| James Ragland: We tread on the road MLK paved 01/15/2001 By James Ragland / The Dallas Morning News I spent a couple of hours last week driving and walking along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Dallas.
It seemed like a good place to spend a little time reflecting on one of the most dynamic leaders this country has ever had.
The street itself is rather unspectacular, although it has some notable landmarks: Madison High School, the Dallas Black Chamber of Commerce, Graham's Barbershop, the MLK Community Center and the old Forest Avenue Theater.
There's a string of eateries, from Hardeman's B-B-Q to Captain Bill's Seafood and Williams Chicken. There are funeral homes and insurance offices, dry cleaners and beauty salons, liquor stores, a carwash and a church. About two dozen people were hanging around the bus stop in front of the Minyard grocery store at the corner of MLK and Robert B. Cullum Boulevard. As they boarded a DART bus, others trickled in to replace them.
Intersecting lives
It's a fairly busy street.
Still, just about every big city in America, and even some small ones, have a boulevard or road named after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Not all of them, however, intersect with a Malcolm X Boulevard. And given how the two men's lives intersected in the '60s, how they followed different paths to reach some common goals, perhaps it's a little ironic that their boulevards would cross each other.
Most of us will spend some time today thinking about Dr. King because he was born Jan. 15, 1929, in Atlanta. On April 4, 1968, he was assassinated by a sniper's bullet on a motel balcony in Memphis, where he had gone to support a strike of poorly paid sanitation workers.
His life was way too short, and I often wonder how much better America might be today if his voice hadn't been so tragically silenced.
I said his voice, not his message.
He was such a gifted orator that too often many of us focus on his brilliant capacity to turn heads by turning phrases, and we forget his plea for all of us to uplift humanity by lifting up our brothers and sisters.
He had such a powerful message of peace and hope, and an admirable agenda that called for people, programs and policies to tackle the evils of racism, poverty and war.
While Malcolm urged black people to demand basic human rights "by any means necessary" for most of his life, Dr. King consistently urged nonviolent protests. He stood still in the storm and painted a better picture of what America could become if she treated all her children with kindness, fairness and dignity.
Pioneer of peace
He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, when he was only 35. His efforts helped spur passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In speech after speech, he stirred the spirits of a people seeking basic civil rights without demonizing those who stood violently in opposition.
Over the years, I've met many people who knew Dr. King and some who marched with him during the turbulent '60s. They marvel at his courage and his passion, his wisdom and determination.
As I drive along MLK Boulevard in Dallas, looking at the people standing on the street named after him, mingling in the community center that also bears his name, I recall where I was the year that Dr. King was assassinated.
I was in kindergarten, sitting in a segregated classroom, two miles away from white kids my own age. It wasn't until three years later that I was able to ride the same buses and share the same teachers.
Dr. King died to make that happen, and that's something to think about the next time you cross his boulevard.
James Ragland can be reached at 214-977-8270 and at .
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