The meaning of King

By NICOLE HUTCHESON, Times Staff Writer
Published January 21, 2008

ADVERTISEMENT [AP photo (1963)] Martin Luther King Jr. acknowledges the crowd at the Lincoln Memorial for his "I Have a Dream" speech during a march on Washington on Aug. 28, 1963.

Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed of a color-blind world. His approach was nonviolent, yet his life ended in a bloody assassination on April 4, 1968. Each year, the nation honors the fallen leader near his birthday, Jan. 15. Some see it as a "black holiday." But a simple look at our daily interactions - from attending school to falling in love - show we are all influenced by King's push for a world that did not let skin color divide. Perhaps the best way to understand his legacy is to imagine a life without King. It's a question we asked a few people around the Tampa Bay area to ponder.

How would your life be different if Martin Luther King Jr. had never existed?

"It is because of Dr. King and the civil rights movement that racist immigration laws, limiting nonwhite immigration to our country, were changed in 1965. My parents moved here, from India, soon after these laws changed. The fact that I was born here and am American is directly because of Dr. King's vision of equality irrespective of race or nationality."

The Rev. Manish Mishra, 36, St. Petersburg, leader of the Unitarian Universalist Church of St. Petersburg.

"I couldn't attend my school and I would have to go to an all-black school ... I couldn't meet my friends who are Hispanic, white and Asian. And since some of my teachers are white, they wouldn't be able to teach me. But the most important thing is I wouldn't be able to perform at the Performing Arts Center with my teachers, Ms. Ryan and Ms. Cermeno. I was in Little Shop of Horrors. I played Audrey. I had to do a solo song called Suppertime."

Xavier Redrick, 11, sixth-grader at Sam Rampello Downtown Partnership School, Tampa.

"I grew up in St. Petersburg under segregation and during the social and political upheavals of the 1960s. It's hard for me to imagine getting through difficult times without King's strong, faithful voice. I always found hope in his examples and speeches."

John Arnaldi, 56, coordinator at University of South Florida's Division of Research Integrity and Compliance, Clerk of the Peace and Social Concerns Committee for the Tampa Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).

"He inspired people all over the world - not just in the struggle for civil rights - but in a struggle to do the right thing every day. Every day I go to work I get an opportunity to do something the right way or the wrong way and I think someone like Dr. King set an example for what we should do. Without him, there may not have been someone to set the bar that high."

Stephen Jones, 37, a Web developer and Venus' husband, Tampa.

"I met my husband Steve in college when he joined my Cultural Diversity Committee. In Dr. King's day, cultural diversity wasn't strongly promoted. Many states even had laws against interracial marriage that fortunately have since been removed in the spirit of freedom and allowing people to marry someone they love."

Venus Jones, 33, author, poet and actress, Stephen's wife, Tampa.

[Last modified January 20, 2008, 19:59:25]