What would Dr. King say?
Tuesday, January 29th, 2008
By Staff
It was a sweltering hot day in August when I visited the Civil Rights Institute in Birmingham, Alabama. As a young white boy, growing up in the 1960’s, I remember our courthouse with white and “colored” water fountains and rest rooms, the balconies where Negroes had to sit to watch movies, and certain restaurants that had one side for whites and a far less appealing side for blacks. Now I was face-to-face with those memories in a city on the front line of the battle for racial equality.
I wasn’t prepared for what awaited me. Exhibit after exhibit showed actual television footage, news stories and pictures of racial intolerance, brutality and hatred. I was overwhelmed at just how horribly humans can treat other humans.
And through it all was the voice of a young minister who responded to the horrors and hatred with encouragement, inspiration, and a dream of how different races could live peaceably together. Reliving those days made it clearer than ever that Dr. Martin Luther King was the driving force, while also being a governing force that prevented this movement from escalating into more violence than it did. King was truly the man for this time and set in motion the equal rights legislation that changed this country’s course. (more…)
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