Article written by:
Clarence William Page
The assassination of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., shook America like few previous events. After the serious unrest that followed, some things in America began to change for the better.
It was a sunny day in April 1968. I was in college (attending an HBCU). In order to pay my college bills I had taken a job driving taxicab. That day in April I was driving my taxicab (in Greensboro, North Carolina) and listening to the local African American formatted radio station (I don't know who owned the station at that time). Suddenly the announcer blared out, "Dr. Martin Luther King has been assassinated (he mispronounced the word but I knew what he meant) by a sniper (he mispronounced that word also but I knew what he meant).
For African Americans, the whole world changed that day. It was as if the darkness of our past had returned. It was the day that we never wanted to have to witness.
A darkness of the spirit may have engulfed Black America that day but a stiffening of the will was also forged. We were determined to never be driven back to the dark days of Jim Crow and segregation. Determined, we moved forward.
After graduating from college and being commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army, I served part of my tour at a post known as the "Buffalo Soldier" post. It was there that in 1972 a group of African American Enlisted men raised the conscience of the entire post.
In 1972 a group of young Enlisted soldiers formed an organization called "Awareness Through Unity". They were successful in getting the military to sponsor a "Black Expo" on post. The following are some of the scenes from Expo.
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