A DREAM COME TRUE?

Rev. David Allen of the St. James AME Church remembers Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. not just a man for African-Americans, but a man for all people.

J.J. Williamson remembers when whites and blacks received separate schooling in Sikeston.

Preston Heard Sr. remembers when black teachers could only teach in poorly equipped black schools in Mississippi County.

Portia Zellars remembers growing up in the state of Mississippi, where segregation was a way of life at schools, lunch counters, restrooms and movie theaters.

It was this racially-divided world that was center stage in the life of slain civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Williamson, Heard, and Zellars all view King as an American hero.

So too does The Rev. David Allen, pastor of St. James AME Church in Cape Girardeau, the oldest black church in the county.

A man for all people

Allen said blacks have made strides in Southeast Missouri in recent decades, moving into jobs that once were the exclusive domain of whites.

Still, too few blacks in the Bootheel hold professional jobs. Black doctors and lawyers are rare, Allen said.

"In terms of opportunity, there is still a lot of underlying discrimination and racism in this area," he said. "Blacks are still second-class citizens in much of the region and, to some extent, even third class."

But the black minister said the world is a better place today because of King.

"Dr. King was not just a man for African Americans, for the Negro as we were called at the time, Dr. King was a man for all people," Allen said.

"Martin Luther King was God's man for that time," said Allen. "His assassination simply put an exclamation point to his life rather than a period."

King was assassinated at a Memphis, Tenn., motel on April 4, 1968.

Had he lived, he would have been 69 years old last Thursday.

A door of opportunity

Williamson said the civil rights movement opened doors of opportunity for him and other blacks.

He attended an all-black school in Sikeston through the sixth grade. The schools were integrated in 1966. From seventh grade through high school, Williamson was schooled in integrated classrooms.

In 1977, Williamson trained for a job as an officer with the Missouri Highway Patrol.

He was the only black in a class of 40 at the patrol academy. He spent 15 years in the Highway Patrol.

Today, Williamson owns his own insurance agency in Cape Girardeau. Such a career would have been out of reach for blacks in this area only a few decades ago, he said.

Williamson was elected to the Cape Girardeau City Council in 1994, becoming the first black to do so.

"It was because of Martin Luther King Jr. and people like that, that I had the opportunity," he said.

Remembering segregation

Zellars grew up in Tupelo, Miss. She was born into a world, much of which was off limits to her and other blacks.

"To think, how my mom must have felt when I was born," she said. "I don't think she saw any hope that conditions would get better."

Zellars recalled, "Everything was segregated. By the time I graduated from high school in '65, everything was still segregated."

When she and her family stopped at service stations, they couldn't use just any restroom.

"Some stations had black-only and white-only restrooms," said Zellars. But at others, there were no restrooms that blacks could use.

She attended and graduated from Bethel College in McKenzie, Tenn. She was one of just a handful of black students at the school.

She had to sit apart from her white friends when she went to the movie theater.

"They all sat downstairs and I had to sit upstairs," said Zellars.

The movie theater was integrated while she was in college. The first movie she saw in the integrated theater was "The Sound of Music."

While in college in 1968, she marched in Memphis in support of the strike by sanitation workers. The march occurred soon after King was murdered.

The march honored King too, who had championed the plight of the sanitation workers.

She graduated from college in 1969 and moved to Charleston to teach in the integrated public schools.

A high school math teacher, Zellars has taught there for 29 years.

Zellars grew up in a large family. She was one of 14 children. Her father was a minister, who met King when the civil rights leader visited Mississippi in the early 1960s.

Zellars said King's legacy is one of hope. "I think it was the hope, that he inspired people to be better than they are, to feel like the pressures of our past could be overcome and people would be able to improve their lives, and the lives of their children and grandchildren as well."

A lesson of harmony

Heard, 60, grew up in Hattiesburg, Miss., the home of the University of Southern Mississippi. But in those days, he and other blacks couldn't go to school there.

Everything was separate. Blacks and whites had separate restrooms, water fountains and restaurant seating areas.

There were few jobs for blacks and most of those were as day laborers.

"The only jobs you could work at were digging ditches," Heard said. "If you got a job in a factory, it probably was as a custodian."

Heard went to Lincoln University, a traditionally black school in Jefferson City, to earn a degree.

His first job was in rural black school near Wyatt in Southeast Missouri's Mississippi County.

The school had about 150 to 2300 students, grades 1 through 8.

"We didn't have any gas heat. There were no lunches, no nurses and no special education," said Heard. The textbooks were used ones from the white school system.

In the 1950s, few blacks in that area went beyond the eighth grade. There were only two black high schools in the area, Heard said.

"You had to pass a test before you could go to high school," he recalled.

Heard later taught at Lincoln High School, which was the black high school in Charleston.

The Charleston School District began integrating in 1957, but it wasn't until the mid-1960s that all grades were fully integrated.

Heard, who lives in Wyatt, taught math in the school district. He retired in 1996.

"If it wasn't for Dr. Martin Luther King and affirmative action, I never would have been hired in the Charleston R-1 School District," he said.

Heard said King wanted a good education for everyone and racial harmony.

"I think he taught us to respect one another and forget about the racial lines in America, accept each individual for what they are, and not by race. That is what he taught me," said Heard.

The retired math teacher believes King would have been a popular leader in today's society. Said Heard, "If King were alive today, he probably would be president of the United States."