On April 5, 1968, I was almost 11 years old.

On April 5, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was shot to death in Memphis.

I heard it on TV.

I knew who Martin Luther King Jr. was. However, I did not know a lot. I was only ten, but I was from Atlanta, where Dr. King was a well-known figure. I was fortunate enough to come from a household where my parents made me learn. I knew who Dr. Kind was.

I remember when John Kennedy was shot. I was six-and-a-half, and was watching "As the World Turns" with my grandmother when Walter Cronkite broke in on CBS. I do not remember what was on the television when they announced the murder of Dr. King.

But what I do remember is that I felt the same way.

I remember the days that followed. I knew adults who walked in his Funeral Procession through downtown Atlanta. One was my school principal. I remember Bobby Kennedy was there. No one like that ever came to Atlanta. This was a very big deal, and it was frightening and very sad to watch. I was ten. And I knew who Dr. King was.

Little did I know, or, could I have known, that a mere months later, Bobby would be dead too and that three years later, I would be attending school with Martin Luther King, Jr's kids. Marty, Dexter and Bunny. Yolanda went to another High School. Nor could I have imagined that a few years after that, Corretta Scott King would sing at the first real commencement ceremony my high school had. My sister graduated that year. Coincidentally, her birthday is January 15.

Marty and I became good friends. Not because of whom his dad was, but because of whom he was a kind, funny and bright teenager who outwardly never carried the burden of being Martin Luther King III but who displayed qualities I later found to be from the soul of his dad. He was sincere, convicted and forthright. His smile stays in my memory now. We never even really spoke of his father much or of how hard that had been for him. Like me, he was very young when his dad died. Marty was just a friend at school. One of the kids in my very diverse private school. But it was not just a school for privileged kids. My Principal made sure there were people from all backgrounds, all economic levels and all faiths. My school looked like America.  

I had been Student President and Marty had been Vice President of Students at our school. We had to plan a lot of stuff together. We stayed in touch a little after High School, but I went away to England for college because my mom lived there, and only saw him one other time when he was running for Atlanta City Council. It was great. He was standing in front of his mid-town campaign office and I was getting out of my old car. He saw me, I saw him, and we RAN and embraced each other as the old friends we had been. People in the streets were rather taken aback. Especially the little kids. You see, I am a white woman. This was the son of Martin Luther King, Jr. at the start of HIS political career, and he was hugging me just like family.

When his mother died, I sat in front of the television here at home and watched in amazement at the entire service. And I cried. I realized I had had a forty-year relationship with this family and they meant a lot to me, even though I had never spent most of that time with them and among them.

I believe in many ways this is the same feeling many people across this country feel today. They feel the King's in their lives.

Much has been written about Dr. King, and I will not pretend to be a scholar or to frame these words in some lofty prose describing a man whom I did not know. Nevertheless, what I do know is Martin Luther King spent his life...and died, for the rights of the disenfranchised. He was a man of principle. A man of character. A man of love.

I read through some of his more well-known speeches and sermons recently, when the South Carolina Primary brouhaha came up, to remind myself why everyone was so upset. What I read were the words of a man who spoke truth to power for the Black Community in our country. The community he then called, as we all did, the Negroes. His words were a powerful call to action and to the knowledge that Black Americans would never be considered whole, or healed within their broad communities psyche until they were recognized as a powerful and equal political force.

Martin Luther King, Jr.  had been beaten, arrested, ridiculed, vilified, spied on, tormented and eventually murdered because of his dedication to the Black Community and the uplifting of an entire group. But what happened through Dr. King's words was not just the uplifting of Blacks, but the uplifting and recognition by millions of other Americans who felt disenfranchised, left out, trod upon and forgotten. Men and women everywhere had an innate understanding of the need to be recognized, and the need to be free of the bonds of the symbolic slavery they all felt to.

He was as a leader. He brought hope, brought recognition and brought togetherness for millions of Americans, of all colors and creeds, poor and struggling, educated and non-educated into the forefront of America's consciousness.

He had a plan. He had details of how to achieve it. He made a difference in the lives of so many.

He stood up the class warfare, he spoke of determination and grit in the face of what seemed like insurmountable odds. He grew tired at times, he grew weary, but he never quit. He did not fade in the ambush of negativism and naysayers and he never lost faith in the goodness of this country.
He was well attuned to the injustices and grabs for power from the disenfranchised millions into the hands of the White elitists and Power Brokers of the nation who despite their good words, found their actions to be wanting.

He never stopped bringing his message to the people of this country that we can be a better place, a better nation. Because he was a man of conviction to his very soul.

He would not be forced into silence, He would not be told "your message doesn't matter, we are done with you, let's move on."

Dr. King spoke to the Black man, the Black Experience, in a way I do not believe most of White America can fully understand. But he also spoke to a section of Americans in a way that many in today's bi-racial, inter-racial, melting-pot America find arcane and out dated - and are only able to relate to now in what was his most important message of all. The love of your neighbor no matter how distasteful your neighbor becomes. No matter how much hatred your detractors throw at you, the hates they exhibit come from a place within themselves.

His words transcended the Black Experience, of the oppression born of slavery, their originally intended audience, and reached in to millions of souls to find the better side of all people.

In a sermon he delivered in Alabama, he said these words regarding Jesus' directive to love your enemies, "He realized that it's difficult to love those persons who seek to defeat you, those persons who say evil things about you."

(That) "They're going to dislike you, not because of something that you've done to them, but because of various jealous reactions and other reactions that are so prevalent in human nature."

He said in his speech at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963 "In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred."

On this day, forty years after the death of Marty's dad, in the middle of this political season, where the anger and hatred has been fueled to new levels by those who seek to divide us again; these are words we should all well remember.

We have a responsibility to ourselves to move forward and, like Dr. King, speak truth to the power that is once again holding our nation and our voices at bay, in order to define the terms acceptable to a few whose power and whose voice does not speak to who we are as Americans. We shall not be silenced. We will not be manipulated by the media and the power brokers. It is not a matter of whose "turn" it is, or of who has suffered most. It is a matter of what is BEST for the country overall. The qualifications for leadership are both inherent and learned. To reach out one's hand to the enemies within and seek to heal the divide is oftentimes much harder than reaching outward to the foes of our ideals. To reach inward takes guts and fortitude. To reach inward requires understanding of one's faults and prejudices and learned experiences. To reach inward requires acceptance of our imperfections.

I suggest that American's on this day read the speeches of Dr. King. His letters and writings. He spoke to Black Americans then. He speaks to all Americans now.

Disenfranchisement of all peoples, in any sector, in this great nation is a sin. Leadership is what is needed most urgently now. Qualifications for leadership are many. I recoil when I hear the words of the media elites, of the pundits, and of the politicians. IT IS THEIR DUTY it is to lift up all peoples, all races, all ethnicities, and all genders in this nation - not call for the annihilation of a voice they do not want to hear because of their own inner demons of hate, of guilt, or for the corporate bottom line.

The disenfranchisement continues, and the power brokers still have their own self-interest at hand. Many of them knew Dr. King. Moreover, many still know his family much better than I did.  Until this Party and this nation are able to stop separation and segregation of agendas, of race and gender and rich and poor, straight and gay, Christian and Jew and Catholic and Muslim, we will never be a United States or a united party. The disenfranchisement comes from within. We must all look to the greater good before democracy is dolled out one more time by the few who represent those who wish to silence it. In 2000, that was the Republicans. In 2008, it is we, the Democratic Party. How can we be so stupid?

Hillary Clinton has said this; "Eleanor Roosevelt understood that every one of us every day has choices to make about the kind of person we are and what we wish to become. You can decide to be someone who brings people together, or you can fall prey to those who wish to divide us. You can be someone who educates yourself, or you can believe that being negative is clever and being cynical is fashionable. You have a choice."

Barack Obama this: "We think of faith as a source of comfort and understanding but find our expression of faith sowing division; we believe ourselves to be a tolerant people even as racial, religious, and cultural tensions roil the landscape. And instead of resolving these tensions or mediating these conflicts, our politics fans them, exploits them, and drives us further apart."

I will close with this from Dr. King; "The bombs in Vietnam explode at home; they destroy the hopes and possibilities for a decent America." (Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, 1967.) and ask the reader to replace "Vietnam" with "the DNC." And to remember; "We must combine the toughness of the serpent and the softness of the dove, a tough mind and a tender heart."

Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love, 1963.

God Bless the King Family on this day. It was an honor to be a very small part of your lives.
Moreover, may God Bless America.

I am a supporter of Senator Clinton. I was asked to write this blog in honor of Dr. King by a prominent American Woman, who barely knows me, whom I have never met, and who happens to be Black. I am honored to do so.