PANEL OF CONTRIBUTORS: Thinking about Martin Luther King's life PANEL OF CONTRIBUTORS: Thinking about Martin Luther King's life (January 14, 2004)

By Henry Organ

As I begin celebrating the birthday (January 15, 1929) of Martin Luther King, Jr., I have re-read the speech Dr. King gave when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo in 1964. He accepted the award with rightful pause and somberness, reminding the distinguished audience of the continuing and brutal struggle for civil rights for African Americans in the United States

In the address, he spoke of "tortuous roads," such as those through Montgomery, Alabama, and Philadelphia, Mississippi.

"When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds and our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, we will know that we are living in the creative turmoil of a genuine civilization struggling to be born," he told the Oslo audience.

That struggle continues, and so does the research and scholarship on this noble mission by Dr. King. Among the most prominent is the King Papers Project (www.leland.stanford.edu) at Stanford, founded in 1985 under the directorship of Professor of History Clayborne Carson.

An informative way to honor Dr. King's memory would be to attend an open house reception at the project's office in Cypress Hall D, 466 Via Ortega, at Stanford on Friday, January 16, from 2 to 4:30 p.m.

When Dr. King visited Stanford in April of 1967, little did I know he would be his last trip to the peninsula. It was an opportunity to see and hear him that I regret missing very much. (I also missed seeing Nobelist Nelson Mandela, when he had to cut short a visit he made to Oakland several years ago.)

In his address at Stanford's Memorial Auditorium, Dr. King repeated a challenging statement he has made on other occasions:

"We may have to repent in this generation, not for the violent actions of bad people but for the inaction of good people who have the . . . notion that time will cure all evil." (Stanford Daily, April 17, 1967).

Henry Organ lives in Menlo Park and is a member of the Almanac's Panel of Contributors.

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