The Dreamer

Beverly and I spent the last few days in Memphis with our "East of the Mississippi" kids and grandson.  We had a great visit, and enjoyed being able to worship with the church where they serve.

Sunday afternoon, my son and I went to the National Civil Rights Museum, which occupies the Lorraine Hotel in which Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered.  It was interesting getting to relive some of the history I remember from childhood.  Much of the activity of the "movement" took place not far from where I was raised from 1960-1968 -- Jackson, Mississippi.  I still am amazed that people ever lived in such ignorance as to treat other human beings in such ways as we did (and continue to do).

I was reminded all over again of what a great man Dr. King was.  Hanging over his head through the years was my accepting as fact that he had been a philanderer.  Yet the ONLY evidence for that was a supposed tape from a supposed bug that had been planted where he was staying on one occasion.  This tape supposedly offered proof that Dr. King was having an affair.  No names were ever mentioned.  No other evidence ever produced.  With the level of hatred J. Edgar Hoover harbored for Dr. King, why was the planting of evidence never considered?

He was a modern-day prophet.  Listen to the speech he delivered the night before he was murdered in Memphis -- his "I've been to the mountaintop" speech.  It will give you goose bumps.  Dr. King told his friends that he would never live to see 40, and he was gunned down at age 39.

Or read his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail."  Wow!  Incredible.      

On the site, just a few feet from the balcony where Dr. King was murdered, is a plaque.  It reads from the book of Genesis, and says, "And they said one to another, behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now therefore, and let us slay him... and we shall see what will become of his dreams."

May his dream live on!