MLK Day and related matters

Comment by Hunter Bear:  January 15 2004.

This is the season in which Martin King -- and the Movement -- are
especially honored.  And rightly so indeed.  [I always do hope, however,
that Dr King's many positive qualities are not exaggerated to the point that no young person feels he/she can emulate them.  Great man, for sure -- a saint, no.]

More than anything else, we all need to tackle -- with maximum and urgent effectiveness  -- the myriad of contemporary social justice issues confronting  much suffering Humanity.
I knew Martin King -- not deeply and well -- but consistently.  I called him
on the night of June 13 1963 from Jackson -- two days after Medgar Evers was shot and killed.  Our rapidly growing protest demonstrations were being bloodily suppressed.  I asked Dr King to come to Jackson for Medgar's funeral on June 15.  He readily agreed to do so.  We picked him up and several key staff of his -- Ralph Abernathy, Wyatt Walker and others -- at the police-drenched Jackson airport.  It was already very hot and the temperature was to go, that day, to 102 super-humid degrees.  Martin King and Dr Abernathy rode in my car -- along with Bill Kunstler -- and the others were brought by Ed King. We had a very grudging police escort from the city's all-White police department. The Jackson setting could not have been more lethally dangerous for all of us -- but Dr King visited easily and casually with me, and I with him, as we traveled the very dangerous several miles to the Negro Masonic Temple on Lynch Street.  The funeral was huge -- several thousand people, inside and out -- and, following the funeral, six thousand of us marched the two miles or so from the Temple to the Collins Funeral Home on Farish Street. [It was the first "legal" civil rights demonstration in Mississippi's hate-filled, sanguinary history.]  Then, there was a second massive demonstration -- which is discussed in my following post on Medgar Evers.

I knew Medgar Wiley Evers deeply and well.

http://hunterbear.org/medgar_w.htm

http://hunterbear.org/an_idaho_mlk_day_gathering.htm  [One of my earlier, and typical, King Day talks in this region.  Subsequent ones, on King Day and other times on related matters in calmer weather, have drawn much larger audiences.  [Go to the "continue" page immediately following this one if interested in seeing very early photos of Baby Maria with Lois Chaffee and Karin Kunstler [at Tougaloo] and Baby John and Maria with neighborhood friends [at Raleigh.]

Hunter Bear

HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis 
Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk 
Protected by Na´shdo´i´ba´i´ 
and Ohkwari' 
www.hunterbear.org 
(much social justice material)

See the Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:
http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm

For the new, just out (11/2011) and expanded/updated
edition of my "Organizer's Book," JACKSON MISSISSIPPI -- 
with a new and substantial Introduction by me:
http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm

Personal Background Narrative (with many links):
http://hunterbear.org/narrative.htm