Slain activist King represented hope

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Tansi, ahnee and hello. When I was a boy the world was a place of voices. Long before my history became cemented with images and faces there was sound. In the early 1960s my world was a purely sonic place and the voices I recall so fondly at 37 resonate as clearly now as they did back then.

There were, of course, the Beatles. Curt Gowdy and Pee Wee Reese calling baseball, Foster Hewitt live from the gondola in Maple Leaf Gardens, Elvis, Aretha, Mr. Ed and Patsy Cline still reverberate throughout these long years too.

But of all the disparate voices of that fabulous decade, one rings clearer, louder and more insistently than any other. It's the voice of a man whose framed photograph rests above my bed, a voice that even then in the topsy-turvy world of boys, calmed, assured and comforted me.

Every Jan. 18, I celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day. For me, as an adult, Martin epitomized peace, brotherhood, sacrifice and dedication. His absence from this world is merely physical for he is part of the rain and always with us.

I remember seeing scenes of the race riots which were devastating America on nightly newscasts. In my small world such violence was horrifying. I can recall sneaking secretive glances all around me as I walked to and from school, always wondering when the outbreak would occur in our town.

But this was the Canada of the mid-60s. We existed in relative calm then. Our racial problems simply smoldered beneath the pacific surface of a country which, even then, billed itself as a world leader in human rights. I'd learn different, of course, in time, but then it seemed we were free of such discord.

Then I recall seeing the man behind the voice. He stood at a podium in front of a throng of thousands talking passionately about his God, his people and his dream. They listened. They listened and they prayed, sang and celebrated and nowhere was there evidence of the carnage strewn across the streets of America.

They listened. And as he spoke in that clear, modulating voice, the cultural, political and spiritual aspirations of those people began to ride on every pitch and swell. They listened.

He spoke of a consciousness that swells in each and every one of us. A consciousness that slumbers, sometimes, goes unheeded lots, but never ever dies. A consciousness constantly shopping for that spark which will ignite it to life again.

That consciousness is built on truth, he said. The truth of our identities as human beings, the validity of our existence and the common human frailties which bind us together as much as they threaten to tear us apart. That truth is a spiritual truth and the spark which ignites if to flame is the faith that is built through adversity.

Such is the key to brotherhood. Only a spiritual approach could solve the magnitude of spiritual problems facing the world of the 60s. Racism is, and always has been, a spiritual disease. A blatant revocation of the fact that we are all created by a singular, loving, nurturing Creator who goes by many names. In this, we are all brothers.

I didn't hear that then, of course. I was only a boy and the weight of the words was still beyond my understanding. Still, the image of those throngs of people standing in peaceful, orderly silence was in stark contrast to the images of rioting, looting and beating.

Above it all was the voice. In retrospect I realize that it was the first time I'd ever heard hope personified. The first time I witnessed the power of the Creator moving through one of our own. It was, and is, a profound and lasting image.

It would take me years before I could revisit those speeches and understand. Years before I would work, through my own deeply ingrained racist attitudes and learn the key to brotherhood, peace and survival. Years before my own consciousness, the truth of my own identity, would be rekindled through the teachings of our elders.

They killed Martin. Killed him because the truth is often unbearable to those

with power. Because wen you offer the key to individual freedom you offer the key

to freedom for an entire people. The free uncontrolled will of a people is a dangerous political adversary. And they killed him.

But his voice remains. It remains in the hunt for self-government, sexual equality, security and peace. It is, after all, the truth. When you know and understand the truth of your own reality, your own spiritual essence, such things as politics become irrelevant because you will always survive.

And in this, we are all brothers. Until next time, Meegwetch.