In Simsbury, he got to go to the same church as white people. He played baseball with whites. On the weekends, he went to Hartford and ate in the same restaurants and saw the same shows as whites.

“After that summer in Connecticut, it was a bitter feeling going back to segregation. I could never adjust to the separate waiting rooms, separate eating places, separate rest rooms, partly because the separate was always unequal, and partly because the very idea of separation did something to my sense of dignity and self-respect.” –Martin Luther King Jr.

While all this may be mildly interesting to you, it’s hugely interesting to me. Simsbury is my hometown, and I know those tobacco fields well. I never picked leaves in the 100+ degrees under the netting, but friends and I would sometimes lie on top of the nets on a weekend night pondering the universe. This is the first I’ve ever heard of MLK in Simsbury. Civic pride.

The post Summer in Connecticut first appeared on What He Said: The Words of Jesus Christ.

1. For the readers among us, take a few quiet moments and wrap yourself around “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” It is so fantastic they should make everyone getting the day off read it.
2. And if you’d rather just watch, immerse yourself in his “I Have a Dream” speech.

Both are from 1963.

The post MLK Day first appeared on What He Said: The Words of Jesus Christ.