image courtesy of Seth T. Hahne.

A couple of years ago, I took a road trip across the country with my best friend. We took our sweet time, rolled the windows down, and let our hair whip into tangles. We wandered off the beaten path a few times: the largest Catholic church in Kansas, the Precious Moments museum in Missouri. When we were in Memphis, we just happened to remember that this was the place where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot. On a whim, we stopped by the memorial, complete with a tour of the museum erected at the hotel where the tragedy happened.

The sun beat down on us as we looked at the balcony where he once stood and saw the wreath hanging on the door of the infamous hotel room. We stayed for a moment or two, the sweat running down our backs as we thought our uncomfortable thoughts. And then we prepared to go on our way, off to the next adventure on our road trip.

But we were stopped by a large crowd gathering in the parking lot, everyone milling about and dressed in matching ...