In 1968

Growing up, my family went to church every weekend. We were faithful Christians. Our church met in a nice brick building on one of the main streets in town. Everyone there was white.

In 1968 my Dad began to take our family to an African-American congregation in our town. They met in a simple white frame building on the "other side of the tracks." Dad took us to visit at least once a month during 1968. The Christians who met at the African-American church were kind and loving and welcomed us with open arms. We worshipped our Lord together.

In the spring of 1968 Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated. Dad and I had gone to visit a lady from church when the news came over the television. Dad and the lady were shocked. I remember the lady's hands flying to her face as she muttered, "Oh, my!"

During the drive home, Dad was quiet. I finally asked him if everything was all right. He told me that he was sad about Dr. King and worried about our country. I was 7 1/2 years old.

The next weekend Dad took us to the African-American church. We worshipped our Lord together.

It took years before I realized how revolutionary my Dad was in 1968. As a little kid, I had no idea he was doing anything out of the mainstream by loading his pigment-challenged family into the old Chevy II and driving us across town to worship with brothers and sisters in Christ who were a different hue than us. I never dreamed that this action could be looked upon as wrong by the members of our home church. Such is the naïveté of a seven year old in the South in 1968.

In the fall of 1968, when I was 8 years old, Mrs. Minnie King did the unthinkable. She gathered up her family and drove them across town to worship with her brothers and sisters in Christ in the all white church that met in the nice brick building. And she never left. Oh, you could have heard a pin drop the first day Minnie walked in with her children. But she held her head high. Our family already knew the Kings from visiting her church. Cindy and I knew her children. We welcomed them and Minnie decided to break an invisible barrier. She stayed.

Ten years later, we broke another barrier when Minnie King came to a wedding shower for me and TJ which was held at my grandmother's house. I'm pretty sure that grandma had never had an African-American person in her house until Minnie King came to our wedding shower. Grandma squirmed and Minnie just laughed. We all just laughed. Together.

And so today, the official holiday for Dr. Martin Luther King, I honor not only the memory of the tremendous man for whom this holiday is named, I also honor the memory of my Dad and Minnie King, who were revolutionaries in their own special ways.