dianeseattle
Member
It was the 4th of April, 1968 and I was a 16-year-old junior in high school. It was the second time a principal had made an announcement over a school p.a. system in my life, telling us we should all go home, for the same reason as the first time it happened on November 22, 1963. I tore out of my classroom and ran downtown, to the drug store where my mom worked, with the little diner in the back where you could get meatloaf and mashed & there was always a bottle of ketchup on the table. The diner was staffed by an older couple from Arkansas, Earl and Earlene, honest to god. For all I know they were cousins.
I was still crying when I burst through the door, needing to tell someone who had power about what had happened to make me feel so powerless, to feel the world had shattered and tell me someone would do something about it, some grownup would make it right, even though it would never be right again.
Earl & Earlene were busy, unoccupied by any nightmare thinking, doing the usual diner stuff. They'd always give me some little token of food, like saltines and sometimes, if it was really possible, a piece of pie that was about to go stale. I was an employee's kid, so that's what they did. Then I'd go run errands for my mom, who had to work until 5:30 every weekday.
I was gulping so much air, I was about ready to vomit, and the shock I was feeling was vibrating all over the world as if the glaciers had all come loose from the continents and were bearing down on life like a runaway train, through every kid and grownup who loved liberty and freedom and could be inspired to change the world, because we all still thought we could.
When Earl looked up I just blurted it out. "Martin Luther King was shot! He was killed! Someone killed him!" There are no words adequate to express the size of the emptiness I felt because he no longer occupied space. There was no one I could believe in to protect me anymore, if they couldn't protect him. They couldn't protect my president. They couldn't protect this good man in Memphis who had led throngs of people, black and white, young and old, on a march through the streets where a few months earlier, black people had been swept away by fire hoses, had dogs set on them, tearing their flesh, police cracking skulls and blood flowing, little children in the middle of it all, crying, kicked to the side, screaming. Then someone stood up and said NO MORE.
He had been to the mountaintop like Moses and he had been charged with a mission, in the snakepit of the South, on the front lines, from a dark jail cell, from the pulpit of his church, from the back of a pickup truck, where everyone gathered in disbelief at his words, that the world could change, would change, was changing, and we could all live as one. I couldn't express these words and didn't yet know historically about the American Holocaust of white against black, the joy of murdering, lynching, immolating, amputating, then razing everything like they were purifying something contagious. They were. The contagion was equality.
So I stood there looking around for my mom and made the horrific announcement and Earl said, calm as you can be, like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, "Oh yeah? Well, I'll get me some salt and put it in my eye, and maybe I'll shed a few tears." Then he smirked and turned away chuckling. Memphis was in that diner, in that hateful redneck and I knew if a grownup could say such a thing, blacks and whites would never be free together.
Martin Luther King was 39 years old, with a wife and kids. He was a minister. He was a man. For some reason when he was called, he answered the call. I could imagine him in his own private Gethsemane, praying to have this destiny taken from him, if that was God's will, so he could grow old with his family and from his roots, more branches would spring up to carry that message, to perform that mission, to say, We are all here, created equally, meant to live in peace and love, to be sisters and brothers to each other. He was right in every way, except that when the roots ran deep and far, the tree had been cut down and left a trunk of hope in its spot. For his goodness, he was punished with death. As if it were written for him and others like him in Isaiah,"But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed."
"And though the body sleeps/the heart will never rest..."
Never made any sense to me, and less so in 1968. And my love and admiration of him was so great, I measure all love against it, more than I would when thinking of God, who isn't mortal, can't be killed, no matter how evil people are, his tenets can't be wiped from the face of the earth, sending people running in terror. Imagine that.
So today I had tears for breakfast. And when I woke at about 6am, I had to find this song, which is like a prayer, my version of going to church, like knowing there's someone out there, living within everyone whose heart is open, even today, and forever:
Let us turn our thoughts today to Martin Luther King
and recognize that there are ties between us, all men and women living on the Earth.
Ties of hope and love, sister and brotherhood, that we are bound together
in our desire to see the world become a place in which our children can grow free and strong.
We are bound together by the task that stands before us and the road that lies ahead.
We are bound and we are bound.
There is a feeling like the clenching of a fist
There is a hunger in the center of the chest
There is a passage through the darkness and the mist
And though the body sleeps the heart will never rest
Shed a little light, oh Lord, so that we can see, just a little light, oh Lord.
Wanna stand it on up, stand it on up, oh Lord,
wanna walk it on down, shed a little light, oh Lord.
Can't get no light from the dollar bill, don't give me no light from a TV screen.
When I open my eyes I wanna drink my fill from the well on the hill,
do you know what I mean?
Shed a little light, oh Lord, so that we can see, just a little light, oh Lord.
Wanna stand it on up, stand it on up, oh Lord,
wanna walk it on down, shed a little light, oh Lord.
There is a feeling like the clenching of a fist, there is a hunger in the center of the chest.
There is a passage through the darkness and the mist
and though the body sleeps the heart will never rest.
Oh, Let us turn our thoughts today to Martin Luther King
and recognize that there are ties between us.
All men and women living on the Earth, ties of hope and love, sister and brotherhood.
I was still crying when I burst through the door, needing to tell someone who had power about what had happened to make me feel so powerless, to feel the world had shattered and tell me someone would do something about it, some grownup would make it right, even though it would never be right again.
Earl & Earlene were busy, unoccupied by any nightmare thinking, doing the usual diner stuff. They'd always give me some little token of food, like saltines and sometimes, if it was really possible, a piece of pie that was about to go stale. I was an employee's kid, so that's what they did. Then I'd go run errands for my mom, who had to work until 5:30 every weekday.
I was gulping so much air, I was about ready to vomit, and the shock I was feeling was vibrating all over the world as if the glaciers had all come loose from the continents and were bearing down on life like a runaway train, through every kid and grownup who loved liberty and freedom and could be inspired to change the world, because we all still thought we could.
When Earl looked up I just blurted it out. "Martin Luther King was shot! He was killed! Someone killed him!" There are no words adequate to express the size of the emptiness I felt because he no longer occupied space. There was no one I could believe in to protect me anymore, if they couldn't protect him. They couldn't protect my president. They couldn't protect this good man in Memphis who had led throngs of people, black and white, young and old, on a march through the streets where a few months earlier, black people had been swept away by fire hoses, had dogs set on them, tearing their flesh, police cracking skulls and blood flowing, little children in the middle of it all, crying, kicked to the side, screaming. Then someone stood up and said NO MORE.
He had been to the mountaintop like Moses and he had been charged with a mission, in the snakepit of the South, on the front lines, from a dark jail cell, from the pulpit of his church, from the back of a pickup truck, where everyone gathered in disbelief at his words, that the world could change, would change, was changing, and we could all live as one. I couldn't express these words and didn't yet know historically about the American Holocaust of white against black, the joy of murdering, lynching, immolating, amputating, then razing everything like they were purifying something contagious. They were. The contagion was equality.
So I stood there looking around for my mom and made the horrific announcement and Earl said, calm as you can be, like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, "Oh yeah? Well, I'll get me some salt and put it in my eye, and maybe I'll shed a few tears." Then he smirked and turned away chuckling. Memphis was in that diner, in that hateful redneck and I knew if a grownup could say such a thing, blacks and whites would never be free together.
Martin Luther King was 39 years old, with a wife and kids. He was a minister. He was a man. For some reason when he was called, he answered the call. I could imagine him in his own private Gethsemane, praying to have this destiny taken from him, if that was God's will, so he could grow old with his family and from his roots, more branches would spring up to carry that message, to perform that mission, to say, We are all here, created equally, meant to live in peace and love, to be sisters and brothers to each other. He was right in every way, except that when the roots ran deep and far, the tree had been cut down and left a trunk of hope in its spot. For his goodness, he was punished with death. As if it were written for him and others like him in Isaiah,"But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed."
"And though the body sleeps/the heart will never rest..."
Never made any sense to me, and less so in 1968. And my love and admiration of him was so great, I measure all love against it, more than I would when thinking of God, who isn't mortal, can't be killed, no matter how evil people are, his tenets can't be wiped from the face of the earth, sending people running in terror. Imagine that.
So today I had tears for breakfast. And when I woke at about 6am, I had to find this song, which is like a prayer, my version of going to church, like knowing there's someone out there, living within everyone whose heart is open, even today, and forever:
Let us turn our thoughts today to Martin Luther King
and recognize that there are ties between us, all men and women living on the Earth.
Ties of hope and love, sister and brotherhood, that we are bound together
in our desire to see the world become a place in which our children can grow free and strong.
We are bound together by the task that stands before us and the road that lies ahead.
We are bound and we are bound.
There is a feeling like the clenching of a fist
There is a hunger in the center of the chest
There is a passage through the darkness and the mist
And though the body sleeps the heart will never rest
Shed a little light, oh Lord, so that we can see, just a little light, oh Lord.
Wanna stand it on up, stand it on up, oh Lord,
wanna walk it on down, shed a little light, oh Lord.
Can't get no light from the dollar bill, don't give me no light from a TV screen.
When I open my eyes I wanna drink my fill from the well on the hill,
do you know what I mean?
Shed a little light, oh Lord, so that we can see, just a little light, oh Lord.
Wanna stand it on up, stand it on up, oh Lord,
wanna walk it on down, shed a little light, oh Lord.
There is a feeling like the clenching of a fist, there is a hunger in the center of the chest.
There is a passage through the darkness and the mist
and though the body sleeps the heart will never rest.
Oh, Let us turn our thoughts today to Martin Luther King
and recognize that there are ties between us.
All men and women living on the Earth, ties of hope and love, sister and brotherhood.