Harrowing Deaths over Decades of History Part V

He harbored “a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood”.  He harbored “a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice”.  He harbored “a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character”.  He harbored “a dream that one day down in Alabama with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day right down in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers”.  He harbored “a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together”.  He harbored a dream that day.  He harbored a dream August 28th, 1963.

On this date twenty years ago, a nightmare unfolded before my very eyes as a television set aired airplanes attacking the Twin Towers in New York City.  Fortunately, the footage never got farther than there to the Pentagon and much less Pennsylvania after the wreckage wrought out of iron.  Both buildings went down in flames like ashes, but the Pentagon when the third structure looked the worse for wear.  Between the smoke plus the original frame color, the clear image grew awfully hazy meaning no one could tell the difference from the Pentagon or the plane debris once there occurred a collision.  However, a humongous hole entered the roof which carved a gap atop the star-shaped ceiling ending the Pentagon’s prior privacy.  Everything changed that day, even though the high school experience just began a little over almost a month ago for a freshman ninth grader whom would graduate the fifth top of her class four years later with a full ride scholarship then a new car at a university.  Now, the young woman sold her vehicle since she can recall the day her dad watched a plane flying into the Pentagon three blocks away from a mid-city Washington, D.C., conference hotel.