By Shirley Skufca Hickman
I wrote the poem below at Cal Poly [California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo] after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated [on April 4, 1968]. A black student and I were friends, but after King’s death, he had nothing to do with me. When I asked his friend, also black, why, he said, “He doesn’t like white people now.” I protested. “I’m not prejudiced.” My student’s friend replied, “It’s hell to be judged by the color of your skin, isn’t it?”
