In 1517, after much prayer and meditation, a priest and follower of the Catholic monastic life for many years had reached the limit of his patience. The Church, at that time, preached a theology of redemption through "good works", among other things.
Eternal salvation and a quick trip to heaven were open to those who "paid" their way.
It was too much for this deeply committed man, and, as the story is told, he approached the oaken front door of the "All Saints Church" in Wittenberg one October day to boldly tack a list of 95 issues he felt needed to be addressed by the Church.
And, as we know, this was considered a watershed moment for those who would later "protest" what the Church offered as dogma, and who would be known as 'Lutheran' and later, after years of splintered and renewed visions, many churches would live, at times uncomfortably, under the one roof known as "Protestantism".
In 1967 and 1968 this country was embroiled in a conflict in Southeast Asia that many felt was honorable and to be won in an honorable fashion by the United States, it's allies and the established government of South Vietnam.
M.L. King, Jr., was an advocate of civil rights for a large, disenfranchised majority of African Americans in this country; especially the urban enclaves or 'ghettos' of the north and the Jim Crow of the south. But finally, he, like his namesake some 450 years before, and,after several years of expressing private dissatisfaction of a war he did not support, finally spoke out publicly about Vietnam and it's relevance to the cause of civil rights.
These two years of '67 and '68 saw much unrest. There were riots.
On April 4th, 1968 at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis Tennessee, he was shot and killed by James Earl Ray, and while there were those, including Bobby Kennedy, who would himself be felled by a bullet later that year, the country erupted. Washington DC, Baltimore, Louisville, Chicago and so many cities burned, and people died.
At that time I was the host of a radio talk show on a small rural radio station. The day after the riots started I went on the air and made the mistake of proclaiming that I could not completely condemn the violence, for I understood that it was coming from many years of oppression and bottled up anger by a people cheated of their birth rights and pushed into submission.
Before I continue much further let me make it perfectly clear. I was young. Green. Liberal and uneducated in the respect that I could not understand the politics of racial conflict. There were many, black and white, at that time who called for peace. ML. King himself would have mortified at the violence, for he held to the tenets of 'passive resistance' as did one of his heroes, Mahatma Gandhi.
But I was angry at what I saw playing out day after day, year after year, and, in my few years in the Army ,in different parts of the world, including the American south. The nonchalance of hatred expressed by whites. The jokes at poverty's expense. And I had good friends who's skin was a little darker then mine who would hold their tongues when addressed as "boy".
There was a place in the Army DA 2-1(it was a different number back then which I have forgotten) forms, a sort of resume for each soldier that ever put on a uniform, that could be stamped with "May be excused from working along side Negroes." That stipulation blank is no longer on the form.
A few moments after I made that statement, the station was awash with phone calls. The switch-board was over whelmed and the station manager, a short man built like a fire-plug and hailing from Georgia broke into the studio and publicly told me that if I Ever mentioned race again in those terms I would be fired. His face was mottled with red splotches of anger. His eyes were narrow. He knew his job was on the line also. He had always spoken kindly to me and given me, a young announcer, fatherly advice.
From that point forward, he never spoke a kind word to me again.
I had a family. I didn't have a leg to stand on. And, perhaps most damming of all, he was right.
My name was mud in my home town for many years. People would write letters, phone in and requesting, among some things, (I would rather not write about,) that I should "Go back to England where I belonged."( I never quite figured that one out.)
It was a time of change and a time of terrible crimes....some legalized. Twenty percent of the casualties in Vietnam were African American, and, at that time, a little over eleven percent made up the US population.
I regret things from time to time. Perhaps I should have thought before opening my mouth. This is a habit I have always carried and, as you would assume, I still get into trouble.
But that was and is what I think. And I will never...never.... let racial stereotypes and bigotry stand when confronted with them.
OK. End of sermon.
Have a good day .
God bless
George