Are you ready for a quiz?
Okay.
What does this date mean to you: April 4, 1968.
Sounds familiar. Does it have to do with civil rights?
You’re right. It was the day Martin Luther King was shot and killed in Memphis. He was in town for an event and he was standing on a motel balcony.
Then a shot rang out and King was dead.
Sad. But do you have a connection to that?
In a way. You may remember all the turmoil that followed. Protests. Riots in the streets. Many cities.
I heard about it.
Well, just by coincidence, the students at Bowie State College — it’s University now — were unhappy about inadequate funding by the state legislature.
So they went to the State House in Annapolis and staged what you might call a lie-in.
The President of our NAACP branch heard about it and thought there might be trouble when the police began to arrest them.
But Sam was recuperating from a heart attack so he asked me — I was Vice President — to go to the police station to observe and to see that there was no rough stuff.
And you went?
I went and I found that it all went peacefully.
Good.
So that was a bright spot in an otherwise dark day.