There are a number of us here who remember those days. When my family moved to Virginia from Oregon in 1949 I was 13 and was taken aback by the fountains and entrances and walled off areas set aside for the 'colored'. At that time and in that place, African Americans literally stepped off the sidewalk to let the White person by.


However, I had not been brought up in a politically and morally educated way and I let it be. When my two older sisters, then aged 22 and 25, joined us in Virginia they were outraged.

They did a lot of talking - ranting, really - the problem was that the powers-that-be considered their kind of talk unseemly and felt that only 'poor white trash' talked that way.

Martin Luther King, Jr. awakened a lot of people. I shudder to think where we might be today hadn't it been for him. He frightened and alienated a great many people- but if he hadn't espoused and adhered to a non-violent approach this country would in all likelihood have torn to pieces.