Many years ago, I took my son to the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, TN because I wanted him to see the last place Dr. King visited before he was assassinated. It was a moving experience for the both of us. We sat at the lunch counters where young Black activists were attacked and on the bus where Rosa Parks sat. We walked into the jail cell Dr. King was held in and listened to his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” through a phone mounted on the wall, and we stood in front of the room Dr. King ate and slept in the night before his assassination, undisturbed since that day in 1968. As we made our way onto the balcony and looked down at the walkway, still stained with his blood and carefully preserved, in my mind I could see his body below me as he lay dying from an assassin’s bullet, I could see the arms of his colleagues pointing to a little red brick building across the street and I could hear the bullet firing, piercing my senses. I closed my eyes and held my son close as tears slid down our faces and we openly wept.
We have come a long way in our fight for equality, since that fateful day in 1968, but we must never think that the fight is over. If you would like to revisit the life and legacy of Dr. King, in honor of his birthday, please go see The Mountaintop, a play by Katori Hall. Hailed by Entertainment Weekly as “…daring, rousing and provocative.”– , The Mountaintop will inspire you to always keep Dr. King’s dream alive.
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