King Holiday Ramblings

No one tells a story like Nina Simone. And this song ... produced a few days after the King assassination demonstrates that.

I usually don't focus on King's assassination during his birthday remembrance. But hearing this song today; struggling through this politically toxic year; and treading water through this heart wrenching week the King assassination, for me, has come front and center.




Spring has always been characterized as a time of hope and newness. It's my favorite season because the bright colors of blooming trees and flowers return to my part of the world. Birds songs get a little louder. Windows can remain open to fresh air and all the sounds that were deadened by the need to close ourselves off from the harsh winter cold. But the spring of 1968 was an emotional contradiction. It was the WTF?!? of my generation. And no sooner had we begun the healing from the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in April, we were confronted with the assassination of Robert Kennedy in June.

It's funny how some memories remain resident in your body, waiting for a trigger to reignite them. It's this way for me with this song. It's the trigger for that time and place. It reignites the images, the smells, the feelings. And, coupled with the recent assassinations and assassination attempts in Tuscon, I have been a walking vessel of historical emotions.

I'm was young, fearless, naive and angry. (Not so different from many college students of the '60s.) And, I was also disturbed, restless and impatient. But underneath it all there was this incredible sadness that filled every chamber of my heart. It's funny that now as I remember that time the feeling most present for me is the sadness. The overwhelming sense of loss. The recognition of the fact that a huge void has appeared and replaced the hope of a better world and country. I find myself asking the same question today that I asked myself in 1968. It's another WTF?!? moment. My response is a lot more subdued. I suppose it has something to do with the loss of youth and with it some of that naivete and maybe even some of impatience. Lord knows that I continue to be disturbed and I pray hard enough to never to be motivated by fear.




As we move from the winter months into spring I believe that the resolve of this country will be tested again: as it was with "disunion" and secession; as it was civil rights; as it was with women's rights. It is my hope that we can meet these challenges with less pain, bloodshed and violent discourse then we have in the past It is my hope that come spring we can open our windows to the fresh air of a new day. It is my hope that we will embrace the gift of bright warm colors, and a more vibrant a life sustaining song.