Senator Hank Sanders: Senate Sketches # 1232

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The very sound of the name raises powerful images in our minds. The images vary from person to person and group to group. But each is powerful in its own way. I also have my images.

  One of the enduring images for me came at the end of the Selma to Montgomery March on March 25, 1965. Some of us students from Talladega College stuffed ourselves into a Volkswagen Beetle and journeyed to St. Jude just outside the City of Montgomery to join the last leg of the March. We marched from St. Jude to Dexter Avenue, but we were so far down the street we could not see Dr. King’s facial features as he spoke. But I still have a powerful image of the moment.

Arthur L. Browning: What is the real legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.?

  I have been hearing news coverage of the recent discussion in social and political circles about the real legacy of Martin Luther King. This began even before the MLK holiday.

  Whatever the reason for these many allusions to Martin Luther King's importance to America or effects on American Civil Rights, I heard the discussions sadly lacking the elemental importance of MLK's work.

  Martin Luther King was absolutely feared by many whites as a trouble maker. I am white and I can tell you at the time many Americans did not know about or understand the Civil Rights movement. Most Americans did not understand Viet Nam or racial inequality either. Most Americans just heard bits and pieces in the news and then rumors passed from acquaintance to acquaintance.