The Significance of Martin Luther King's Speech at Riverside Church

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (Wikimedia Commons)

"True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice."
--Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

On April 4, 1967 Dr. King gave a major speech at the Riverside Church in New York. One year later to the day the Baptist minister and civil rights leader was assassinated.

At what point did Martin Luther King know that he was a marked man? He saw what happened to JFK, to Bobby, to Medgar Evers, to Malcolm X. It must have weighed on him heavily that one day he would leave his wife and family for the cause that burdened his heart.

As with all his major speeches, it is delivered with power and authority. The new feature here is that he is critical of our government's involvement in Viet Nam, accusing our leaders--and with good cause--of being a great purveyor of violence.

* * * *
I come to this great magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. I join you in this meeting because I am in deepest agreement with the aims and work of the organization that brought us together, Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam. The recent statements of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own heart, and I found myself in full accord when I read its opening lines: “A time comes when silence is betrayal.” That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.

Why was Dr. King now addressing the war? People were telling him that civil rights issues were different from the anti-war movement. He disagreed, and he spells out his reasons. First, it became apparent to him that the war was an enemy to the poor.

Riverside 1967. (Photo: Public domain)

Perhaps a more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. So we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. 

Another reason he had come to make this speech was because he saw how blacks were arming themselves, many believing that violence was the only way to set things right. When he said it was not, they would point to Viet Nam and say how our government believed violence was the way to resolve issues.

This latter led Dr. King to become more vocal about the wrongness of the war.

Now it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America’s soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read “Vietnam.”

His career as a minister required him to preach peace to the nation and take up the cause of the needy.

We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation, for those it calls “enemy,” for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers.

The next section of his speech details the history of Viet Nam after the end of World War II, and our part in the then-present devastation.

We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. We have destroyed their land and their crops. We have cooperated in the crushing of the nation’s only noncommunist revolutionary political force, the unified Buddhist Church.

He follows this section now with concern for our own troops and what we are doing to them.

I am as deeply concerned about our own troops there as anything else. For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved.

How do you un-see once you've seen it so plainly?

He goes on to make a statement that is expounded upon more fully in more recent book The Cold War's Killing Fields by Paul Thomas Chamberlin, that the U.S. misinterpreted all national ambitions for self-rule through a Cold War lens. He stated, "In 1957 a sensitive American official overseas said that it seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side of a world revolution," and then elaborated on this.

It is a sad fact that because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch antirevolutionaries.

Sadly, this next paragraph could have been written yesterday:

We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. As Arnold Toynbee says: “Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word.”

And finally:

Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message—of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise, we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.

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Why I Am Writing About This

Nearly every point in his "Beyond Vietnam" speech is something many of us had thought about at one time or another growing up in the Sixties, or so I thought. We hadn't articulated it so clearly, but were uncomfortable with what we were hearing, seeing in the news, reading in the papers. 

Simultaneously, Dr. King was being slammed as becoming a Communist now, taking the side of our enemies. As you can plainly see, this speech is in harmony with the Gospel, for we are all brothers and sisters in the human family, and have responsibilities to one another. It has been cited as the moment he was perceived as a real threat to out nation's Machiavellian war efforts, a voice that had to be silenced. 

Related Links
Background on the speech Beyond Vietnam 
The full speech, Beyond Vietnam
Coretta Scott King's Statement at the Conclusion of the Conspiracy Trial  regarding the assassination of her husband on e year later.

Must See: "Which One Is The Real Bob Dylan" at Karpeles Manuscript Museum Library in Duluth

It’s only fitting that Bill Pagel’s exhibit Which One is the Real Bob Dylan should share this space at Karpeles with an exhibit about Abraham Lincoln.

When the Founding Fathers created the American Experiment its core principles had to do with freedom and human dignity,  its motto being the proposition that All Men Are Created Equal. Unfortunately a considerable portion of our people were not free, and though these founders heroically set forth the principles, they left it to future generations to work out the details, to implement what was promised.

And so it was Lincoln set about to complete what the Founding Fathers started, to fulfill what was promised in the Declaration of Independence.

And yet, even though Lincoln carried it forward with the Emancipation Proclamation, the lack of equality for blacks continued to be heartbreakingly evident, especially in the Deep South. The rise of the Ku Klux Klan, Jim Crow laws and lynchings stained the promises made.

Dylan, signed by Dylan, on display at Karpeles

Nearly a century later, the advent of television and this pervasive injustice gave birth to the Civil Rights Movement. Dylan’s songs articulated insights that helped raise awareness of the unfulfilled promises made by our Founding Fathers.

How many years can a mountain exist
Before it's washed to the sea?
Yes, 'n' how many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free?
Yes, 'n' how many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn't see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind

The folk movement in America was comprised of a number of influential songwriters whose songs rang out prophetically, calling out the abuse of power and shining a spotlight on stories generally hidden from the wider public, lost in the media mishmash. Standing on the shoulders of those who preceded him, he made us aware., helped us better understand how broken our nation was. Like a prophet, he was attuned to the times and indeed these times were a-changin’

Bob Dylan signed and scribbled on pages of Daniel Kramer photos. 

It was no accident that Bob Dylan & Joan Baez were selected to sing during Dr. Martin Luther King’s 1963 March on Washington for Civil Rights. Nor was it an accident that this event took place with the Lincoln Memorial as a backdrop.

And so, to reiterate, it's fitting that the exhibition of Dylan memorabilia from the Bill Pagel Archives should share this museum space with a Karpeles collection featuring our 16th president, Abraham Lincoln.

Included in the exhibit are original handwritten lyrics for Desolation Row, Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues and other songs, original letters, a rare 45 that he recorded with his friends in 1958, and other unusual rarities.

"Which One is the Real Bob Dylan" will be on display at Karpeles in Duluth through August 1.

The "We Shall Overcome" Speech by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

There are all kinds of collectors in the world. Some people collect art. Others collect pedal cars. Still others collect baseball cards. In 2016 I learned that a graduate of one of our Duluth high schools, who made a small fortune in California real estate 50 or so years ago, collects manuscripts, which I wrote about here in a piece titled Treasures of the Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum. 

Handwritten sheet from Dr King's speech at SMU.

This weekend I visited Karpeles in Duluth (there are a dozen such Karpeles museums in this country) and saw on display the original handwritten "We Shall Overcome" speech by Dr. King. It led me to go find and read it again in honor of the day, the man and the fight. Here are a few excerpts followed by a link to the complete speech, which he delivered in March of 1966 at Southern Methodist University.

'We have come a long, long way but we still have a long, long way to go.' --Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Here are a few excerpts from this speech, which is essentially a summary of what seem to be self-evident truths. 

And I believe also that it is true that if we are to solve the problem ultimately, the white person must see the Negro as his brother. And he must treat him right because it is natural and because the Negro is his brother and not merely because the law says it. If we are to solve the problem ultimately, every person must rise to the majestic heights of being obedient to the unenforceable.

But after saying this I think we must see the other side and see the wrongness of the notion that legislation can’t help. It may be true that you can’t legislate integration but you can legislate desegregation. It may be true that morality can’t be legislated but behavior can be regulated. It may be that the law cannot make a man love me but it can restrain him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important also.

* * * *

My contention is that as we bring these things to the surface and deal with them, we must deal with them non-violently. And we need the support of all people of goodwill as we develop a non-violent assault on the evils of segregation and discrimination.

* * * *

And so if one is working for a just society, he should use just methods in bringing about that society.

And so the plea facing us today is to move on that additional distance that we have to go with understanding, with a concern for brotherhood, with the removal of all prejudices, with an understanding that all of God’s children are significant.

Read the full transcript of this speech:
www.smu.edu/News/2014/mlk-at-smu-transcript-17march1966

* * * *

Key civil rights legislation of the 1960s.

The Civil Rights Act of 1960 (Pub.L. 86–449, 74 Stat. 89, enacted May 6, 1960) is a United States federal law that established federal inspection of local voter registration polls and introduced penalties for anyone who obstructed someone's attempt to register to vote. Signed into law by President Eisenhower.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, is considered one of the crowning legislative achievements of the civil rights movement. Signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote as guaranteed under the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The Civil Rights Act of 1968 defines housing discrimination as the "refusal to sell or rent a dwelling to any person because of his race, color, religion, or national origin". Title VIII of this Act is commonly referred to as the Fair Housing Act of 1968.  Signed into law by President Johnson.

* * * * 

For further reading:
Read Dr. King's "I Have A Dream" speech which he delivered in August 1963. It opens with "Five score years ago" so as to echo the opening of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address while drawing attention to that significant event of 1863, The Emancipation Proclamation.
Here is the link:
https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/i-have-dream-address-delivered-march-washington-jobs-and-freedom

Let's not forget the dream.

Two Powerful Songs in Response to the Cold-Blooded Murder of Medgar Evers

On this day in history civil rights activist Medgar Evers was assassinated. Born July 2, 1925, in Decatur, Mississippi he became, in 1954, the first state field secretary of the NAACP in Mississippi. As such, he organized voter-registration efforts and economic boycotts, and investigated crimes perpetrated against blacks. For these "subversive" activities he was assassinated outside his Mississippi home 55 years ago today. It took more than three decades to send his killer to prison. Such were the machinations of Mississippi justice.

Evers served in World War II from 1943 to '45 and returned, like many other African Americans of his generation, to see the Jim Crow South with new eyes. He graduated college on the G.I. Bill and soon became involved with civil rights work. In 1954 he came field secretary for the NAACP, travelling extensively throughout the state, a witness to the widespread injustices that were a way of life there. For context, 1954 was the year of the landmark legislation Brown v. Board of Education, 1955 the death of Emmett Till.

After years of organizing and standing up to the powers that be, "Evers's efforts made him a target for those who opposed racial equality and desegregation. He and his family were subjected to numerous threats and violent actions, including a firebombing of his house in May 1963, shortly before his assassination."(1)

* * * *

August 28, less than two months later, proved to be one of the most memorable days in our history as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led a march on Washington for jobs and freedom, galvanizing the civil rights movement with his epic "I Have A Dream" speech, which reverberates to this day.  A young Bob Dylan was one of many singers who had been invited to perform at the event.(2) Even though he'd just released his second album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, with a number of suitable songs for the occasion ("Blowin' in the Wind" and "Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" come to mind) he sang three songs from his next album, including "Only A Pawn In Their Game" which he'd written in response to the shooting of Medgar Evers.

It's not possible for me to hear this song without being moved, and for decades I felt it to be the most powerful response ever written in response to Evers' assassination. Eventually, thanks to the Internet, I discovered Nina Simone's response to this and everything taking place in Mississippi at that time, a song which -- for reasons self-evident -- would not have been aired on the radio stations most of us listened to while growing up in the Sixties. It's called "Mississippi Goddam."(3)

The chorus, which also opens the song, goes like this:
Alabama's gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi goddam

Lyrics like these reflect the burden of being black in the Deep South at that time:

Hound dogs on my trail
School children sitting in jail
Black cat cross my path
I think every day's gonna be my last
Lord have mercy on this land of mine
We all gonna get it in due time

I don't belong here
I don't belong there
I've even stopped believing in prayer
Don't tell me
I tell you
Me and my people just about due
I've been there so I know
They keep on saying 'Go slow!'

It's a painful song, but its despairing tone reflects a strange beauty that I find incredibly moving. 

Like Dylan's "Only A Pawn" it's the manner in which the song is sung that goes right through you. Let's mark the day by remembering. 

(1) Medgar Evers life at Biography
(2) Music of the March on Washington
(3) Full lyrics, Mississippi Goddam

Symbolism

In art history Symbolism was an actual movement in which pictorial means were used to convey allegorical meanings. Throughout art history symbolism has been used, however, especially in religious iconography.

To illustrate the difference between symbolism and representational art, picture a cave drawing with several buffalo images with a dotted line crossing a bunch of wavy lines. This representational piece is telling people where the buffalo are and how to get there. (They are across the river.) If one of the buffalo has wings and is flying above the herd, it might be some kind of early symbolic expression. ("The gods granted me an opportunity to take one.") If there is a large tripod-like creature lifting one of the buffalo and a screeching noise being emitted with a beam of light coming out disintegrating the other buffaloes, then you are looking at an early telling of War of the Worlds. Later historians would then endlessly debate whether this was Realism or Fantasy.

All this to say that symbolism is as much a part of art as metaphors are to poetry. For example, in David Bowie's Is There Life On Mars? the line, "look at those cave men go" is not referring to cave men but to lowbrow brutes having it out in a bar fight, or possibly the alienated teenager is watching a movie of such. But the words are not literal but rather metaphorical, as is Em Dickinson's line, "Hope is the thing with feathers" which Woody Allen turns around to indicate his own -- and modern man's -- existential alienation and despair with the title of his volume Without Feathers. Or he may mean he is exposing himself.

O.K., so this was a long intro to make a small point about my Lincoln paintings. The first painting, Blue Lincoln, was not really about Lincoln at all. I had read a quote somewhere that "you can't fight an international war and a civil war at the same time" and it resonated with me. I believe it was from the book Maximilian and Carlotta in which the U.S. could not defend Mexico against European incursion (a violation of the Monroe Doctrine) because it was in the throes of its own Civil War. For me this was a perfect symbol of many lives today who are battling their own inner conflicts and have unresolved issues in their hearts while also trying to carry on with their life purpose of service to the community or the world-at-large. Many people have been sidelined by internal conflicts who could be leaders of organizations in need of leadership.

The Lincoln image thus became such a symbol for me. The overarching internal conflict between good and evil, righteousness and temptation, left the president blue.

The painting Lincoln II has a brighter background, but his features are ashen. The subtitle, Portrait with One Dying Eye, is a reference to the line from Dylan's Hurricane. "The wounded guy looks up through his one dyin' eye, Says 'What'd you bring him in here for? He ain't the guy.'" The song is ultimately about injustice, as noted in the second to last verse. "To see him obviously framed couldn't help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land where justice is a game."

And so it is that presidents themselves become symbols. Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech was not delivered in Arlington Cemetery, land that formerly belonged to Robert E. Lee, but rather at the Lincoln Memorial. Symbols have power. Symbols resonate.

Blue Lincoln, Lincoln III (right) and Lincoln II (Portrait with One Dying Eye) will be on display this month at The Venue, 2024 West Superior Street, Duluth. Hope you get a chance to see what's happening there.

Get In The Game

On Sunday our pastor preached on this theme, saying that it's time to get in the game. The message resonated with me because it seems like there are simply too many people content to sit in the stands and watch as spectators. Or to sit on their couches or their duffs or whatever... waiting for the next thing to happen, instead of making it happen.

Life is for living.

The message Sunday was about Christians who expect the clergy, pastors and priests to do the work of ministry. But this blog post is intended to prod all of us to get get passionate about making a difference in the world. There are needs all around us. And each of us has different abilities or strengths. It's time to get out of the stands and into the field of play.

Maybe your thing is business. Excel in that and you can employ others whom you train and help get into the career game. There are a lot of talented, smart people who have been hurt by this past year's economic turmoil. If you can make money and employ even a few of these good people you will have made a huge difference.

Maybe you're an artist. By creating and sharing your work you inspire others with creative gifts. Don't quit. Stay in the game. We need art, lest the entire Western world become a sterile white walled environment with no character.

If you're a musician, follow that passion and let others be swept up in the music. Music can help people forget their pain. Music can fill the long voids in a sorrowing heart. Music can inspire action... or reflection. Music can make people laugh and smile. Stay with it. Find new ways to share it. We need your gifts.

Writers, don't despair. There are some who will say it's all been said before. Yes, this may be true, there's "nothing new under the sun" on one level. But on another level, we need your voices, your words, the prismatic revelations of your hearts on paper and/or monitor screens. Nothing new? Every moment in time everything is new, and this world is exploding with newness. New stories being experienced, new stories that need to be told.

Journalists, stay in the game, because the politicians need watchdogs.

And if your calling is to the political arena, don't despair at the ethical contortions and inefficiencies of government. At all levels we need people with good hearts who have the courage to get in the game and stay in the game. Don't give up. You can make a difference....

Desmond Tutu, Martin Luther King, Ronald Reagan, Derek Jeter, Pablo Picasso, Mother Theresa, Jack Nicholson... we know their names because they were not spectators in life. There are millions of others who are lesser known, who are also seriously pursuing their callings or dreams. We do not know their names, but we see the fruit of their passion.

If you're just watching, and drifting... wake up! There's work to be done. Get stirred and make a difference. Get in the game.

Christian Anarchy

It might be worthwhile to make a differentiation between Christian anarchy and Marxism, which looks to anarchy as the path to a new world order. Marxism endorses violence. Christianity cannot.

Jacques Ellul, in his book Anarchy and Christianity, notes that the achievements of both Gandhi and Martin Luther King were accomplished by virtuous means. By way of contrast, the Black Panther movement did not advance the cause of black liberation that it purportedly intended.

Political power corrupts. And against this corruption we must take a stand.

Ellul notes that once we rule out violence as an option, we must resort to persuasion, “the creation of small groups and networks, denouncing falsehood and oppression.”

Dr. Glenn Martin, in his book Prevailing Worldviews, points out how the institution of slavery was ended in England without violence through persuasion, and the tireless efforts of a few important voices. Even though it took more than forty years, spearheaded by the Society of Friends (Quakers) and politician/philanthropist William Wilberforce, the abolition of slavery was ultimately accomplished without bloodshed.

By way of contrast, the U.S. experienced a torrid Civil War as a result of the activist revolutionary approach to the problem of slavery. Yes, there were some who sought slavery’s termination by peaceful means, but the revolutionary approach ultimately superceded the tireless efforts of the persistent persuaders. According to Martin, actions like the Nat Turner rebellion, which left eighty persons dead, set back the cause of peaceful negotiation, and helped fortify the deeply entrenched status quo of slavery.

It reminds me of the story of the wind and the sun. Each made a bet to see who could force a desert traveler to remove his cloak. The wind went first, blowing fiercely, but the more savagely the wind assaulted, the more firmly the man clutched his linen. Then the sun took his turn, and we all know how that story ends.

Lest I babble indefinitely, let me cite two additional observations from Ellul’s challenging book.

1. “Our experience today is the strange one of empty political institutions in which no one has any confidence any more, of a system of government which functions only in the interests of a political class, and at the same time of the almost infinite growth of power, authority, and social control which makes any one of our democracies a more authoritarian mechanism than any Napoleonic state.” ~ p. 22

2. “Most people, living heedlessly, tanning themselves, engaging in terrorism, or becoming TV slaves, ridicule political chatter and politics. They see that there is nothing to hope for from them. They are also exasperated by bureaucratic structures and administrative bickering.” ~ p. 23

To be sure, it would be nice if everything were black and white, which it will never be. But let’s not be lulled into the stupor of non-thinking, quasi-acceptance of all that is, as if it cannot be any different.

1968: A Very Dark Year

Just watched Tom Brokaw’s “1968” this week and it was quite thought provoking. David Hinckley’s review of the same gets it right, though. Hinckley, of the NYTimes, noted that "1968 doesn't lack integrity, interest or insight. It just stops short of exploring the questions that could move the chains from where the discussion left off a few years ago when media attention started shifting from the '60s to the '70s and '80s.”

The biggest insight of the program for me, which aired on the History Channel and is now available in DVD, came in the first two minutes or less. There was a draft in 1968, and the unpopular war mattered to everyone in every part of the country because, well, we were all potentially eligible to go, or our friends and brothers were on the line. It was a very different time. It was not so easy to disregard what was happening. "Something's happening here" affected all of us.

Today’s war is nonesuch. Sure, it has an impact on some people somewhere, but young people can get lost in their video games and iPods and beer parties and online social networks without once encountering a direct hit with someone whose life is actually touched by it all. And the rest can be lulled to sleep by the television shows, movies, sports, fishing, and other assorted distractions.

Add to the war the racial tensions, all sublimated today by comparison. Men like Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King took bullets for a dream, which vaporized to some extent. Cities burned, but it was the ghetto homes that were destroyed and charred, and white America pretty much escaped unscathed.

Brokaw’s 1968 ended with NASA’s year-end achievement showing astronauts circumnavigating the moon, but it was not an event that mesmerized like the 1969 moonwalk, and it hardly addressed the real questions that flummoxed this nation.

My guess is that historians will continue arguing about the meaning of 1968 till the day it’s forgotten altogether. One thing is certain, there was a lot of anxiety going down. And whatever story you’ve heard about any facet of the sixties undoubtedly has another side, and another, and another. Every picture tells a story, don’t it?

Innocence Lost: A Reflection on the Sixties

"No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing. At other times it feels like being mildly concussed. There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me." ~ C. S. Lewis

These are the opening words of A Grief Observed, C. S. Lewis' personal reflections on the loss of his wife Joy Davidson. Can it be that our nation itself received this same concussive blow on the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963?

I find it interesting that C. S. Lewis, Aldous Huxley and John F. Kennedy all died on the same day in 1963. The deaths of Lewis and Huxley, whose personal lives were more remote from most of us, were eclipsed by the dramatic assasination of our president... and the subsequent events surrounding his passing.

There have been few more powerful events in our personal histories. Television brought this president into our homes like none before him. His PR-created persona made him out to be more than a man. He was a mythological god. He rode a white horse. He was a knight in shining armor. With the vitality of Youth, he provided a euphoric hope that seemed necessary after two world wars, a major depression and the brooding tensions of the Cold War.

I was in sixth grade that day, Stafford School, Maple Heights, Ohio. There was an announcement over the loudspeaker that we were all to go to the auditorium for an assembly. This was the same room where we assembled to see men from NASA demonstrate how a rocket would within the next ten years carry men to the moon.

As we shuffled along toward the nearly filled assembly room, I was distracted by a janitor who was stepping in from outside. I remember the grey November sky. And the janitor's tears, the janitor standing there, cap in hand, tears streaming down his wrinkled cheeks, looking back toward the flag he had just lowered to half mast. I don't remember the assembly, or much of anything else. Only the image of that janitor weeping.

Few people knew it then, but that day was a portent of difficult times ahead for America. Medger Evers, Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy, race riots in every major city, Kent State, My Lai -- the decade, stained with blood, left a generation of parents concussed and children confused.

Wrote Lewis in A Grief Observed, "I find it hard to take in what anyone says. Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in."

And when Nielsson sang: "Everybody's talkin' at me, I can't hear a word they're saying"... did we not find a resonance in our hearts because we, too, were grieving? What was it we had lost? What is it we were looking for? What was Joe Buck looking for? What did Joe Buck find?

I believe it was Gurdjieff who compared life experiences to the food we take into our stomachs. Eventually the food is digested, but it takes time, and some foods longer than others. Likewise, our experiences take time to digest before they are assimilated to nourish or poison us.

Even though more than 40 years have passed, we still sometimes don't know what to say about what we saw and heard and felt. We are still processing our experiences. While some of the experiences were uniquely ours, many were shared. For this reason it is my conviction that when we have gained a measure of understanding, we have a responsibility to share the light we have received. In this way, our pain becomes redemptive, a healing influence in an otherwise broken world.