SOme of us have done the same thing with Barack Obama. He is remarkable in his accomplishments of the last two years, and in his vision for solutions to social flaws and toxins. But, bright and aware, articulate and collected, he is still a man and will be battered with exhaustion, pressure, conflicting demands and frightful responsibilities before this decade is over.

King was shot to death in April, 1968, when he was 39, and I was just 22, a young knockabout heading off to sea. We were thousands of miles apart and entirely separate in our paths in the world, but the news sank in in a moment of petrified awareness in which, just for a moment, I felt terribly connected to him, to his final pain and his hope for everything he had begun. Just for that moment, until the machinery of time reasserted itself and my life went its separate way.

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