Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. ~ January 15, 1929

Photo/csus.edu

Although the official holiday is next Monday January 19, today is the actual birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He would have been eighty-six years old!

My brother Sherry was at the Mall in D.C. and heard Dr. King deliver the "I have a dream" speech just before his Senior year at Princeton in 1963. I remember hearing the news of his assassination in April 1968, my Freshman year at Yale. It was only a few days after the jubilation we felt when President Johnson announced he wouldn't seek the nomination for another term. We had thought the Vietnam War was soon coming to an end. Instead the next few months saw the assassination of Robert Kennedy and the dashing of our hopes.

Nevertheless, the words and example of Martin Luther King, Jr. live on and continue to inspire us. Certainly he prepared the path for Barack Obama.