Today, as many of you I'm sure are aware thanks to the Internet and its many reminders, is the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Like many of us who were alive forty-five years ago on the day when the news came that MLK had been shot dead, I remember where I was. But it doesn't matter.
What matters is the world has changed, especially here in the United States, for the better in many ways that can be directly or indirectly attributed to the example, the presence, the activism and words of Martin Luther King Jr. Even in my clan's ancestral home, Ireland, King's nonviolent marches and demonstrations against segregation and the treatment of African-Americans as second class citizens in their own country inspired the non-violent marches and demonstrations of Northern Ireland's Catholics against their oppression as second class citizens in their own country.
I'm still waiting for the definitive biopic, the movie that will do for Martin Luther King Jr.'s story what so many other biopics have done for fellow citizens of the USA who have had much less of an impact.
In the meantime, I have his collected speeches which continue to be inspirational.
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