LOVE, OF COURSE
Sammy Davis, Jr. in 1989. Photo by Alan Light.
In 1968, when I was working at WAGA-TV in Atlanta, I interviewed the late and great entertainer Sammy Davis, Jr., who had flown into the city to attend Dr. Martin Luther King’s funeral. Standing at the side of the small plane that brought him, I asked him, in essence, what was it going to take to end the hatred that was evidenced by the assasination of the civil rights leader. He gave me a slight smile and simply said, as best as I can remember the quote, “Love … for people to love one another.” He said that was what Dr. King wanted.
It’s so simple, but, as the lessons of history tell us, it is so hard for a lot of people to practice when it concerns people who are, as a class, culture, ethnicity, or religion, different from one another. In my view, though, progress has been made in a number of countries, including ours.
