When Martin Luther King Jr. died, I was a little boy — too young to have heard his speaking power. But 17 years ago, I heard the next-best thing.

In a grand old church near the North Carolina Capitol, I heard a Martin Luther King Jr. Day talk by the Rev. Samuel D. Proctor — a colleague and contemporary of Dr. King's. At the close of his hurricane-force speech, I jumped to my feet, yelled as if I'd been saved, and then sat there silent as the church emptied, asking myself: "What just happened?"

The Rev. Proctor referred to King as "Mike," which is how he was known to friends. He told us of King's studies at Crozer Seminary and Boston University and explained to us: "King hadn't planned on being a civil rights leader. He wanted to be president of Morehouse College."

But King had the courage to take his first job as pastor in the segregated South at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala., and he was there — ready for service — when Rosa Parks was arrested and the movement was forming and needed a leader.

Proctor told us of staying overnight in King's home during the bus boycott and waking to a loud noise in the middle of the night. Proctor checked on King and found him leaning off the side of his bed, reading Paul Tillich's "The Courage To Be" under the soft light of a bedside lamp at 3 in the morning as Coretta slept soundly on the other side.

He shared more stories about King, but that's not what rocked the church. A great speech has to carve out a "stone of hope." And Proctor delivered:

"Let me tell you who it was that told me that King was dead. I got off an airplane in Dallas and got into a cab. My driver was a skinny little boney white fellow — long, stringy hair down his back, tattoos crawling up his arms, big blackheads all over his face. He had a little wet brown cigarette stump. He was drawing on that. And he said to me:

"'Mister' — he couldn't even speak English — 'Mister, must be you don't know what done happened today.' I said: 'What did happen today?' He started trembling and shaking and said, 'Somebody ... killed ... Martin ... Luther ... King ... today.' I said, 'Are you kidding me?!' He stopped his cab. He turned around. I leaned up and looked at him right in the face. Still shaking and trembling, he said: 'Somebody ... shot ... Dr. ... King ... in ... Memphis ... today.'"

(Here Proctor slowed and stressed every word.) "A poor white boy in Dallas, Texas, with a wet cigarette butt, tattoos, long, dirty, stringy hair — he's the one who said to me that King's life had been taken from him.

"When I got to the hotel, I was praying, and I found myself saying: 'Mike, you may wonder if you made your point. But let me tell you who told me you were gone home to be with the Lord — a poor little white boy who could hardly speak English. Mike, you shook his whole world. So don't worry.'"

(Proctor's voice cracked with emotion.) "When I hear people say nothing good can happen, no hope for real community in America, I'm sorry that your information is so skimpy. I happen to know there are all kinds of signs out here. We can do it. This great nation, 260 million people, bound together not by a dictator, not by a one-party system, bound together by certain ideals. We hold these truths to be self-evident." And the old preacher deepened his voice to a growl, brought the crowd to its feet and closed his tribute to King.

One week ago, I discovered in the King papers a letter from Dr. King, dated October 1954 — when King was 25 years old and had just become pastor at Dexter, more than a year ahead of the bus boycott. King wrote that he wanted to "bring some of our best minds to Dexter Avenue Baptist Church" and was writing to ask the recipient to be the first speaker in a lecture series on the theme "The Relevance of the New Testament to the Contemporary Situation." King said he hoped the lectures would be inspirational and informative and told the recipient, "I know of no one more qualified to initiate this series than you." The letter was addressed to the Rev. Samuel D. Proctor, who accepted.

So I finally learned what had happened that day 17 years ago — what had sent the current from the soles of my feet through the crown of my head.

I was moved by the man who moved Dr. King.

To find out more about Tom Rosshirt and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.