I Have A Dream

Today is Martin Luther King day. I know that he was a man who had many foibles, but he had a knack and a heart for getting to the core of the matter. His "I Have a Dream" speech is a once in a lifetime speech. I remember hearing it as a 9 year old, not really knowing the content or the significance. I just remember seeing him say the now famous words, "I have a dream..."
Ivory James used to come over to our house. He was a preacher with whom my dad and mother associated. I have a 8 mm movie of him at the Ohio Valley Lectures (Not to be confused with the Ohio Valley College lectures) where he stops us (he thinks) from filming him until he can cough and gain his composure for the picture. He thought we had a still camera; it was a movie camera. I remember hearing Mom and Dad laugh about that every time we saw that movie. He was the black preacher of the Church of Christ in our town and we associated with him freely. It was never an issue of skin color, for my parents loved the man and his heart. Looking back on this, it was the early 60s and my parents never thought twice about having a black man in our house to share a common meal.
Lot Therrio was a friend and club brother of mine from Harding. His name was really Laconia O'Neal Therrio. Take the three initials of his name and you get "Lot." He spent spring break with me at my house. My parents were gone and Lot had nowhere to go. I never thought twice about his skin color (he was also black). He was my friend.
I look forward to the day when we don't refer to our African-American brothers and sisters as our "black friends." Why not just our friends?
A few years ago I was visiting Arlington National Cemetery in Washington. The guide on the bus pointed out some small tombstones toward the back of the cemetery. Some of the oldest graves in the plot were those of former slaves who found themselves on the Northern side of the line during the Civil War. When they buried them in Arlington, they place their names on the tombstones and then the word "Citizen." It was probably the first time they had been called that. Ashamedly, it was after their deaths.
I hope and pray we will live by the words of Martin Luther King when he said, "I have a dream that my four little children willl one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." Amen, Mr. King. Amen! Have a good day. JW