One of them caught my eye. I had heard of the young politician Julian Bond and I thought it unusual that he wrote poetry so I starting reading the poems. One of them had these lines in it:
" Look at that girl shake that thing, we can't all be Martin Luther King".
I had always wanted to ask him about that poem so when about 10 years ago he appeared on a local tv talk show here in Washington D.C. with host Armstrong Williams I called in to talk to him. I got to speak to Armstrong and then Julian Bond. I introduced myself and told him I had read his poetry and wanted to know if he remembered the one that had lines in it that began "Look at that gal shake that thing". Armstrong interrupted as if to stop the conversation but Bond said "No, I will answer that." They took a break and then came back and Bond quoted the line "We can't all be Martin Luther King". Bond then went on to describe how when he was a student at Morehouse college in Atlanta(1957 to 1961) they would have tea with the white students from Emory University and since that was still back in the days of segregation this was considered a big deal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emory_University
Bond(who some civil rights activists used to call ("light and bright")said the white students would say to him, "Why can't all the others be like you?" Bond was still head of the NAACP when this tv talk show took place around 10 years ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_bond
And here is some more information I found on this matter just today.
http://www.crmvet.org/poetry/pbond.htm
