It’s Martin Luther King Day here in the U.S. Happy birthday (belated-he was actually born on Jan. 15) to one of the greatest people of the twentieth century! It’s a sad, sad shame that he didn’t make it to the twenty-first. He would have been 84 this year.
In honor of the day, I’m going to share a song with you written by a man who knew Dr. King and, according to this Poughkeepsie Journal article, introduced him to the song “We Shall Overcome,” which became one of the anthems of the civil rights movement1.
Seeger wrote “Take It From Dr. King” after 9/11, seeking more nonviolent change like the kind Dr. King worked for 50 years ago. Here he is on the David Letterman Show, of all places, in 2008. Happy Birthday, Dr. King! We need you as much now as we did back then. You are missed.
1. “We Shall Overcome” has an interesting history. The link will take you to the Wikipedia entry. According to the article I link to above, “The copyright for “We Shall Overcome” is owned by Seeger, Horton, Frank Hamilton and Guy Carawan, with proceeds earned by the song benefiting the We Shall Overcome Fund.”
M. Fenn 