saw anything like it.

Crown Heights was in an uproar. If you were white, you weren’t leaving the neighborhood without bloodshed. It was a strange time.

I thought to myself, “wow… All that anger and aggression unleashed - after a man’s death, who only wanted non-violent peace and equality.” I asked her, “How long did it last?”

“It lasted all of a week. At the time, one of the bus drivers was pulled off the bus and got a beating. They kicked out all the windows on the bus. It was easy to kick windows out in those days. The buses were old. I never got hurt but a lot of my teachers did. . .”

A dream is what Dr. King had. I doubt that he thought the world would end up in its current state but I’m sure it is still far better now than the times during which he was fighting for civil rights. We don’t have leaders like him anymore. 

I leave you with the last speech the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. made prior his death.