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Atlanta and the
Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
By HEATHER GRAY
In 1968, the tragic events in the first
week of April turned the world upside down. Martin Luther King,
Jr. was killed in Memphis on Thursday, April 4. He was there
to support sanitation workers who were on strike. In a recent
interview with Amy Goodman of Pacifica Radio's "Democracy
Now", Harry Belafonte described the sequence of events that
day. He was in Atlanta when Coretta King received the news of
her husband's death. The grieving Mrs. King asked him to help
select the clothes for her deceased husband's showing and funeral.
She expressed her concern, like all the rest of us in America,
about the aftermath of his assassination and what she could or
should do. Belafonte recommended that she continue in the support
of the Memphis workers. She did exactly that.
On Monday, April 8, the day before her husband's funeral, Mrs.
King was in Memphis marching with the sanitation workers. This
remarkably brave and determined woman, along with her three oldest
children, marched in silence in the company of 15,000 supporters
from all over the country. Mrs. King told the crowd, "His
work must go on.We are concerned about not only the Negro poor
but the poor all over America and all over the world. Every man
deserves a right to a job and an income so that he can pursue
liberty, life and happiness."
I was in Atlanta at that time as well. Earlier in the week a
Chinese friend who taught at Spelman College in Atlanta had asked
me to attend an event and spend the night in the campus dorms.
That was my plan. Little did my friend or I know how events that
week would dramatically affect us all. Dr. King was assassinated
on Thursday and by the weekend his body was in state at Sister's
Chapel on the Spelman campus.
In the introduction to his excellent book "Undaunted by
the Fight: Spelman College and the Civil Rights Movement 1957-1967"
(2005) Harry Lefever provides a brief history of Spelman. It
is "the nation's oldest and best-known black liberal arts
college for women, founded in 1881.In 1929, Spelman signed an
Agreement of Affiliation with Morehouse College and Atlanta University,
two black institutions located directly across the street from
Spelman." Ultimately other black schools of higher learning
in the adjoining location joined the agreement. "Today,
the total consortium of six institutions, known as the Atlanta
University Center (AUC), represents the largest affiliation of
predominantly black institutions in the United States."
Dr. King received his undergraduate degree from Morehouse College
in 1948.
That weekend a long line of mourners stood outside Sister's Chapel
to honor the fallen leader. The silence was deafening. It was
April, the onset of Spring, and I stood there shivering. All
you could hear was the sound of feet slowly walking toward the
chapel and people crying. As we walked into the Chapel toward
the coffin, you saw men on either side of the coffin wiping away
the tears that fell on the glass over Martin King's body. Only
later did I learn that because so many people were crying, resulting
in tears cascading into the coffin and over Dr. King, that a
decision was made to cover it with glass. Once by the coffin
I observed this physically small, yet great man of peace, and
found it virtually impossible to believe that his resounding,
powerful voice and message were no more. It was an incredibly
sad moment to witness his still body and to even think of the
contemptible violence that killed him. But I was also angry.
I kept thinking "What now? What on earth is now in store
for America?"
By Monday, April 8, people starting arriving into Atlanta for
the funeral. I drove for the Student Non-Violent Committee (SNCC)
to greet people arriving at the airport. My parents and hundreds
of others were doing the same in their own cars. Along with two
SNCC students from Atlanta University, the first person I escorted
from the airport was Ralph Bunche. Dr. Bunche was the first black
Nobel Peace Prize recipient. He had received the award in 1950
for his negotiations in the creation of the State of Israel after
World War II. In 1968 he was an Undersecretary of the United
Nations and was representing the UN at the King funeral. The
City of Atlanta had sent its Vice Mayor Sam Massell to accompany
Dr. Bunche, but he insisted on coming with us SNCC folks instead.
Arrangements had been made for him at Atlanta's Regency Hyatt,
but he insisted on staying at Paschals, Atlanta's renowned Black
owned hotel and restaurant on Hunter Street, now Martin Luther
King, Jr. Drive. So here I was, driving Dr. Bunche, who sat in
the passenger seat of my little car. His son was squeezed into
the back with the other SNCC students. Bunche's son had brought
his tennis racket. Life goes on I realized!
Lyndon Johnson was the U.S. President at the time. Johnson had
decided to send his Vice President, Hubert Humphrey, to the funeral.
We were told that this decision was made because of Humphrey's
renowned advocacy for civil rights. That being the case, protocol
called for U Thant, the UN General Secretary at the time, to
send someone under him of rank at the UN, such as Ralph Bunche,
so as not to up-stage Johnson.
Interestingly, Bunche had been one of prominent Black leaders
in 1967 encouraging the NAACP to write a statement criticizing
King's opposition to the Vietnam War. Bunche said King should
not be both a civil rights leaders and an antiwar advocate and
that he needed to be one or the other. He later called King to
apologize for his public statement and that he agreed with King's
position on the war. King complained that Bunche did not have
the courage to state his views in public.
The next person I picked up at the airport was Allard Lowenstein,
an attorney in the movement, and one of his colleagues. He first
wanted to pay his respects to Mrs. King. I drove them to her
house that was surrounded by at least a hundred or more people.
Next, he wanted to greet Reverend Ralph David Abernathy, known
as King's right hand man, who was to take over the leadership
of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), now vacated
by King. Lowenstein said that this time he was taking me into
the house with him. We drove to Reverend Abernathy's house and
what a dramatic experience this was.
To set the stage, King had just been assassinated. No one knew
what this meant exactly. No one knew what other violence could
be expected. It was not known how white and black communities
across the country would respond or what challenges and threats
where ahead in the movement. It was assumed, of course, that
the work was to be increasingly more dangerous.
As we walked into the Abernathy house there were four men sitting
in silence in the living room. The Reverend was resting at the
time. Then we walked into the kitchen where Mrs. Abernathy was
on the phone. Suddenly, here I was, a young white student who
had never met Juanita Abernathy. Once off the phone she grabs
my hand, holds on to it and recounts the events of the past few
days. For some five minutes or so, she described her husband's
frightening experience of being at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis
where King had been killed just five days ago, and how nervous
and concerned she was about her husband taking over the leadership
of SCLC. I stood there in awe and silently sympathized.
Then Reverend Abernathy appeared. He seemed rested and congenial.
I was amazed at his composure but then thought what else could
he do? Everyone knew the work had to continue. We all shook hands,
spoke briefly, and I drove Lowenstein and his friend into town.
The funeral was on Tuesday, April 9 at Ebenezer Baptist Church
on Auburn Avenue in Atlanta--affectionately known as the King
church. I joined the funeral march through the City of Atlanta.
The Reverend James Orange, of Birmingham protest fame, had organized
the mule drawn funeral cart to take Dr. King to his resting place.
Thousands of us of all races followed the cart while holding
hands and singing an abundance of chants. It was a movement funeral
to be sure. One of the most memorable experiences that day was
walking in front of the Georgia State Capitol. A wire fence barricade,
along with the ominous presence of military sentries, surrounded
it. As was intended, the whole area seemed bleak and foreboding.
The arch segregationist and erratic Lester Maddox was Georgia's
governor at the time. I fully expected him to run out of the
building at any moment, stand on the Capitol steps, and shout
all kinds of curses at us.
There has been and will continue to be speculation as to why
J. Edgar Hoover's FBI under the Johnson administration intensified
its surveillance and propaganda against King. It was known, for
one, that Johnson was furious about King's outspoken opposition
to the Vietnam War, but it is also clear that King was shifting
his emphasis to economic justice. While economic justice had
always been a part of his message, the primary focus of civil
rights and voting rights took precedence in the early movement
work. By 1964 the Civil Rights Bill had passed in Congress and
in 1965 the Voting Rights Act was a reality. All of this took
enormous energy and a death toll. But King and others acknowledged
that if there was the right to go to a hotel, what was the point
if you couldn't pay the bill?
At the end of his life King was advocating for the economic rights
of sanitation workers in Memphis and this was just the beginning.
SCLC was in the planning stages of the national Poor People's
Campaign march to be held in Washington, DC on April 22. On April
3 in Memphis, in his last speech, King called for boycotts against
Wonder Bread, Hart's Bread, Sealtest Milk and, importantly, Coca
Cola, for their appalling and unfair hiring practices. He encouraged
everyone to follow through on this and to put pressure where
it hurts. He said "if something isn't done, and in a hurry,
to bring the colored peoples of the world out of their long years
of poverty, their long years of hurt and neglect, the whole world
is doomed."
In relation to the loss of Dr. King., years later I have often
thought about insightful and powerful song by "Sweet Honey
and the Rock" about Stephen Biko, the black leader who was
killed by South African authorities in 1977 They sang, "You
can kill one human body, I see ten thousand Bikos!" It rings
true. You can kill the messenger, but not the message. As Lefever
states in his book on Spelman College activism, that while he
focused on individuals in the movement "it is clear"
he said, "that their successes were much more than 'individual'
successes. The study reveals the significance of the 'group'
context in their actions." This has been true all over the
U.S. and the world. A Filipino organizer once told me, "You
can't organize yourself, who have to organize yourselves."
But it is also rather sobering to realize that when the economic
or civil status quo of western "white" dominance is
seriously challenged, countless young leaders of color all over
the world have either been killed directly by those of us of
European descent or by our proxies. Harry Belafonte describes
King once telling him that given the outrageously violent and
unjust behavior of white America that they were attempting to
"integrate" into a burning house. Belafonte asked what
should be done. King said, "we all need to become firemen"--and
firewomen I might add. Indeed!
Heather Gray is the producer of "Just Peace"
on WRFG-Atlanta 89.3 FM covering local, regional, national and
international news. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia and can be
reached at hmcgray@earthlink.net.
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