April 4, 1968

I woke up this morning with these song lyrics playing in my head...


Anybody here seen my old friend Martin?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
He freed lotta people but it seems the good they die young
I just looked around and he's gone
I used to hate that song because I loathed the people in it. I'm still not a Lincoln fan. He's the most mythologized person in American history.

However I think of that song a little differently than I did twenty years ago when Rush Limbaugh's worldview was still gospel. Unfortunately I'm not as optimistic as Dion was regarding their ultimate fate.

I can appreciate how torn some African-American Christians are over King. His views of Christianity were somewhat dubious but if you're a Black American you cannot but be inspired by his life and actions. He's a titan, plain and simple.

I'm afraid I'm a bit of junkie when it comes to that time period. The Cold War, the Kennedy's, Hoover, Nixon, LBJ, McNamara, Vietnam, Wallace, Civil Rights and the semi-Civil War in the South... all of it. It was a captivating time. I don't know what it is but it seems like there were more 'giants' in those day, grand figures who loomed over the social setting. Maybe that's just a romantic notion but it just seems like the characters of today lack the same kind of salt, gravitas, sobriety...something.

Sometimes I cannot get over how young some of these men were. King and the Kennedy's were not old men, nor was Nixon during the 50's. It's interesting reflecting on the shift in culture. I don't think I was particularly mature at twenty, but compared to the up and coming generation? I was an adult. They are children with no spine and no sense of responsibility. And certainly no gravitas.

I think of my grandfather who died last year at 90. He was part of that generation. He was 18 when Peal Harbor happened. He was 45 in 1968. Did he really appreciate the sweeping changes that were happening? I think so, but that generation was so forward looking I wonder sometimes how reflective they were. They pretty happily turned their back on the pre-technological age of the Depression. In the end my grandfather was an Archie Bunker, overwhelmed by the changes and alarmed. He was waiting for the Rapture.

The world has certainly changed since the 4th of April 1968. The tears of Jesse Jackson in November 2008 spoke volumes. Regardless of what you think of him it was hard not to be moved by his emotion.

But it has by no means changed as much as the Sixties generation hoped it would. Later that year as SDS battled Daley in the streets of Chicago, Richard Nixon walked into the White House. Even though he was brought down, and Ford was but fodder for Chevy Chase, after the failed presidency of Jimmy Carter, the Right regained the Executive and worked hard to undo the changes of the 60's and establish powers and paradigms not easily undone.

Anyway I'll be humming that song today. I'm not sure why that one popped into my head. As I type it occurs to me that these lyrics should have popped into my head:

Early morning, April 4
Shot rings out in the Memphis sky
Free at last, they took your life
They could not take your pride

That's more my generation, something I would have heard riding the bus on the way to school. But... as usual I feel more connection to the past.