Such a dumb kid back then --- on the 4th of April 1968, when Dr. King was assassinated in Memphis. A product of Lucas County's white ghetto, undergraduate senior at the University of Iowa, worried about the draft.
Not that long before, I'd gotten to know --- for the first time --- people who weren't the same color as me.
It would take a war and years after that before Dr. King's legacy began truly to penetrate my thick head and fuzzy understanding of American history and the society it had generated. And to realize that the potential of his dream had not been realized and that the road ahead would be a long one, as it still is.
I've been listening this morning to performances "Glory" --- John Legend's and Common's Academy Award-winning theme from "Selma." Here is one version of it --- recorded during the awards ceremony:
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