puppetmaker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
puppetmaker) wrote2008-04-04 08:49 am
puppetmaker) wrote2008-04-04 08:49 am
Where were you 40 years ago?
I'm figuring that most of you were not around as for me I was four. I was just becoming aware of how big the world was. I can honestly say I don't remember the day he died but I do remember news reports afterwards and for some reason the search for the killer who was captured in London.
After we moved to Atlanta, I learned a lot more about Dr. King. I would hear his name in conjunction with Kennedy and Gandhi. For a while I though that President Kennedy and Dr. King were killed the same day but eventually I got that sorted out.
When you grow up in Atlanta, you can't avoid Dr. King's legacy. It is, honestly, all around you. The church where he preached is still there, I have driven by it more times than I care count. There is the King center. And there is the family itself. I met Coretta Scott King twice when I lived down in Atlanta. Both times it was in connection to some play I was working on at the time.
But Dr. King is bigger than those memorials in Atlanta. What he did and how he did it is a shining example of how words have power to change the world. Dr. King was a brilliant orator probably one of the best that America has ever produced. To this day I get goosebumps listening to recordings of his most famous speeches. His voice made you listen carefully to what he was saying. You knew you were hearing something important.
And there are all the people out there doing good in the world who list Dr. King as one of the people who influenced their lives. Dr. King brought people together. His work in the civil rights movement is unparallel and is used as an example of how to do civil disobedience the right way.
The legacy of Doctor King lives on to this day. His work was bigger than the bullet that took him down 40 years ago today.
Dr. King, you are remembered.
I am grateful for all that Dr. King did in his lifetime.
After we moved to Atlanta, I learned a lot more about Dr. King. I would hear his name in conjunction with Kennedy and Gandhi. For a while I though that President Kennedy and Dr. King were killed the same day but eventually I got that sorted out.
When you grow up in Atlanta, you can't avoid Dr. King's legacy. It is, honestly, all around you. The church where he preached is still there, I have driven by it more times than I care count. There is the King center. And there is the family itself. I met Coretta Scott King twice when I lived down in Atlanta. Both times it was in connection to some play I was working on at the time.
But Dr. King is bigger than those memorials in Atlanta. What he did and how he did it is a shining example of how words have power to change the world. Dr. King was a brilliant orator probably one of the best that America has ever produced. To this day I get goosebumps listening to recordings of his most famous speeches. His voice made you listen carefully to what he was saying. You knew you were hearing something important.
And there are all the people out there doing good in the world who list Dr. King as one of the people who influenced their lives. Dr. King brought people together. His work in the civil rights movement is unparallel and is used as an example of how to do civil disobedience the right way.
The legacy of Doctor King lives on to this day. His work was bigger than the bullet that took him down 40 years ago today.
Dr. King, you are remembered.
I am grateful for all that Dr. King did in his lifetime.
no subject
When I was in Memphis we stopped at the Lorraine Motel and laid a rose on the memorial there. I was so....moved....I just felt overcome with emotion. We had to make a decision between stopping there and going to Graceland, for me there wasn't even a discussion. I wanted so much to share a piece of Dr. King's history.
The man changed the world.
no subject
It wasn't that much of a "decision"... I do wonder what they do with the roses people leave. I'm sure there will be a lot today.