King spoke of the need for people to “break down the dividing wall of hostility which separates them from their brothers” in front of more than 20,000 people in a West Berlin amphitheater on Sept. 13, 1964. Just months before, King had celebrated the enactment of America’s landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, which banned discrimination. Yet the same words repeated a few hours later in two overcrowded churches in East Berlin produced breathless silence. Because for many citizens of the German Democratic Republic, the “dividing wall” was more than a metaphor. |