The Value of True Friendship
The infamous April 3, 1968, photograph of Dr. King and his lieutenants — Ralph D. Abernathy, Hosea Williams, and Jesse Jackson — smiling on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel is as raw and human as it gets. Simply, people not only need people, they need to connect. Sociologists will attest that humans are social by design. But, it is so much more than that and Dr. King and his trusted friends intrinsically knew that. Whether the battlefield is life, in general, or a growing social movement that places one in physical jeopardy, the phrase: “I got your back” takes on an entirely different meaning. It is seismic yet intrinsic, coded in DNA, asleep but suddenly awakened. Dr. King didn’t have to express to Hosea Williams that the hounds and hoses would take them one and all. Complex and complicated, but with strength that is immeasurable, these men were connected by true friendship as all warriors in any struggle are.
