Reply #56: In Remembrance of Martin Luther King, Jr

[Demeter]

What can one say about the Rev. King? He was born on January 15th, 1929, and shot dead at the age of 39, a martyr to the American dream of equality, liberty and pursuit of happiness for all. Somebody, or maybe a group, felt that extending these rights to minorities previously and traditionally denied the American promise was a step too far.

King organized the Montgomery bus boycott the year I was born, and was assassinated the day after my 13th birthday, so personally, I was too young and too sheltered by nervous parents to know much about it all.

Rev. King's "I Have a Dream" speech was delivered in Washington, DC, on August 28th, 1963. Three months later, President JF Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas; LBJ took over the job, and with his Congressional expertise and power, passed the Civil Rights Act (1964) (at which point MLK received the Nobel Prize, the youngest recipient to date) and the National Voting Rights Act (1965). 3 years after that, MLK himself was ripped from his people. MLK had started to concentrate on ending poverty and the Vietnam war. In one speech, he stated that "something is wrong with capitalism" and claimed, "There must be a better distribution of wealth, and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism." Were he alive today, King would be in there with Naomi Klein and John Perkins, fighting Globalism and the economic piracy that is the hallmark of the Corporatists. Given his success in voting rights and anti-discrimination, somebody must have feared MLK would accomplish those goals, too.

The assassination led to a nationwide wave of riots in more than 100 cities. Presidential nominee Robert Kennedy was on his way to Indianapolis for a campaign rally when he was informed of King's death. He gave a short speech to the gathering of supporters informing them of the tragedy and asking them to continue King's idea of non-violence. President Lyndon B. Johnson declared April 7 a national day of mourning for the civil rights leader. Vice-President Hubert Humphrey attended King's funeral on behalf of Lyndon B. Johnson, as there were fears that Johnson's presence might incite protests and perhaps violence. At his widow's request, King's last sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church was played at the funeral. It was a recording of his "Drum Major" sermon, given on February 4, 1968. In that sermon, King made a request that at his funeral no mention of his awards and honors be made, but that it be said that he tried to "feed the hungry", "clothe the naked", "be right on the (Vietnam) war question", and "love and serve humanity". His good friend Mahalia Jackson sang his favorite hymn, "Take My Hand, Precious Lord", at the funeral. The city of Memphis quickly settled the strike on terms favorable to the sanitation workers.

Two months after King's death, escaped convict James Earl Ray was captured at London Heathrow Airport while trying to leave the United Kingdom on a false Canadian passport in the name of Ramon George Sneyd on his way to white-ruled Rhodesia.<122> Ray was quickly extradited to Tennessee and charged with King's murder. He confessed to the assassination on March 10, 1969, though he recanted this confession three days later.<123> On the advice of his attorney Percy Foreman, Ray pleaded guilty to avoid a trial conviction and thus the possibility of receiving the death penalty. Ray was sentenced to a 99-year prison term.<123><124> Ray fired Foreman as his attorney, from then on derisively calling him "Percy Fourflusher".<125> He claimed a man he met in Montreal, Quebec with the alias "Raoul" was involved and that the assassination was the result of a conspiracy.<126><127> He spent the remainder of his life attempting (unsuccessfully) to withdraw his guilty plea and secure the trial he never had.<124> On June 10, 1977, shortly after Ray had testified to the House Select Committee on Assassinations that he did not shoot King, he and six other convicts escaped from Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary in Petros, Tennessee. They were recaptured on June 13 and returned to prison.<128>

When our city erupted in violence the year after King's assassination, my parents, like so many, fled the big city for the isolation and therefore relative security of the suburbs. It was at this point that major cities began to die: decaying from within, robbed of people, capital, vigor, jobs, stores, respect and dignity. America, traumatized by Kennedy's assassination, took a mortal wound when Martin Luther King was martyred. And when Bobby Kennedy went down, so did the American dream.

We have been living in the aftermath, when the forces for evil have been mopping up the spoils. The war was lost long ago. Only a new revolution will ever bring us back to the high point this nation attained when Jack, Bobby, and Martin led us.