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* Martin Luther King (who was named after a GERMAN historic figure) said the following in the final speech of his life. Take note:

“And you know, if I were standing at the beginning of time, with the possibility of taking a kind of general and panoramic view of the whole of human history up to now, and the Almighty said to me, "Martin Luther King, which age would you like to live in?"

I would take my mental flight by Egypt and I would watch God's children in their magnificent trek from the dark dungeons of Egypt through, or rather across the Red Sea, through the wilderness on toward the promised land. And in spite of its magnificence, I wouldn't stop there.

I would move on by Greece and take my mind to Mount Olympus. And I would see Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Euripides and Aristophanes assembled around the Parthenon. And I would watch them around the Parthenon as they discussed the great and eternal issues of reality. But I wouldn't stop there.

I would go on, even to the great heyday of the Roman Empire. And I would see developments around there, through various emperors and leaders. But I wouldn't stop there.

I would even come up to the day of the Renaissance, and get a quick picture of all that the Renaissance did for the cultural and aesthetic life of man. But I wouldn't stop there.

I would even go by the way that the man for whom I am named had his habitat. And I would watch Martin Luther as he tacked his ninety-five theses on the door at the church of Wittenberg. But I wouldn't stop there.

I would come on up even to 1863, and watch a vacillating President by the name of Abraham Lincoln finally come to the conclusion that he had to sign the Emancipation Proclamation.

But I wouldn't stop there.

I would even come up to the early thirties, and see a man grappling with the problems of the bankruptcy of his nation. And come with an eloquent cry that we have nothing to fear but "fear itself." But I wouldn't stop there.

Strangely enough, I would turn to the Almighty, and say, "If you allow me to live just a few years in the second half of the 20th century, I will be happy."

- Martin Luther King Jr.

Yes indeed. And there is another factor: preservation of historical sites and works. I have no doubt there have been great works in Africa but how many have survived the generations? There were great statues in Afganistan but the Taliban blew them to smithereens. The Western Canon has preserved its monuments to the best of its abilities; from the bible to Chaucer to Shakespeare to Oscar Wilde and James Joyce and Arthur Heller and so on. From pre-Renaissance artists like Cimabue to Davinci to Jaques Louis David. From the Dome of the Rock to the Colosseum to the Louvre and Monmartre. In India and in Asia they have also preserved their historical monuments, artifacts, literature.

Not all of these works were created by straight white men, fwiw. Art is supposed to be transcendent of personality. Great art is universal, though, if one has no understanding of the history of his or her culture some of that will be lost on the observer. I won’t get the same understanding of Kabuki theater that a native of Japan would. A Pakistani would probably not understand much of Samuel Beckett. But we can all learn - Unless they stop teaching!

I remember in Birmingham, Alabama, when we were in that majestic struggle there, we would move out of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church day after day. By the hundreds we would move out, and Bull Connor would tell them to send the dogs forth, and they did come. But we just went before the dogs singing, "Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me around." [applause] Bull Connor next would say, "Turn the fire hoses on." (Yeah) And as I said to you the other night, Bull Connor didn’t know history. He knew a kind of physics that somehow didn’t relate to the trans-physics that we knew about. And that was the fact that there was a certain kind of fire that no water could put out. [applause] And we went before the fire hoses. (Yeah) We had known water. (All right) If we were Baptist or some other denominations, we had been immersed. If we were Methodist and some others, we had been sprinkled. But we knew water. That couldn’t stop us. [applause] And we just went on before the dogs and we would look at them, and we’d go on before the water hoses and we would look at it. And we’d just go on singing, "Over my head, I see freedom in the air." (Yeah) [applause] And then we would be thrown in to paddy wagons, and sometimes we were stacked in there like sardines in a can. (All right) And they would throw us in, and old Bull would say, "Take ’em off." And they did, and we would just go on in the paddy wagon singing, "We Shall Overcome."

Important to remember MLK changed the world for the better - and Bull Conner stayed a democrat...

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