Ashburn — At the Martin Luther King center in Atlanta, pictures abound. Among those are pictures of his funeral escort, and in those pictures is man in his 40s, a man who will soon will be 86 and now calls Ashburn home.

“I worked with Martin. I marched with him and sat in the street. I was with him,” the Rev. Alphaeus Days said. “On the way to the grave, I was beside the horse and buggy that had the coffin on it.”

It was years later when he found out about the pictures in the King center in Atlanta.

“When I walked around, I saw them. I asked, ‘is that the chariot, the horse that pulled the coffin and Martin?’ They said ‘yes.’ I couldn’t help but break down.

“I said ‘What?? And I’m still living?? I am 85 years old. How many of us are still living.’ I said that aloud. I was in tears.”

The Rev. Days became an instant celebrity there in the center as people gathered around him to take pictures with him and ask him about those days.

“Afterward, one lady wrote to me and told me I was such a blessing to her. She came to my rescue after seeing my tears. She escorted me the rest of the time I was there. A man, I don’t know his name, also escorted me.

“They went and looked at all the pictures. They said, ‘yes, there he is right there.’ They discovered me in the pictures. They took pictures. I never had so many pictures with me. They asked if they could take pictures.

“Lord, here I am an old man with one foot on a banana peel and the other toward the grave. This is the first time I got so much.”

The Rev. Days was not a pallbearer for the King service, but part of the honor escort in the funeral.

“I was one of them with the casket. We walked for some miles from the church to where we buried him,” he said.

The Rev. Days was not there the day MLK was shot.

“I was working as a truck driver at that time for King Hardware, when he got shot.”

DAYS GONE BY

“Iremember how he (MLK) walked the streets, sat in the streets. We went to different places. People were having trouble on the jobs, having strikes. They didn’t have too many unions. They were having trouble getting a raise and treated right and fairly. We would go with them, strengthen them to get what they asked for.

“If someone was fired unjustly, we would go and help. Strengthen them.

“Companies didn’t like that during that time. I’m talking about way back there. When you couldn’t go in a restaurant and sit in them.”

He likened the walks with MLK to Jesus.

“Christ, not everybody walked with Him or was with Him,” he said.

During MLK’s era, certain people had to give up seats on public buses. The Rev. Days says bus companies also refused to hire black bus drivers.

A retired police officer with the City of Atlanta, the Rev. Days still has his badge, No. 11.

“We couldn’t arrest white people,” he said with a laugh. “We couldn’t arrest them way back then. We just had to hold them and wait for a white officer. We couldn’t ride on the front of the bus. We had to sit in the back. Oh my goodness,” he said.

He recalled an incident from his times as a police officer.

“I remember it in court. A white man and a black man. They had an accident at night. They charged the white man for the accident.

“He said, ‘Judge, your honor, it was at night and how could I see that black man in the dark?’”

Among the rights won during the civil rights struggle was the right to vote.

The Rev. Days said they got to vote back then too.

“They used to pay us to vote, the white people (paid voters). $10 was big money back then. We voted like the white people voted.”

TODAY

The Rev. Days said MLK would be pleased at some of the progress and very unhappy about other things in the modern world.

“He would be so thrilled. He talked of this day to come. That was just like I heard when I was growing up. Someone mentioned about a black president. We’d say he was crazy, talking about a black president and he can’t even sit on the bus. You ain’t even got freedom to vote.

“I think he would be proud of the situation up to today. He would be very proud of our progress between the races. There is a whole lot of difference. We have come a long ways. As a human being, we are not judged because of our skin.

“King would smile at the progress we’ve made. We haven’t got perfection, but we have come a long ways.”

At that, the Rev. Days admits things are not perfect.

“A lot of places, things are not perfect and never will be perfect,” he said. “That’s just human nature,” he said. “Anybody with common sense would realize you don’t have all the togetherness in your race.”

ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT

One thing the Rev. Days said MLK would not be happy about is the way so many young people act.

“I think he would have a whole lot to say about that. People don’t respect themselves. King was against that. If you can’t respect yourself, you ain’t going to respect others. If you drag yourself down, surely you will drag me down. If you don’t love yourself, surely you can’t love me.

“He spoke on love and togetherness. Be one, together.”

MLK, also a minister, drew much of his inspiration and speeches from the Bible.

“The Bible has something to say about that. Together we stand, divided we fall.”

“They don’t know how to dress. That’s some of what he (MLK) was trying to help correct.”

Rev. Days said this problem can be seen in his own grandchildren and great grandchildren.

“In mine, when I look at them. They don’t know how to dress. They don’t have respect.

“When I was coming up, a neighbor could whip us if we got out of control. Now you could be cussed at or jumped on,” he said. “Now the system has grown to where you can’t do that. They will call it child abuse.”

Parents too must take some of the blame.

“I can’t go to school with my child. I’ve got to work. I can’t go to the store every time,” are the parent’s excuses, he said. “The system has changed. Some parents don’t know how to respect their children.

“I remember walking into a project and I said something to a kid. My daughter said, ‘Don’t say nothing. They will get at you.’

“I said, ‘They will have to get at me. I can’t stand to see a child do something wrong and not correct them.’

“But the Lord expects togetherness. If we work together, you see my children do something. You’ve got my back. It was more together.”

He laments these changes, saying they have made the world less safe sometimes. Sometimes those changes needed to come, he said.

“It’s good. Like wearing a seat belt. I remember having an accident and I couldn’t get out. A seat belt serves a purpose. But sometimes it is hindrance,” he said.

Interactions have changed in another way, which he says is not good.

“Now they have a word,  ‘she’s my associate.’ We used to have friends. A friend is better than a piece of money. Now they changed the word. She ain’t my friend. She’s just my associate,” he said.

“Now, so many will be your friend out of their lips. The time you turn your back, they are stabbing against you. That’s not a friend.”

MLK TODAY

If he were alive today, the Rev. Days believes Martin Luther King Jr. would still be doing the same things.

“I think he would be trying to get people in the White House to do something about our soldiers. Bring our soldiers home, I believe. He would not be for a continuation of war.”

Born in Miami, the Rev. Days moved to Atlanta where he joined the Civil Rights movement, held several jobs and founded the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ.

A WW II veteran, he served with MacArthur’s troops and was part of the Japanese invasion force.

“We were prepared and ready to invade Japan. Before then, we were at sea, prepared and ready to make a move,” he said. “That was before the bomb was (constructed) and prepared for use.”

The use of atomic weapons on Japan ended that country’s involvement in the war. When troops later arrived, they helped rebuild. The Rev. Days served in the 1360 Engineer Combat unit.

“We laid strips for airplanes and throwed bridges for the troops to get across,” he said.

He also remembers when MacArthur was nearly captured.

“He got away on a PT boat. He said ‘I will return.’ Then, they throwed that bomb. That’s when Japan surrendered.”

The Rev. Days relocated from Atlanta to Ashburn, a community he’d never heard of until he met one of his daughter’s friends.

They became friends, and the Rev. Days came south a few times with James.

“His people were so kind and good to me. I made two trips, weekends, with him here. I told him I’d like to move down here. They started helping me get located.”