“Hello Darling
Today I find myself a long way from you and the children. I am at the State Prison in Reidsville which is about 230 miles from Atlanta. They picked me up from the DeKalb jail about 4 ’0 clock this morning. I know this whole experience is very difficult for you to adjust to, especially in your condition of pregnancy, but as I said to you yesterday this is the cross that we must bear for the freedom of our people. So I urge you to be strong in faith, and this will in turn strengthen me. I can assure you that it is extremely difficult for me to think of being away from you and my Yoki and Marty for four months, but I am asking God hourly to give me the power of endurance. I have the faith to believe that this excessive suffering that is now coming to our family will in some little way serve to make Atlanta a better city, Georgia a better state, and America a better country. Just how I do not yet know, but I have faith to believe it will. If I am correct then our suffering is not in vain.”
An excerpt from a letter from Dr. King to Coretta King
October 26, 1960
Dr. King is a person. A person with gifts and talents that offers them. He is a husband and a dad. Dr. King is most useful when we think of him in this way. When you read this letter to his darling Coretta, can’t you feel in the words the husband, father, and person?
In this episode, Melissa and Bishop Wright speak to this letter, and why Dr. King said yes to what had to be done for his children and for all black and brown children to experience a better America than he experienced. Happy birthday, Dr, King.
