Like Mahatma Gandhi and the Reverend Dr.Martin Luther King jr. , deeply committed social reformers dedicated to peaceful change , John Lennon was assassinated December 8 , 1980 . I am reminded of a wall poster in the very early 1970s which chillingly showed the barrel of a gun pointed right between the viewer’s eyes from a distance of about one inch . Underneath it stated simply , ” Just because you have silenced a man does not mean you have converted him .”
Do not be misled. The forces of evil manifested in violence, intolerance, fear, power, and greed killed John Lennon thirty-two years ago. Mark Chapman was simply the unwitting trigger man. But like Gandhi, Dr. King, John & Bobby Kennedy, Anwar Sadat in the Mid East, and Benigno Aquino in the Philippines, John Lennon was unbowed to his worldly end in the belief that ” all you need is love “.
I asked boyhood friend Paul McCartney to remember John for us. -Redbeard