Not taking anything away from what you said Frank. But I wonder... if they
hadn't been assasinated, would they be viewed as such stellar figures? We
shall never know as their works ended abrubtly.
Tom C.
From: frank theriault <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [email protected]
To: PDML <[email protected]>
Subject: OT: Martin Luther King Day
Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2006 17:02:26 -0500
Today's Martin Luther King Day in the USA, no?
I was going to say "Happy MLK Day", but I don't know if that's
appropriate, although I suppose the day is (among other things) a
celebration of the man and his accomplishments.
Whatever the appropriate greeting might be, Martin Luther King Jr. was
and is one of my personal heroes. He had incredible courage and
commitment. He moved an entire generation, and an entire nation. He
was certainly one of the great orators of this century (I'd say that
he ranked up there with Churchill in that regard).
He taught us that non-violence works. He taught us (to paraphrase MLK
himself) to judge a human by the content of their character rather
than the colour of their skin.
I remember, as an 11 year old, hearing that he was shot. Not long
after, RFK was assassinated as well. I was genuinely afraid that it
was all unravelling. In some ways, I think it did. What a different
world we might live in today had neither of those two had their life
taken from them that horrible spring. (but I digress...)
Martin Luther King wasn't a perfect man (it's said he may have cheated
on his wife), as none of us are. But it can truly be said of the man
that he changed the world in a positive way. Perhaps it's appropriate
to end this with his own words, from what was certainly his greatest
speech:
"...when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village
and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to
speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men,
Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join
hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:
Free at last! Free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"
cheers,
frank
--
"Sharpness is a bourgeois concept." -Henri Cartier-Bresson
