Shed a Little Light

Let us turn our thoughts today to Martin Luther King
And recognize that there are ties between us, all men and women living on the earth
Ties of hope and love, sister and brotherhood, that we are bound together
in our desire to see the world become a place in which our children can grow free and strong
We are bound together by the task that stands before us and the road that lies ahead
We are bound and we are bound

~ James Taylor

For those of us at a certain age, there are questions guaranteed to jumpstart any conversation.  "Do you remember where you were when you learned that John Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot?" is probably the most popular.  (Perhaps the modern equivalent is "Do you remember where you were on 9/11?")  The Sixties provided a couple more opportunities to stoke our rusty memories:  "What were you doing when you learned of Robert Kennedy's assassination?" and "What were you doing when you learned of Martin Luther King's assassination?"  How sad that these memory-joggers involve national tragedies, and for those of us coming up in the Sixties, there are three assassinations.

Martin Luther King was assassinated on April 4, 1968.  Where was I?  At home in my living room.  What was I doing?  Talking on the phone.  How did I react to it?  Here's where it gets a little foggy.  I was 18 years old, only two months away from my high school graduation.  I had a boyfriend and a driver's license and an acceptance to college.  Was I appropriately devastated by this terrible event?  Probably not.  Whether my reaction was built of weariness over the state of affairs or some heady self-indulgence over the turns my future was about to take, I can't recall.  But I know that I did not give this tragedy the gravity it deserved.  And, yes, I am ashamed to admit that.

James Taylor released his 13th studio album, New Moon Shine on September 24, 1991.  The first time I heard Shed a Little Light, I was moved.  And I have been moved every time I have heard it since.  For me, the most powerful performance of the song took place in July of 2015 in Columbia SC with Taylor being backed by the Charleston Choir.  (Link to the video provided below.)  In his introduction to the song, he references the tragedy at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston on June 17, 2015, in which then-21-year-old Dylann Roof, a white supremacist wanting to start a race war, killed nine members of the church.  A remorseless Roof was sentenced earlier this month to death.

There is a feeling like the clenching of a fist
There is a hunger in the center of the chest
There is a passage through the darkness and the mist
And though the body sleeps, the heart will never rest

Please find your own way to honor Dr. Martin Luther King today.

http://people.com/celebrity/james-taylor-performs-shed-a-little-light-with-charleston-choir/