Happy Juneteenth

Justice Delayed is Justice Denied

Paul Gardner
Fiction Shorts
Published in
2 min readJun 20, 2024

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Today’s random word is billion.

Photo by the author of Room 306, Lorraine Motel, Memphis, TN

A Drabble is a concise 100-word story that respects your busy schedule. Please stay on the page for thirty seconds so you will count as a reader. Thank you

Today’s story is Historical Fiction.

6:04.30 PM

April 4, 1968

Room 306, Lorraine Motel

Martin Luther King, Jr. has lived 1.2 billion seconds.

He has only 30 more.

Mary Louise Hunt: “Dr. King, I’m 18, a Memphis State freshman, and I want to help. Sometimes, I feel hopeless.

Martin: “Mary, I do as well. Hope is hard.”

Mary: “Why do they hate us?”

“They’re scared, and they hate themselves. I’ve seen it in their faces.”

“How do you keep from hating yourself?”

“I can’t, Mary. I’m a child of God, just as you are. They are as well. We are their salvation.”

“Bless you, Martin.”

You can read a story about Mary Louise Hunt here and see a photo of her pointing to the assassin James Earl Ray here.

The title comes from King’s Letter from A Birmingham Jail. You can read it here.

Emma Vincent succinctly pins down corruption below.

More Drabbles here.

There are so many wonderful Drabbles that it’s easy to get lost. Here’s one of mine that did.

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Paul Gardner
Fiction Shorts

I’m a retired college professor. Politics was my subject. Please don’t hold either against me. Having fun reading, writing, and meeting.