It was a warm spring night in 1968, and I was seven years old and in the second grade at Grace-St. Luke's Episcopal School in Memphis. We had been in our new house for six months, and I thought it was pretty cool that we now lived right across the street from my grandparents. Ferocious thunderstorms were rolling through Memphis, and my mother was typically anxious about bad weather. It didn't help that my father was not home. The wind was really picking up, and the thunder was louder than I had ever heard. Then the tornado sirens started to wail, sending my mother into a state of palpable panic. She grabbed me and said that we were going across the street to my grandparents' house to shelter in their basement. I remember thinking that we had our own basement, but I soon figured out that she really wanted to be with my grandparents. I don't know what frightened me more, the fear of being swept away like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, or just seeing my mother visibly scared out of her wits. I think it was the latter, and that is why this night is such an indelible memory for me.
The greater significance of that night did not occur to me until some years later, when I was reading Taylor Branch's trilogy about the Civil Rights Movement. Branch describes the speech King gave at the Mason Temple in Memphis on April 3rd, 1968. There was a raging thunderstorm moving through the city with intense winds rattling the windows. Tornado sirens were wailing. At the same time, I realized, my mother was dragging me across the street to my grandparents' house. This was that same night. As he got to the end of his speech, King uttered these prophetic words:
"We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land!"
The next day, April 4th, King was shot and killed as he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel.
Martin Luther King had come to Memphis to support the sanitation workers in their srike for better wages and working conditions. And here is where I had something of a front row seat for the Civil Rights Movement as it unfolded in Memphis. My family, on my father's side, had been members of St. Mary's Episcopal Cathedral for generations. The Dean of the Cathedral, William Dimmick, supported King's Civil Rights efforts. This stirred up quite a bit of discussion. My front row seat came from coming down with every childhood illness in the book that year. I would be home with fever for a week at a time while I suffered through chicken pox, strep throat, and a few other maladies. Plus, I was an only child, and my parents didn't mind my hanging around their adult conversations. So, my parents' friends would come over for a noonday Scotch, where every sip seemed to intensify their vitriol for King and Dean Dimmick. Be careful what you say around a seven-year-old.
I have to say this about my parents. I did not once hear them say anything negative about Civil Rights, Dr. King, or Dean Dimmick. I am certainly not suggesting that they were staunch Civil Rights advocates, just that they tended to keep their opinions closely held. My mother did always relish hearing some juicy gossip, however. Maybe if the Dean had been involved in something scandalous (read:sex), my mother would have been contributing more to the conversation. But supporting people in their quest for economic justice hardly rises to the level of scandal. For some members of the Cathedral, though, it was a scandal. The Cathedral lost a significant number of members in the wake of all this (they had plenty of churches where they would find like-minded men of the cloth).
Three days after King was killed was Palm Sunday, and Dean Dimmick delivered this sermon:
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/6086306ac9585824500dba86/t/60afa05959206513e2d4fef0/1622122586934/Dean+Dimmick+Palm+Sunday+Sermon.pdf
So, here we are 58 years later. We could reflect on any number of things, but I'll choose just one. People who study this history today may well ask, Did people really behave this way, think and say such negative things about their church, their priest? Be mindful of the opinions you expresss, because someone (like a seven-year old) will remember them. As you'll read in his Palm Sunday sermon, Dean Dimmick grabbed the Cathedral's processional cross and led others on a walk to City Hall. Where would you have wanted to be on that day--out church-shopping or following behind the cross?
Life is short. Get Busy!
Jim
Copyright 2026 James Brinkley Taylor, Jr.
Email me with any questions, comments, or feedback:
jbrinkleytaylor@gmail.com
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