Dr. King: The Visionary's Walk

Lyrics

[Intro]
Five-oh-one Auburn Avenue.
Just a house, Queen Anne frame.
But the air still holds a name.
Not the one you know.
Not yet.

[Verse 1]
January fifteenth, 1929.
Upstairs bedroom, winter sun.
A boy named Michael, just begun.
House smells of coal smoke and his mother's care.
A telephone rings, rare for the time.
The whole world is right here.
Contained in these four walls.

[Chorus]
It's just a short walk.
From the porch swing to the church door.
Just a few hundred feet of worn-down sidewalk.
But that's the walk the whole world was waiting for.
From a boy's first steps
to a prophet's floor.
That walk down Auburn Avenue.

[Verse 2]
He walks with his father, hand in hand.
Past the Atlanta Daily World, the banks, the bakeries.
Sweet Auburn, a promised land made of brick and enterprise.
He hears the streetcar bell's sharp song.
Sees the pride in his father's eyes.
Learns a man can belong
to something bigger than his own front yard.

[Chorus]
It's just a short walk.
From the porch swing to the church door.
Just a few hundred feet of worn-down sidewalk.
But that's the walk the whole world was waiting for.
From a boy's first steps
to a prophet's floor.
That walk down Auburn Avenue.

[Bridge]
Then the man returns, November fifty-nine.
Leaves Montgomery behind.
Comes back to the source, to the root.
He said, 'Because of the richness of the experience...'
The pulpit wood is cool and familiar under his hands.
The echo in Ebenezer understands.
This is the place the voice was made.
This is the ground where the dream was laid.

[Outro]
I stand here now.
The street is quiet.
The porch light at five-oh-one is on.
A beacon.
And you can almost feel it.
The first step.
And the next.
And the next.
The walk isn't over.