For me, radicalization started in 1964 when a high school English teacher assigned Dr King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Written in the form of St. Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth, Dr. King’s letter to white clergymen remains my favorite of his writings. It was written on scraps of paper smuggled out of the jail. Caroline Kennedy included it in her Patriot’s Handbook because of its power and simplicity.

I have been to the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis twice and was deeply and permanently moved. But, it was at the National Museum at Central High School in Little Rock that my knees buckled and I was reduced to uncontrollable sobbing tears. After seeing it, I could never use the word awesome for anything else.  What those children and their parents did tops awesome.