I’m a little saddened every year about this time. It’s not only because of the weather, which is cold and damp and gray and dim. The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday is an official holiday in the U.S. and although the holiday celebrates his birth, it is his death that I remember on the holiday. I was a college student in 1968 when Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered. I was studying for some examination with a friend in the dorm. I am guessing that the test was for French, which was my worst subject. I never made time to study it; the French text book always ended up at the bottom of the stack of books I had to read or study. I was in my friend’s dorm room and the radio was on, as was usual. The campus radio station broadcast a great selection of rock, classical, jazz, just everything all mixed up together with some occasional dialog about current events on campus and in the country. The war in Vietnam would have been a primary topic then. It was quiet in the room. My friend was at his desk, I was sitting on his roommate’s bed with my back against the painted cinder block wall. His roommate was away somewhere. The radio sat on the desk and was just loud enough for both of us to hear. The D.J. came on after a long set of music, sounding tired, and announced that Martin Luther King, Jr. had been shot while on the balcony of his hotel room in Atlanta, Georgia. My friend, without a word, turned around and looked at me, pained, then stood up and walked from the room. I don’t know where he went, but he wasn’t in class for the test the next day. After he left, I just sat there, stunned. The room was quiet. The radio was on, but there was no music and the D.J. didn’t speak for a long time. I sat on the bed and thought to myself: “This is the end, then. This ends all hope for a peaceful resolution. We are truly alone now.” And I still think, that in some way, that is how I feel. We are alone now, having lost something that can never be regained.

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