A Letter On the Ninetieth Birthday of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dear Dr. King, humankind's indelible visionary; a relentless, courageous drum major and prophet,

Tommorow would be your ninetieth birthday. The world remembers you, a man of uncompromising eloquence, a man utterly dedicated to advancing goodness, decency, kindless, compasion, empathy, understanding, harmony, and faith into the human condition. And what a man of grace you were! Now some ninety years after your birth, your memory illuminates the recognition of freedom in the United States of America, a country founded on the very principles of freedom. How cogently you intoned the clarion calls for freedom when your feet waled through prayer upon prayer as you wended your way along the streets of the North and South in the Land of the Free! How magnificent was your resounding voice from the pulpit in the Ebenezer Baptist Church! How absolutely mesmerizing were your sermons!

Sir, your words, ideas, thoughts, and, I dare say, even memes, nurtured the thinking American populace as well as your global listeners and readers from strength to strength year after year. The Civil Rights Movement was a period in modern times of heady consciousness tantamount to profound conscience. While I was a mere eighteen years old at the time of your untimely assassination, I fully remember--and will always remember--your bright, dynamic, ignited countenance as you declaimed with rapturous, yet fully controlled, equanimity your prophetic proclamation in your classic "I Have A Dream" speech on August 28, 1963, at the feet of the Lincoln Memorial, in Washington, DC, of a time for all Americans to be human, humane, caring inhabitants of a land based on the premise that all of its citizens are equal before the law; all of its residents have stock in the "city upon the hill"; all of those members of the very same genus and species--homo sapiens--living out their lives in this republic called the United States of America offering limitless democratic opportunities--these members of the place referred to as a land of hope and promise will, indeed, prescribe a prosperous, fruitful, awesome future for your children as well as all of its children irrespective of their race, religion, creed, culture, traditions, customs, or mores.

In the early 1980s, I taught English at a small all-girl African-American school named Aquinas Catholic High School, located in the Southshore neighborhood at 6700 South Jeffrey on the southside of Chicago, Illinois. I fully recollect one of the singers sharing a spiritual during Black History Month in which she declaimed at the top of her lungs that she was running for her life. Her rendition was so moving that I felt as though all of Afro-American history was calling out to those present like the shofar, the ram's horn, calls out to the attention of the Jews at times such as before the advent of a battle, a time of extraordinary distress or need, the gathering for a major holiday, or the preparation of a major memorable event.

Sir, such was your speech at the Lincoln Memorial, where some 250,000 witnesses heard your most magnificent dream! One of my father's first cousins was present there that day. He was a witness! When I heard his recollection of your speech, I believe that in my heart of hearts I was also a witness!

At Aquinas on another occasion, the faculty, staff and entire student body were privileged to listen to Yolanda perform for us! I cannot remember what she sang, what she told us, or what she wanted us to remember about her performance: I do remember how she made me feel! I feel more human, humane, alive! The chemistry in that auditorium was preternatural to say the least! Yolanda reminded me of you, sir, in the brilliance of her demeanor and the depth of her subliminal message that every person present was SOMEONE!

Dear sir,

As a koehn whose commitment to G-d's Word is uncompromising, steadfast, in addition to searing, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your probity, service, and commitment to the one and only G-d together with the one and only race, that is, the human race.

With boundless earnestness, gratitude, love, and respect,

Yoel David Nitzarim