When Dr. King had first come up from the south, the people in my city welcomed him with the detached coolness that a stranger from a far off place receives.  Little could I realize, then, that he would work outside of time itself, as we know it.  He marched not only for the rights of Blacks, but the many unspoken for -- Hispanics, people unseen in glossy catalogs, our women, gays, the aged - a veritable procession of unseen faces, yeah the unspoken for.  Wait just a minute!  This is me, too, having experienced discrimination -- I'll never dance at fifty again -- due to being over the optimal age prescribed by corporate America.

( By the way, it's getting lower.) But how could I know?  How could anyone have this much vision?  Is he not the godfather of all protest movements from here on out?

In fact, Dr. King took the name of the man who challenged the mega orgainization of his time, yeah, The Big One, who would run this parallel universe of not only controlling religion but the countries that operated within this larger empire, the people who thought it their birthright to run the whole show.  When Luther nailed his proclamation to the door of that church, it made the statement of the times.  He took on them all.

And won.

Are we not treading the same waters with OW.  The really cool thing is, that MLK does not have to be here to fight this.  He knew.  Maybe we could not see but he did.  Knew.   And, last fall, when those kids at UC Davis were shamelessly pepper-sprayed, maybe this was the shot that started something:  not retribution.  But an awakening.  From the dream.

Yes, to dream.  Resolutely dream.

Thank you, Dr. King.