civil disobedience

On April 4th, the anniversary of both Dr. King's 1967 "A Time to Break the Silence" speech and his assassination in Memphis one year later, 11 people reported to federal prison for actions taken in the spirit of Dr. King. Last November, in Columbus, Georgia -- a couple hours from the city of Atlanta where King's ministry was centered -- some 20,000 people gathered outside the walls of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation to call for the closure of this infamous facility, known better as the School of the Americas.

[Ed. Note: The following article will appear in the Spring 2008 issue of Fellowship magazine, and is offered here online in the context of this week's observance of the fortieth anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4, 1968. Click here to subscribe to Fellowship.]

Sitting in our favorite coffeehouse, Tyler Jared, my eldest son, and I are having our “man time.” I am sipping a cappuccino and he is drinking some orange concoction. We stare into one another’s eyes, with an occasional “What?” breaking our silence. We are excited to see each other and saddened by the time we have spent apart. I hold a deep sense of calling that has taken me around the world, but away from him and his siblings. He has grown so much. He is now taller than me, his 13-year-old face starting to break out with pimples, voice cracking, but he is still my baby. I hold his hand and run my fingers through his golden locks. It embarrasses him, but he does not stop me, because I am Dad.

He interrupts the silence. “Dad, everyone knows you want to be like Martin Luther King.”