Reflecting on 1968

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In 1968 I learned a lot of words that eight-year-olds shouldn't know: "curfew," "race riots," etc. It was 50 years ago this week that Reverend Martin Luther King was assassinated on the balcony of his hotel in Memphis. I didn't understand the magnitude of the man at the time, but I do remember the sadness...and the anger. Then, two days later, on April 6 (50 years ago today), a massive gas explosion leveled two blocks of downtown Richmond, Indiana, killing 41 people. News reports were quick to point out two things about that tragedy: one, it was not related to the riots that were going on in other cities; and two, black and white stood together, side by side, helping firefighters fight the blaze and search for the injured (and dead). I've mentioned this before, usually when discussing music: people talk about how "great" the music was in the late 60s. There was a diversity in styles that was great for music, indeed. However, I wouldn't want to live through that time again. 1968 was UGLY. The day after Rev. King's assassination 19 people were killed in riots throughout the country. President Johnson had thousands of National Guard troops protecting Washington DC, and sent thousands more into large cities like Chicago and Detroit in an attempt to quell the riots. For the only time I can find, the famed Grand Ole Opry in Nashville was cancelled -- due to the riots (and subsequent curfew). And that wasn't the half of it: in June Senator Robert Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles. In addition to the race riots, protests over the Vietnam War grew more vocal and more violent (culminating at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August). Here I am, 50 years later, looking at the tinderbox that is our nation. We haven't learned a whole heck of a lot, have we. Here's a topical song about that horrid year, from Johnny Cash's brother, Tommy: