The revered Reverend Martin Luther King Junior

Five score minus eight years ago

January eighteenth two thousand twenty one

father of civil rights movement

the revered Martin Luther King Junior honored

as benevolent demigod figure

to the oppressed African American population

without whose bold risks

and subsequent brutal assassination April fourth

ninety sixty eight at the hands

of a crazed gunman (James Earl Ray),

whereby all the King's men

and all the King's horses...,

still aghast at tragic event

while reverberations felt forty two years later,

where embedded white privilege

begets continued racial strife

analogous to uncorked raging tempest

saddling people of color to human bondage

(no matter ponying up excellent equestrians),

nevertheless wrought empowerment

advancing cherished dreams

of slaves recent descendents

allowing, enabling and providing

once attainable aspirations

only bestowed upon

the self anointed masters and early settlers of

the virginal North American contiguous land mass

yet…generations prior

to this prestigious public personality

Abolitionists pitted themselves

against the institution of slavery

incrementally raising awareness

regarding the abomination

forced servitude incurred on those shackled

thus setting the stage

for this grandson of A.D. Williams

a rural parsonage,

who ministered spiritual support

for the small congregation

(initially only thirteen members)

comprising attendants at

Ebenezer Baptist church in Atlanta Georgia

setting precedent for freedom

(at risk of life and limb) against scourge of

racial prejudice courtesy

of sharecropper grandparents

whose objection to racial segregation

based on an affront to the will of God,

whereby the young whip smart precocious lad,

(whose impact we now memorialize)

showed his true colorful promise

when a young student at

Liberal Crozer Theological Seminary

in Chester, Pennsylvania

where the yet uncrowned

eminent king came under the influence

of theologian Reinhold Niebuhr,

a classmate of his father's

at Morehouse College

who became a mentor by exposing

his protégée to liberal views of theology

planting the seeds of ardent activism

that gave rise to

The Southern Christian

Leadership Conference (SCLC),

an initial platform

allowing, enabling and providing acclaim

hoisted up by petard

invariably only heightened

(his) posthumous status

as thee most articulate orator

spelling binding the listeners

with his metaphors about his emphatic march

to a promised land where all

men/women could be brothers/sisters

and no person will be judged

by the color of his/her skin

raising morale of many dirt poor

ebony masses to feel a glimmer of hope.