I worked for Dr. King for three years.
He was my employer,
my minister,
my friend.
I remember the living room of his simple home
on the edge of the Black slums.
He chose to live there.
He used to say
“I want to be reminded each day for whom I work.”
That living room
was a reflection of the man.
There was a large statue of Gandhi on a table
and a very large painting of a woman
for a mirror –
one side of the woman was black,
the other side was white.
His Nobel Prize for Peace Medal
was by the window.
When he sat in that room
with Gandhi,
the black and white mirror
and the Golden Nobel Medal for Peace,
he must have thought about the work
he Knew he had to do,
and the spirit of Non-Violence
in which he had to do it!
I joined the Movement in Selma, Alabama
in the Violence
of the Spring of 1965 –
“Bloody Sunday”
when policemen on horses
clubbed men and women
chocking on tear gas!
“Bloody Sunday”
when there was no place
for the wounded
in the “White Hospitals”
of Selma.
I joined the Movement
“armed” with
a portable tape recorder
I had brought back from Europe!
I was studying to be a minister.
I was young!
I wanted to do something!
I started to record news the media had missed
and went to Dr. King and asked
what I should do with the recordings.
He wanted America
to know what was happening!
If there was going to be change,
America had to know!
I met Bill Stein, another volunteer –
a public relations expert.
Together, we sent recordings via telephone
to radio and TV stations so America would know.
We reported how
one planned march to Montgomery
had to turn around
and another
and another and
how Dr. King finally got permission
to march across
the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
We marched behind Dr. King
from Selma to Montgomery – the state capitol.
We marched to demand
Voting Rights for the “Negro.”
Little kids marched along with us and sang,
“I love state troopers.
I love everybody with my heart.
I love George Wallace. “
They sang about loving the men who beat
their fathers and mothers
and the Governor of Alabama
who forbid them to march!
When we finally arrived in Montgomery,
I interviewed about 20 people for the news.
I’ll never forget one little girl who I asked: “Are you tired?”
She answered, “My feets only hurts when I stop.”
Such a man was Dr. Martin Luther King –
He lived with Gandhi
and a black and white mirror
and Medal of Gold for Peace.
He could never stop –
He WOULD never stop
“until (as he said) justice rolls down like the waters
and righteousness like a mighty stream.
He was my employer,
my minister,
my friend.
He meant everything to me
and he still does –
every day of my life I work in his reflection.
“My feets only hurts when I stop.”