White heads and Black heads

I remember the night Martin Luther King was shot.

I was 12.

My Dad flies inside the house like a madman, scared out of his wits, talking about rioting in the streets, tossing a pamphlet on the kitchen table, hugging Mom.

He's so loud I can't concentrate on Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., the television show I, and a majority of Americans are watching.

Dad's a former Marine, loves Gomer like I do, so I can't figure out why he's not watching.

Walking the eight steps from the television to the kitchen table, I pick up the pamphlet and read about the three greatest men who've ever lived ... Jesus in black and white ... Abraham Lincoln in black and white ... and Martin Luther King in color.

I find that funny now but there's nothing to laugh about on Thursday, April 4, 1968.

I recall not having any particular problems the three greatest men who ever lived but, then, I would have placed John Lennon in Abraham Lincoln's slot.

I was, and am, a tremendous fan of the Beatles.

That's all I remember about that night.

Sometime that year though ... I'm at Mercer Middle School for a dance.

Mom and Dad are chaperons.

There's a record player in the Gym and white kids dance on one side of the room while black kids are on the other.

Occasionally we cross the imaginary line and talk to each other.

Sammy Childs and I cross it.

"Hey man," he smiles ... Sammy has his infectious smile ... on a black face with white heads ... and I'm a white kids with black heads ... "you people can't dance."

"Yes I can," I counter.

"Well you can," he says flashing the infectious smile, "but they can't."

I look at what he sees.

"Yeah, they can't," I agree.

Later I'm the one crossing the imaginary line to ask a girl in a purple saffron dress to dance.

We're surrounded by her friends, all black, Sammy smiling, and to this day, I see her black face flash the whitest of smiles, take my hand and we dance, on the other side of the imaginary line.

The following Monday I'm beaten up for dancing with a black girl.

Years later I remember ... sitting in the office Martin Luther King once called his, staring at his stuff ... meeting his wife alone in a hallway of the Ebeneezer Baptist Church ... hanging out with Will D. Campbell who was there the night Dr. King was shot and wrote the preface of my first book ... conquering the racial divide until resentment erupts and the beloved community collapses on top of a dream.

On this day there are parades, sermons, cookouts, white racism, black-on-black murder and white kids from Kentucky wearing "Make America Great Again" baseball caps and Native Americans called racists by Black Hebrew Israelite's.

I've come to believe that Martin Luther King Day in the United States will soon be like Pearl Harbor Day ... except for those who were there ... no one will care.