Can't ride your back unless it is bent

If I had sneezed, I wouldn’t have been around here in 1962, when Negroes in Albany, Georgia decided to straighten their backs up. And whenever men and women straighten their backs up, they are going somewhere, because a man can’t ride your back unless it is bent. Martin Luther King, Jr, spoken April 3, 1968 the night before his assassination.

Is your spine straight or bent today? Do you walk upright, chest rising to the sky, head held high upon a strong neck, thoracic vertebrae snug in between the shoulder blades? Or is there a monkey on your bent back, making you scratch and itch, pulling you down towards the ground, enveloping you in fear, worry, and rigidity?

Think of those men and women in Albany, Georgia, 1962, standing up straight, walking forward into the water hoses, the dogs, the paddy wagons, claiming their rightful free place in this world even as they were surrounded by hatred. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached love and was murdered. How/where did he find compassion, fearlessness, unselfish determination? In a straight spine, perhaps, that no man could ride.