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01/19/2004: "MLK"
I think the murder of Dr. King must have changed us a lot. My parents were Nixon supporters in 1960, and by 1970 they were vehement opponents. In 1968 the only blacks ("Negroes", then) on my radar were George Scott and Reggie Smith, the two African-Americans on the Boston Red Sox. Yaz won another batting title that year, and Martin Luther King was killed. The Torreys and my parents were probably instrumental in trying to lead our church toward some kind of liberal activism, in the wake of that death, and half-assed and naive as that effort was, it was well-intentioned. We worshipped at a black church once or twice; it baffles me that there were enough black Presbyterians to form a church in Boston in those days, when there were hardly any white Presbyterians in the area then. I never understood why we were there, but it must have been some sort of gesture toward reconciliation and unity. Nothing much came of it, and shortly the repercussions of the whole thing drove my Dad out of church leadership and one week we found ourselves to be Episcopalians. The more I think of it, the more I realize that this life, which I didn't see touching myself while it was being lived, has continued to effect mine from the day it ended to now.
