Another Birthday for Dr. Martin Luther King
The longer I live the greater Martin Luther King looks
compared with those who have tried to carry on his work.
The man had integrity, guts, ideas and class.
It was heartbreaking in the Sixties to be young and
filled with hope for change in America, only to see
JFK, MLK and RFK murdered in the same decade.
Young people of all kinds had hope back then even if
we saw little change. We thought it was time for a quiet
revolution of ideas in America. That never happened.
My hope is Mike Pence doesn’t succeed Donald Trump
the way Lyndon Johnson succeeded Jack Kennedy. We must
find a peaceful way to get through these next four years.
Copyright © 2017 by Donal Mahoney
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Back when Dr. Martin Luther King was doing his work,
Donal Mahoney was a caseworker in the Cabrini Green Homes
on the near North Side of Chicago—458 families in two giant
high rise buildings. Mahoney believes most of those families,
black and poor, had far more hope than their poor counterparts
of any race today. John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy
were still alive. Reform was in the air and people believed
good things would happen. Not as many good things happened
as we thought but it was a great time to be alive.