Thomas<p><span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://beige.party/@the_etrain" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@<span>the_etrain</span></a></span> </p><p>Even if this leads to another topic, I had to think of M.L. King's last speech. He held it 57 years ago and said, among other things:</p><p>On April 3, 1968, Dr. King gave his last speech before being assassinated. Before this speech, a couple of years back, while he was at a book signing, a demented lady stabbed Dr. King with a letter opener. He was rushed to Harlem Hospital, where his life was saved. While recovering, he read many letters of support, but one stood out. A white 9th grader wrote a letter wishing him well. She told him she heard that if he had sneezed, he would have lost so much blood and died. She ended by saying, I'm so happy you didn't sneeze. </p><p>If I Had Sneezed (this is not the official title, but it is how I will always remember it) is the last speech Dr King gave before he was assassinated. He was assassinated the next day.</p><p>Here's the remainder of that speech:</p><p>And I want to say tonight - I want to say tonight that I too am happy that I didn't sneeze because if I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around here in 1960, when students all over the South started sitting-in at lunch counters. And I knew that, as they were sitting in, they were really standing up for the best in the American dream and taking the whole nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.</p><p>If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around here in 1961, when we decided to take a ride for freedom and ended segregation and interstate travel.</p><p>If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around here in 1962, when Negroes in Albany, Georgia, decided to straighten their backs up. And whenever men and women straighten their backs up, they are going somewhere because a man can't ride your back unless it is bent.</p><p>If I had sneezed - if I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been here in 1963. Black people of Birmingham, Alabama aroused the conscience of this nation and brought into being the Civil Rights Bill.</p><p>If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have had a chance later that year, in August, to try to tell America about a dream that I had had. If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been down in Selma, Alabama to see the great movement there.</p><p>If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been in Memphis to see a community rally around those brothers and sisters who are suffering. I'm so happy that I didn't sneeze.</p><p><a href="https://www.lifenotesencouragement.com/2024/01/if-i-had-sneezed.html?m=1" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">lifenotesencouragement.com/202</span><span class="invisible">4/01/if-i-had-sneezed.html?m=1</span></a></p><p><a href="https://freiburg.social/tags/mlking" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>mlking</span></a> <a href="https://freiburg.social/tags/MartinLutherKing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>MartinLutherKing</span></a> <a href="https://freiburg.social/tags/ifihadsneezed" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>ifihadsneezed</span></a></p>