"It's Gonna Be A Better World For You"

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I was ten years old when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered. He was gunned down in Memphis, TN just a few days after my tenth birthday. It was the early spring of 1968... just one year after the "long hot summer" of rioting across the nation. I don't think I was even vaguely aware of any of that at the time. My main concern was whether I was going to get the new G.I. Joe with kung-fu grip by Christmas.

I saw Dr. King on the news from time to time... usually getting arrested, leading a march, or giving a speech. It didn't occurr to me that this was being done for me or that it would effect my life in any way, shape, or form. I was after all, a child. I did notice that when Dr. King was on television being interviewed or giving a speech, the adults in my house would get very quiet, gather around the television set in the living room, and hang on to every word. My grandparents especially responded to Dr. King as if he was their pastor and they were in his church.

He was their pastor, we were his congregation... all of us. My grandfather and uncle explained to me that Dr. King was a good man and even though he was going to jail, it wasn't because he was a bad man. There was a difference between him going to jail and say, Mr. Robinson across the street... who routinely got drunk, came outside naked, and had to be hauled off to jail for the night. No, Dr. King was fighting for something called "civil rights", something that I would understand when I was much older.

When he died, I knew just by the reaction of my parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, and older people on the street that something monumental had happened. I could see the universal dispair in peoples faces and the anger in a few younger folks who I recall threw a few bottles and set a few small fires that weekend. My mother explained to me that because of what Dr. King did, it was "gonna be a better world for you." She said that my brother and I would be going to college and that when we graduated, the world we would be entering would be a much better one than the one she had come of age in.

My mother also told me that when she was a little girl, my grandfather was driving her and her sisters somewhere and they saw a body hanging from a tree. They saw it before my grandfather could shield their eyes from it. It was something she never forgot and an everyday occurrence in the 1930's and 1940's. It was a warning not to "get out of line". Dr. King, Malcolm X, and the people who followed them had indeed "gotten out of line" and had changed all of that. She was certain in 1968 that wouldn't be my reality.

In a sense, she was right. I attended integrated schools most of my life, never lived in an age of segregation, and entered the work force with much more opportunity than my grandparents and parents could ever imagine. Although, I didn't enter a perfect world... the hatred and small mindedness that killed Dr. King still exists but, it's fading fast. I want to thank Dr. Martin Luther King and all of the people who lost their lives during the civil rights movemant for leaving me a better world than the one I was born into. I hope my generation can leave this world a little better for the children who are coming up now.

In another sense, my mother was wrong. This world is a much more dangerous and hateful place than it was then. The economy is worse... it's much harder for a young person to get started in the work force and the future looks about as bleak now for Americans of every hue as it ever did. Despite this bleakness, I'm left with my mother's optimism and her hope for me. I have this hope for the young people coming up now. It's gonna be a better world for you too, if you follow Dr. King's example of faith and activism and make it what you would have it be. Don't just except it as it is and lose hope. Take the cards you are dealt and play the best hand you've got!