Ask yourself this question. If you had a chance to change the course of human history, but received serious threats to your life and knew that you would continue to do so with each step you took towards your goal, would you take it?

        Would you endanger not only your own life, but those of your parents, spouse and children? Would you speak to crowds in open air venues where security would be next to impossible and an assassin could literally be in any shadow or hiding in any bush? 

        Would you subject yourself to public ridicule as falsehoods about your character and patriotism were bandied about as if they were gospel? Would you risk throwing away a quiet middle-class existence for the poorest of the poor who are largely ignorant to the possibilities and freedoms which they have been denied?

        Would you martyr yourself for the cause of basic human dignity knowing that in your death there would still be those who would revile the very mention of your name?

        If you answer yes to all of these questions, then you would be my hero just like Reverend Martin Luther King Junior. This Monday January 19, 2009 I'll be standing on the cold streets of Downtown Houston to honor a man who reminded our nation and the world of the words of Thomas Jefferson when he said in one of the greatest oratories in history "We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal." and stated quite earnestly that "justice delayed is justice denied."

         Doctor King was assassinated a year and a half before I was born and my memories of him as of many in my generation are from audio tapes,  grainy film strips of his speeches and this history books that which have been my lifelong obsession. Doctor King's legacy is not simply that of a great black American, but of a great American. He is a credit to those who laid down their lives on the battle fields of Lexington and concord and those who would do so later at Gettysburg and Shiloh.  He makes me proud to be an American. I can't help but be reminded of the words of Bono lead singer of the Irish rock group U2. He said of his admiration of Martin Luther King that his respect came from the fact that Dr. King "Was willing to give a life, but not willing to take a life."

Happy Birthday Doctor King.