John Lennon (10-9-40 to 12-8-80) Remembered by Paul McCartney

I asked boyhood friend Paul McCartney to remember John Lennon for us. 

( John Lennon with his first-born, Julian )

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.”  Somehow I surmise that John Lennon would have been first in line to buy the book  I Am Malala  .  Do not be misled. The forces of evil manifested in violence, intolerance, fear, power, and greed killed John Lennon that December evening in 1980. Mark Chapman was simply the unwitting trigger man. But like Gandhi, Dr. King, John & Bobby Kennedy, Anwar Sadat in the Mid East, Benigno Aquino in the Philippines, and now assassination survivor Malala, John Lennon was unbowed to his worldly end in the belief that “all you need is love”.-Redbeard