The "MLK: I've Been To The Mountain Top - My Memories Part I" Story

The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

It was an ordinary day.  April 4, 2018 and I'm trying to remember what I might have been doing 50 years ago on this date.  What were you doing 50 years ago today?  I must admit it seems a bit fuzzy to me, but I can remember a bit of the history and personal events that led up to this day 50 years ago  as well as a few moments and happenings that took place after this day 50 years ago.  It was on this date half century ago that Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.  My wife and I had been married a few days over nine months.  She was busy with her job at a cancer detection office in the city of Lancaster, PA while I was busy teaching my first year at Manheim Township High School.  I can remember heading home and being glued to the TV with my wife as we watched all the horrible facts leading to the death of one of the apostles of nonviolence in the civil rights movement.  

The Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.

Walter Cronkite opened the CBS news that evening with the news that  “Dr. Martin Luther King  had been shot to death in Memphis, Tennessee.  Dr. King was a strong voice for the African-American citizens of our country as well as Lancaster.  The amount of African-Americans living in the city of Lancaster 50 years ago wasn't huge, but was growing, especially in the southeastern section of the city.  I grew up in an area of Lancaster where there were no African-Americans to be found.  My introduction to new friends, other than white, came when I was 12 years old.  I wanted to play organized baseball and my dad saw an advertisement in the local paper telling of tryouts for a youth team.  He took me to the tryouts in the southeast end of the city at a county park and I was one of just a few white players at the field.  I thought nothing of it and made the team along with perhaps 5 other white players and the rest black players. My coach, who I loved, was Mr. Joe Hawkins, an African-American.  Hey, I was there to play baseball and could have cared less as to the color of our skin.  I knew no difference, since my parents never said anything about skin color when I was a child.  Dad volunteered to pick up players from the African-American community on game days and we all loaded into the back of our big Buick stationwagon.  We had one of the best teams in the city during that summer and I gained many new friends, both black and white.  And, I thought nothing of it.  Years later I found out many people didn't think the same way!  When I entered high school I don't recall a single African-American classmate throughout my four years of high school.  I do remember during my high school years reading about a few of Lancaster's summer swimming pools not allowing blacks to swim at them and remembering black protesters marching near the pools to protest the practice.  "Why can't they swim there?" I remember asking my mom and dad, who never gave me an answer.  I can remember seeing two of my baseball team members in one of the photos and wondering if I should go and march with him, but never did.  Throughout this time period, Mr. King was speaking about segregation and I started to realize what he was talking about, both on the local and national levels.  But, Mr. King talked more than just about segregation, adding the Vietnam War as well as poverty issues to his agenda.  I must admit I was mesmerized many times while listening to him on television and radio.  

African-Americans marching at Rocky Springs swimming pool.

When I entered college at nearby Millersville State Teachers College it was quite a change from my all-white high school.  I can remember a group of people whom I got to know during that first year who were both black and white and we all ate lunch together at the "Rat Race."  I thought nothing about it and was beginning to wonder why it wasn't this way in high school.  One of my friends  at Millersville was a fellow by the name of Leroy Hopkins.  I recently read that he had made a trip with friends to Philadelphia as part of a group lead by Mrs. Betty Tompkins who was a member at St. James Episcopal Church where I was a member and sang in the church choir.

A true Hero!!

 While there they saw Dr. Martin Luther King speak and he said he knew he was in the presence of a great man.  Then it struck me; some people don't like the African-Americans since their skin is black!!  I read on and found Mrs. Tompkins was a member of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) where she was the education secretary.  I began to realize that there was more to the black and white issue than I ever realized.  I was finally growing up!  Not long after I fell in love and got married and shortly April 4th, 1968 arrived.  Wow!  How could I not see what was happening.  How naive could one be?  How could someone shoot Dr. Martin Luther King...someone who a friend of mine though to be a great man; just because he was black!!  Tomorrow I will tell you a bit more about my life and how I began to understand the civil rights movement.  My head was finally pulled out of the hole it certainly must have been in since birth.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.