H. L. Sheppard

                                                                                                             Bulletin

                                                                                                             March 2010

 

DREAMER KILLERS

 

 

On August 28, 1963 over a quarter of a million, mostly African American, people gathered before the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC to hear what would become one of the most memorable speeches in human history.  Even today, almost 50 years later, the words “I have a dream” immediately transport millions back to that sweltering summer day when Martin Luther King Jr. presented his passionate plea for the just and equal treatment of all men as God’s highest creation.

 

On April 4, 1968, around six o’clock in the evening, Dr. King was standing on the second floor concrete walk just outside his room at the Loraine Motel in Memphis Tennessee.  Little did he realize that there was a Killer of Dreamers crouched on top of a building just across the street with a rifle in his hands.

 

J. B. Stoner was a short fat man, with a suspicious smile, who walked with a limp.  He was a member of the Ku Klux Klan and the attorney who defended James Earl Ray, the man who assassinated Martin Luther King Jr.  In 1983, he was sent to prison for three years for the 1958 bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama.  He hated Jews and Black people. Stoner once said:

 "Being a Jew [should] be a crime punishable by death".

 

I met J. B. Stoner in 1970, when he was running for the office of governor of the state of Georgia.  I felt very uncomfortable in his presence.  He seemed to be consumed by a spirit of hatred…surrounded by demonic spirits.  J. B. Stoner was a dreamer.  His dream was to “kill” the dreamers whose dreams were not like his own.  He figured that if he killed the dreamers, he could kill the dreams.  That’s why he defended James Earl Ray.  To Stoner, the Assassin of Martin Luther King Jr. was a hero who had killed the dreams of every beneficiary of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.

 

James Earl Ray was certain he’d destroyed the dream when he killed the dreamer.  J. B. Stoner was certain he was defending one of the greatest dreamer assassins of all time.  They were both convinced that, by killing the dreamer, they would kill the dream!  They couldn’t have been more wrong!

 

James Earl Ray died in prison on April 23, 1998, a useless old murderer who never did anything to justify his earthly existence.

 

J. B. Stoner died on April 23, 2005, a bitter little man whose life and intellect were thrown away in a vain effort to kill the dreams of good men.

 

Martin Luther King Jr. was only 39 years old when an assassin’s bullet killed the dreamer…but he was outlived by his dreams.  His dreams also outlived the dreamer killers James Earl Ray, and J. B. Stoner. During the course of his “I Have a Dream” speech Dr. King listed 6 items that he dreamed would one day become a reality.  Today, 5 of those 6 dreams have come to pass, and the sixth will occur when the world accepts Jesus Christ as King of Kings and Lord of Lords!

 

Dreamers don’t see problems, they see possibilities!

 

2010

The Year of Dreamers