When Malcolm X was assassinated in 1965 – 50 years ago on Saturday – I was an activist in the civil rights movement of Martin Luther King, a man of peace who led the nonviolent protests that brought down segregation in America, and ushered in the civil rights and voting rights acts.

The Japanese bed is the floor, with a wooden box under the neck for a pillow and a futon for a covering. To the foreigner the Japanese landlord allows five or six futons, or cotton-wadded comforters, and they make a tolerable mattress, although not springy, and rather apt to be damp and musty.

Lyophilization The process of vacuum-drying substances from the frozen state. The water is sublimated into a trap at low temperature or is absorbed by drying agents. Verb: lyophilize.

The house came into sight, above the cedar grove beyond whose black interstices an apple orchard flaunted in the sunny afternoon.