I drove through the Great Smokey Mountains into Georgia and stopped to camp for the night on the shore of Lake Lanier.  It was a really lovely place, that smelled of pine trees, and gave me this view of the lake from my truck when I woke up in the morning.  Very peaceful.

As I was preparing dinner in the evening, it struck me again how much I love my truck, and how well the entire fit-out is working for me.  I suppose there are minor things that I would change if I was doing it again, but it still amazes me that I hit on such an efficient design on the first try.  Have I mentioned lately that I love my truck…?

The next morning I drove into Atlanta to the Martin Luther King Jr National Historic Site, which includes the house he was born in, the church where he was pastor, and his grave.

The displays in the center were very informative, and I learned more details about the rise and events of the civil rights movement that I had ever known before.  This included some of the influences that made Dr King the man that he was and formed his thinking.

As well as the spark that ignited the movement, the arrest of Mrs Rosa Parks, and the marches and protests that followed.

I learned more about his assassination, the way his widow and children stepped in to carry on his work, and the eventual passing of the Voting Rights Act and other civil rights and equality success stories.

I found it very interesting to find so much information about President Jimmy Carter, another Georgia native, also in this Memorial Site, and to learn that there’s a linear park uniting this Historic Site to the Jimmy Carter Library, also in Atlanta.  Both men are revered there as pacifist humanitarians.  With all the political unrest and uncertainty in the US at the moment, it was good to be reminded of the lessons of nonviolent protest.  It’s possibly we may need them in the coming years.

Across the street from the visitors’ center were the graves of Dr King and his wife Coretta Scott King.  The white marble graves were set on a brick island in the center of a peaceful reflecting pool.

Facing the graves was a caldron burning an eternal flame.  The inscription read: “The eternal flam symbolizes the continuing effort to realize Dr King’s ideals for the ‘Beloved Community’  which requires lasting personal commitment that cannot weaken when faced with obstacles.”

As I was leaving, I stopped just down the street to see the house where Dr King was born (it was closed to visitors for renovations).

I was pleasantly pleased to notice that there were about equal numbers of black and white visitors to the site.  Really the site felt like it encompassed the whole area of a few blocks, and there were interpretive signs on different buildings to point out their uses at the time Dr King lived there, as a child or as an adult, although it’s still now very much a residential neighborhood.  For me, the feeling I left with was a sensation that the struggle is ongoing, that this is an active movement, not merely a monument to things past.  I guess that’s probably quite true.  I wonder if there will ever be such an advocate for women’s equality?