Spokane Man Treasures MLK Letter

The treasure I’ve come to see hangs on a wall halfway down a narrow hallway inside this cozy ranch-style home on Spokane’s South Hill. “There it is,” says Mike Kobluk, reaching to take his framed prize off its hook. It’s a faded typewritten letter, dated April 5, 1965, and bearing a name on the letterhead that practically everyone on the planet knows. Martin Luther King Jr. “Want to read it?” Kobluk says. I do and the goose bumps begin:

“Dear Mr. Kobluk,” it reads. “The march from Selma to Montgomery was 50 miles. It was a long walk, but it is a symbol that those who have suffered deprivation and brutality can make their voices heard and that freedom will one day be not a cry in the dark, but a living, breathing, proclamation that we have overcome, and that a whole nation has turned to a new course.” More here. (SR photo by Dan Pelle: Mike Kobluk, a founding member of the Chad Mitchell Trio, holds a letter signed by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.)

Question: Do you have any connection with the civil rights movement of the 1950s-1960s?