Every January, as I read and listen to the tributes to Martin Luther King Jr., I think not only about what Dr. King gave the world, but also about what he gave me personally.
On his 1963 visit to Cleveland, Dr. King spoke from the back of a flatbed truck at a park not far from our neighborhood. My mother, who'd grown up in Alabama during the reign of Jim Crow, took me, then 9 years old, with her to see her hero.
She made sure to arrive early enough to claim a space near the front of the crowd. And when Dr. King leaned down to shake hands, my mother lifted me up and thrust me forward, thrilled to see the civil rights icon clasping her daughter's small, outstretched hand. My mother was rapturous. I was too young to understand the hullabaloo, but I felt for a moment as if I had encountered a deity.
