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Born May 18, 1953; got saved at Truett Memorial BC in Hayesville, NC 1959. On rigged ballot which I did not rig got Most Intellectual class of 71, Gaffney High School. Furman Grad, Sociology major but it was little tougher than Auburn football players had Had three dates with beautiful women the summer of 1978. Did not marry any of em. Never married anybody cause what was available was undesirable and what was desirable was unaffordable. Unlucky in love as they say and even still it is sometimes heartbreaking. Had a Pakistani Jr. Davis Cupper on the Ropes the summer of 84, City Courts, Rome Georgia I've a baby sitter, watched peoples homes while they were away on Vacation. Freelance writer, local consultant, screenwriter, and the best damn substitute teacher of Floyd County Georgia in mid 80's according to an anonymous kid passed me on main street a few years later when I went back to get a sandwich at Schroeders. Had some good moments in Collinsville as well. Ask Casey Mattox at www.clsnet.org if he will be honest about it. I try my best to make it to Bridges BBQ in Shelby NC at least four times a year.

Friday, April 04, 2008

My God They Killed Him

Forty years ago today in Memphis.
Ironically it was a woman named Sandra whose last name I honestly can't remember who called the Pastorium there on Dogwood Drive, where my Dad was a preacher.
I answered the phone in my parents bedroom cause I was in that end of the house, could look over another road and see the same steeple a former President of the American Textile Manufacturers Inst who later had a private conversation out west with President Ford once testified gave him comfort as he looked down from Sunset Drive every evening after his Devotions.
She said something to the effect Martin Luther King got killed out in Memphis. I know you and your family was fond of him and his people and I thought I would call to let you know.
That is kinda how I remember it.
Since I have become acquainted with Jim Henry's daughter, Kate Campbell. As Jimmy Durham says she does a great job with Kris Kristofferson's My God They Killed Him. I told a Tyler on the way down to this library today. Was proud of him for knowing the historical significance of this day.

There was a man named Mahatma Ghandi
He would not bow down, he would not fight
He knew the deal was down and dirty
And nothing wrong could make it right away

But he knew his duty, and the price he had to pay
Just another holy man who tried to make a stand
MY GOD, THEY KILLED HIM !

Another man from Atlanta, Georgia
By the name of Martin Luther King
He shook the land like rolling thunder
And made the bells of freedom ring today
With a dream of beauty that they could not burn away
Just another holy man who dared to be a friend
MY GOD, THEY KILLED HIM !

The only son of God Almighty
The holy one called Jesus Christ
Healed the lame and fed the hungry
And for his love they took his life away
On the road to glory where the story never ends
Just the holy son of man we'll never understand
MY GOD, THEY KILLED HIM !

Sing about Mahatma Ghandi
Sing of Martin Luther KingSing Of Jesus Christ Almighty

The great Jaroslav Pelikan in his classic Jesus Through the Centuries wrote of King in the Chapter on Christ the Liberator:

"But in his death he carried out what he knew in his life, that he had been called to follow in the footsteps of Another".

Caps intentional by Pelikan.


What Mention of King will your Baptist Church make this Sunday morning?

2 Comments:

Blogger foxofbama said...

Donofrio?

Do you live in Collinsville?
Do you have anything to say about Robert Parham's column today.
Will you and the Christian Ladies of Collinsville see to it that Parham is quoted in Church Sunday Morning????

"Is Tolliver's criticism of the Confederate flag similar to the praise heaped on Rosa Parks in Baptist Press the day after she died—words without moral weight?



When it counted, white Baptist leaders were silent about Parks' sacrifice and mostly unsupportive of the civil rights movement. When she died, leaders called her "a towering figure during the civil rights period."



Or is the situation akin to what happened when a Southern Baptist agency trustee in 1988 called Martin Luther King a fraud and said that apartheid "doesn't exist anymore, and it was beneficial when it did."



Trustee Curtis Caine said, "We have to be very careful that we don't get caught up in the endorsement of--quote 'the reverend,' unquote--Martin Luther King."



When it mattered, some ministers criticized his words. Then, Southern Baptists re-elected him to a second term on that agency's board.



Rallies and services will be held this weekend across the nation, marking the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, on April 4, 1968.



Many Baptists are committed to racial reconciliation, equality and justice, especially in the abstract. What is the quality of our application in real time? Do our commitments have a moral weightiness to building the beloved community about which King preached?



Robert Parham is executive director of the Baptist Center for Ethics."

1:41 PM  
Blogger Diane J Standiford said...

What an excellent commentary.

10:14 PM  

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