MLK, 2006.

I was not yet eight years old when Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968, and consequently, my memories of the tragic event are hazy at best.

There were vague rumblings of uncertainty expressed by my parents and their peers as rioting broke out in cities across the United States, to be interpreted primarily through the images and testimony provided by network news reporters on the black and white television set in the living room.

It was obvious that something important was happening, but even if I had been old enough to grasp what it was, it’s unlikely that I’d have received a clear explanation – not owing so much to any malicious intent as to simple ignorance.

I suppose it isn’t easy for a parent to admit to what he or she doesn’t know.

From what I remember, my upbringing in Georgetown was not tainted by overt racism. If anything, rather along the lines of the “birds and bees” chat that I’m still waiting to receive from one of my parents, there was no discussion of the topic of race at all – up or down, for or against.

My sports fanatic of a father never uttered foolishness along the lines of the famed Al Campanis remarks, and he seemed to admire anyone who excelled in basketball or baseball irrespective of race.

But had he ever competed against black athletes, either while living here in Southern Indiana or while serving in the United States Marine Corps?

Now he’s dead, and I can’t ask him.

In the 1960’s, my dad worked for a dairy, delivering milk to grocery stores throughout Louisville, so at least he had some contact with the urban world at large. Like many country boys, he did not like big, claustrophobic cities filled with people, cars and noise, although he never specified any particular source of his discontent.

My mother was teaching school, first at Georgetown High School, then later at Floyd Central; she’d attended college at the University of Kentucky, fifteen or more years before Adolph Rupp’s basketball program finally was integrated. I cannot recall her stating an opinion on the subject of race when I was young.

Of course, it should suffice to say that outside of New Albany, Floyd County had yet to be integrated when I was growing up.

How much is it now?

My point in citing these remembrances is to note that I was raised in a place, and in an atmosphere, where diversity meant buying whichever of the three major cola brands happened to be on sale during the weekly trip to the market.

In my own home, the notion of learning about other races and creeds attracted neither negative nor positive energy. It generated almost no comment at all, as though it were entirely irrelevant to our daily existence; perhaps it wasn’t, and as was the case with the complete absence of religious instruction during my childhood – something I’m extremely thankful to have been spared – perhaps it’s less damaging to have a relatively clean conceptual slate than to be encumbered with indefensible prejudices and petty hatreds, and grow into adulthood never understanding why you feel a certain way.

Recently, concluding almost a year’s sporadic efforts, I completed reading the final volume (of three – 3,000 pages in all) of Shelby Foote’s acclaimed “The Civil War: A Narrative,” and lingered over the postscript, which describes the unofficial suspension of Reconstruction circa 1877 and the deferment of any effort to make sense of the war’s raison d’etre until Dr. King’s era, almost a century later.

Last summer, I wandered into a souvenir shop in Savannah, Georgia, and saw racks filled with items displaying the Confederate battle flag. It was disgusting.

State’s rights?

No -- state’s wrongs.

Three months ago, this article appeared in NA Confidential: Books, a bogus Texan drug sting, and New Albany's human rights obligation.

My critics will gleefully note my forthright admission that when it comes to the questions raised by considerations of the national holiday tomorrow that honors Martin Luther King, I can offer no ready-made answers.

I hope that the questions themselves are enough.