A Night to Remember

Wow! Tonight Barry and I went to the College of the Mainland to hear the Reverend Samuel "Billy" Kyles (recipient of the Tennessee Living Legend Award) give his eyewitness account of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. It was truly a moving experience. What started out to be a trickle of people turned out to be standing room only. Pastor Jones from Galveston gave a heartfelt and true to life rendition of the "I Have a Dream" speech. He was fantastic. I found myself self-consciously dealing with tears rolling down my cheeks. Before he spoke, a 100-year-old black woman by the name of Mrs. Edith Randolph, from the Sunlight Baptist Church in Galveston, slowly made her way to the podium and sang a moving solo. They both received a well deserved standing ovation.

We didn't think the keynote speaker could top those two, but he did. He encouraged the young people to clean up the environment, take full advantage of achieving an education, and to register to vote. The thread to his speech was a statement that Robert Louis Stevenson made to his mother after she asked him why he kept staring out the window, "I'm watching that man poke holes in the darkness," he said, as he watched a man use his ladder to climb light pole after light pole and light each of them. MLK represents the man and his ladder poking holes in the darkness. He was assassinated in an attempt to squash his "dream," but instead, as this witness to a crucification said, "...thousands of little lights began poking holes in the darkness, hallelujah, hallelujah, halleujah..." and now his dream is being lived.

To think I would not have known he was speaking here if I hadn't checked the paper today makes me sick. He and MLK, Jr. were friends and fellow preachers. Rev. Kyle and Rev. Abernathy spent the last hour with MLK before he was shot while standing on the balcony of a hotel looking down at and speaking to Jesse Jackson. keels shares that fine speaking ability that MLK had. The crowd thoroughly enjoyed his speech and his spirit. He is truly inspiring to the young and old.

I feel genuinely blessed to have been in the presence of such a special and unique man.