Dreaming Martin Luther King

It’s hard for me to believe it has been forty years since Martin Luther King was assassinated. I was living in Berkeley, a beginning Zen student, working in a bookstore and taking a class or two at Oakland’s Laney College in the evening. Laney had a largely black student body, in fact several of the founders of the Black Panther Party had attended there. As it turned out that wasn’t a good night to go to that particular school, at least for a white boy who thought he was on the right side. Mostly I got the cold shoulder, although a couple of people felt it okay to yell into my face my personal responsibility for all that was going on.

For the first time since I started attended classes there I was actually afraid.

Having been raised at the bottom of the economic ladder, I had few illusions about conditions for African Americans. What I didn’t get at the time was that I had two things going for me, I was, how shall we say? “Well spoken.” I had a big vocabulary and used it well. (While my parents had no idea about formal education, both were fervent readers, and that inclination had caught me…) And, and I was white.

While it was hard, I would eventually climb that ladder. And when the time came, my ability to speak well and that white face gave me an edge.

No doubt.

Absolutely no doubt.

And those who think otherwise are blowing smoke.

And – I’m pretty sure it was not just an edge, but a critical edge.

At the time, at that moment forty years ago, after feeling fear, my next emotion was anger. Didn’t they understand? I was with them. I came from pretty much they same place as they did. What was wrong with them? I was the same as they.

Of course, that wasn’t quite true…

And it took a long time to pick up what the differences were, what the edge was that I had, and why.

That’s when I really began to understand Dr Martin Luther King Jr’s dream, how powerful it was, and what it could mean for us all…