April 4, 1968

"Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation. And I want to thank God, once more, for allowing me to be here with you." Martin Luther King, Jr., Mason Temple Memphis, Tennessee, April 3, 1968

In late March and early April 1968, Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. devoted his organizing talents to a drive to bring the nation's poor people to Washington, D.C. for a series of massive nonviolent demonstrations. King's "Poor People's Campaign" would attempt to unify African Americans, Latinos, and lower-income whites in pressing the Johnson Administration and Congress in an election year to enact a $30 billion-a-year domestic "Marshall Plan" to alleviate poverty. King hoped his latest March on Washington would sustain the momentum of the maturing civil rights movement by broadening its goals to include class grievances. He was also searching for a nonviolent alternative to the wave of riots that had ripped through black neighborhoods in the preceding years. Although King understood the underlying social causes for the uprisings, he believed they were "misguided" as forms of political protest.

With the Poor People's Campaign, King said: "There must be some structural changes now," and "a radical re-ordering of priorities" including "a de-escalation and final stopping of the war in Vietnam and an escalation of the war against poverty and racism here at home." King linked poverty with the waste of resources on the war. (Today, with $10 billion a month currently being squandered in Iraq, King's critique of the Vietnam War still resonates.) The Poor People's Campaign brought together clergy, labor unions, civil rights groups, and college students to create what King hoped to be a lasting coalition with blacks and poor whites. He promised to launch the campaign by bringing a core group of "about 3,000 people to Washington from fifteen various communities," including the entire impoverished hamlet of Marks, Mississippi.

The poor people and their allies would occupy the public spaces of Washington for "at least sixty days, or however long we feel it necessary," King promised. He hoped it would be reminiscent of the March on Washington of 1963. He said the culminating event would take place on June 15 with a massive rally. "We want to provide an opportunity once more for thousands, hundreds of thousands of people to come to Washington," he said. "We hope that all of our friends will go out of their way to make that a big day, indeed the largest march that has ever taken place in the city of Washington."

King said explicitly on several occasions that forging a class-based movement was the goal of the campaign. The "poor white" had been put into a position, he wrote, "where through blindness and prejudice, he is forced to support his oppressors, and the only thing he has going for him is the false feeling that he is superior because his skin is white. And he can't hardly eat and make ends meet week in and week out."

On Sunday, March 31, 1968, in a sermon in Washington's National Cathedral, King promised to bring to the nation's capital "the tired, the poor, the huddled masses." He said that all they were asking for was what the Declaration of Independence had promised all Americans: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. King had lofty intentions for the march, but it was uncertain whether he could deliver. The demands included Congressional enactment of a full-employment plan, a guaranteed annual income, and construction funds for at least 500,000 units of low-cost housing per year. The early organizing for the campaign was slow and arduous. King contemplated calling off the campaign on more than one occasion and twice was forced to postpone its opening date. (Contrary to mainstream belief today, while King was alive he was never widely heralded in the media as a "savior" or a "great leader." He was just as often denounced as a "polarizing" figure and his work was often denigrated in racist terms. As was the case with Robert F. Kennedy, the love affair with MLK only took off long after he had become a kind of martyr.)

Against the advice of some of his closest advisers, King took time out from organizing the Poor People's Campaign to travel to Memphis, to help with a month-long strike of the city's 1,300 mostly African-American sanitation workers. He felt obliged to Reverend James Lawson who asked King for assistance against a recalcitrant local white power structure. Lawson had been a solid ally of King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) going back to the 1950s.

Three days before his sermon in Washington, on March 28, 1968, King had led about 15,000 people on a march through downtown Memphis in solidarity with the striking garbage workers. The demonstration quickly degenerated into violence after young blacks at the rear began smashing windows and fighting with police. Tension had been rising since an altercation earlier that day between police and black teenagers. There is evidence that some of those who turned violent were agent provocateurs working for J. Edgar Hoover's FBI. King had to be whisked away from the scene in a passing car that aides flagged down. When the riot was over, one black youth had been shot and killed by police, sixty people were injured, and 4,000 Tennessee National Guardsmen closed off the central city.

On April 3, 1968, a night of hurricane-force winds and severe storm warnings throughout the South, King spoke to an audience of about 3,000 who crammed into the Mason Temple in Memphis. He was pained that the media had only focused on the violence of the previous protest. The press, he said, "very seldom got around to mentioning the fact that 1,300 sanitation workers were on strike, and that Memphis is not being fair to them." King closed his address with a prescient glimpse at his own destiny: "I've seen the Promised Land," he thundered. "I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land." The elated audience leapt to its feet and punctuated each phrase with cheers and affirmations. King continued, perspiration beading on his brow, his speech reaching an emotional crescendo. "And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!" He pulled himself back from the lectern and plopped down on a chair as well wishers surrounded him, reaching out to touch him.

The following day, April 4, 1968, just before 6:00 p.m., King, his brother A.D. King, and some aides were preparing to leave the black-owned Lorraine Motel where King had stayed during his visits to Memphis since the 1950s. They were getting ready to go to a buffet dinner at the home of friend. On the second floor, King emerged from room 306 and walked on to the balcony. After bantering with friends down in the courtyard about whether he would need his coat, he turned back to his room. A loud report like that of a car backfiring reverberated through the courtyard. People instinctively ducked for cover. An uncommonly accurate shot fired from a high-powered rifle had altered the course of American history. Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., the greatest African-American spiritual and political leader of the 20th century, was slain at the age of 39.

The news of the killing spread rapidly, and cities across America began to explode into rioting. New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy was campaigning for president at the time in Indiana and was on his way to speak to an African-American audience in Indianapolis when he first heard the news that King had been killed. The Republican mayor of Indianapolis, Richard Lugar, warned Kennedy not to go into the African-American part of town because they expected an uprising. Ignoring them, Kennedy went to speak to a crowd of about 4,000 people. Most of those present had not yet heard of King's fate. He skipped being introduced, and climbed on to a flatbed truck that served as a makeshift stage. It was a drizzly night with gusty winds, and a lone floodlight barely illuminated the platform. Unbeknownst to Kennedy, his brief remarks that night would be later described as a small masterpiece of American public rhetoric made all the more poignant by his own assassination just eight weeks later. Standing in front of a bulky microphone, Kennedy spoke extemporaneously:

"Ladies and Gentlemen, I am only going to talk to you just for a minute or so this evening because I have some very sad news for all of you. I have bad news for you, for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world, and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and killed tonight."

Those gathered let out an audible gasp followed by shouts of "No!" Kennedy paused for a moment, and then continued:

"Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice for his fellow human beings, and he died because of that effort."

"In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it is perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in. For those of you who are black -- considering the evidence there evidently is that there were white people who were responsible -- you can be filled with bitterness, with hatred, and a desire for revenge. We can move in that direction as a country, in great polarization -- black people amongst black, white people amongst white, filled with hatred for one another.

"Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and to replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand with compassion and love.

"For those of you who are black and tempted to be filled with hatred and distrust at the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I can only say that I feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man. But we have to make an effort in the United States; we have to make an effort to understand, to go beyond these rather difficult times.

"My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He wrote: 'In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.'

"What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black. . . .

"We've had difficult times in the past. We will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; it is not the end of disorder.

"But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings who abide in our land.

"Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and to make gentle the life of the world.

"Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and four our people."

It was the only time Kennedy spoke publicly about his brother's murder. That night, violence engulfed 126 cities, and caused thirty-nine deaths and 2,500 injuries. Parts of Washington, D.C. were on fire, and the Army deployed machine gunners on the roof of the Capitol building. But Indianapolis stayed calm that night. Kennedy sent members of his staff to assist Coretta Scott King, and he quietly chartered a plane for the family to carry King's body back to Atlanta. He suspended all campaign activities.

Martin Luther King, Jr. is celebrated each year with a national holiday where we are treated to the spectacle of seeing the likes of George W. Bush, Newt Gingrich, Sean Hannity, and George Will shed crocodile tears over his memory and his "dream." People who would be disparaging everything King did if this was 1968 make a point of appropriating the "meaning" of his life for a few minutes every January 15th. In 2008, in the heat of the election year, with war abroad and growing poverty at home, we should take pause for a moment and remind ourselves of King's legacy. We might take a minute out of our busy day and think about what has happened to America in the 40 years since King was murdered. We might also ponder just for a moment what King might be thinking if he could see Barack Obama, who opposes another unjust and wasteful war and is trying to be a voice for poor people of all races and ethnicities, having a realistic chance of becoming the first African-American President of the United States. Forty years ago America lost one its finest young leaders, but we can see today that Martin Luther King's legacy lives on.

Comments

[DLSprague]

Though my understanding of the events is compromised by not yet having been born until November of that year, it really does feel as if Barack Obama has the potential to harness that same type of coalition as you speak of in your book. Barack Obama is the best hope we've had since Bobby Kennedy of actually being able to unite the powerless, as well as evicting the greedy war profiteers from the White House. Good piece, as can be expected!

[littleblackcat]

In all fairness, some of the complacency that has gripped the country for so long is a part of what happens after the death of any family member. We as a nation had lost three family members in four years if you look at it like the nation is all of our "family". Having lost a child, I speak from personal experience that recovery takes years. Losing three "family members" tossed us all into a whirlpool of despair that numbed us all, mind, heart, and soul. There were and are factions within this nation exploiting this despair for their own gain, moving their agendas forward, twisting and rewriting laws, shifting policy from fairness to favoritism. I am hopeful for the first time since these terrible events in our history that the winds of change are blowing. I'm reminded of JFK's inaugural speech;
"The torch has been passed... To a new generation."

[Sportswoman]

That was one of the finest posts I've read on this site. I teach a public speaking class and have often shown the video clip of Bobby Kennedy's speech that night, along with Dr. King's speeches and march footage. The class of mostly 18-year olds always reacts somberly and is amazed that Bobby, who was in the last 8 weeks of his own life, could share the pain he endured over JFK's murder and share the poems which had softened his own bitterness.

It pains me personally to watch it because I was a 16-year-old Bobby Kennedy volunteer. I want to remember his commitment to eradicating povery and the Vietnam War, alongside Dr. King's, If one reads the great JFK books by Ted White or Arthur Schlesinger, one learns that much was done by Bobby behind the scenes to make sure that the march and resultant, electrifying MLK speech at the Washington Monument went off without problems.
I was so fortunate to be able to convey to Sen. Ted Kennedy when he spoke in East los Angeles that I had been a member of his brother's volunteer campaign and I thanked him for supporting Barack Obama so early. Although the crowding rush of TV cameramen ushered him past he stopped to say thank-you. If Obama can be elected then that awful time--'63-'68-- might not have been totally in vain.

[batgirlevi]

Excellent.

[BARRISTER]

Have we ever wondered why these three GREAT men were shot? The answer, incidentally, would also reveal who shot them. John Kennedy, Dr.King and Robert Kennedy?? Have we ever wondered what the USA, indeed the World would be like had they all lived??

Is it too much to want America and the World to be as it would have been??

Ought we not to fight to make it so in honour of these three GREAT men??

[HeadScratcher]

I think all three would call for us to honor ourselves with living up to the potential we have as individuals and as a nation. Sadly, we get diverted from meeting that potential because of the same things that have always haunted us - poverty, war, racism, inequality.

[Loeb]

I was a member of SCLC and marched with Dr. King in 1965. I still cry when I hear a record
of the April 3 sermon in Memphis. April 4 was the most important day in my
young civil rights life (I was a "follower", not a "leader" and I am "pink").

I believe Dr. King whom I met only briefly would have supported Rev.
Jeremiah Wright of Chicago in his criticism of the state terror being
carried on against Palestinians. After all, Dr. King was no stranger
to criticizing his own nation when he felt it warranted (such as at
Riverside Church, NY, a speech against the Vietnam War which
horrified many white liberals...)

Re: Rev. Wright read the article in "The Nation" of April 14,08,
by Alexander Cockburn. For history of the conflict in the Middle
East in greater depth see: l:"The Fateful Triangle" by Noam
Chomsky and 2. "The Perilous Power" by Noam Chomsky and
Gilbert Achcar.

For information on Jewish Voice for Peace: www.jvp.org

[afgail]

This has been an awesome thread, so thoughtful and devoid of the usual blatant bias, rancor, vicious verbal assaults and manufactured hate which is the normal fare on the Huff Po politics section. Thanks everybody. I fear it will be business as usual tomorrow.

[StephenJK]

We've lost our way and the humanity that MLK sought to share with us is all but just a fading ember.

What I've witnessed in this election cycle only enforces the idea that we, as democrats, have no clue when it comes to treating each other with wisdom and compassion. We're destroying ourselves and for selfish reasons. Some well known. Some held close to our hearts.

Those reasons are not good enough to destroy our democratic ideals of standing behind the working class and making sure we all have opportunity to exceed and ultimately succeed.

I don't know what has clouded our vision. I am as confused as most everyone else. We need to come together in a unifying force and push our righteous ideas into law.

I hope it is Barack Obama who can unify the WHOLE country. Not just democrats. We need someone who can take the democratic vision and paint it in such a way that it cannot be denied. It would be wrong to deny it. I have my doubts about Barack. However, if he is the nominee, I will fully support his presidency and I will, hopefully along with the rest of his supporters, hold him fully accountable for his words of the promised land.

[GrainOSand]

Stephen I have my doubts as well about the degree to which Senator Obama can change an environment of greed, corruption and perverted ambition. He stands (to me) as our best opportunity to embark on a long and necessary healing process. The other two suggest more of what brought us to where we are now. One always did, and the other has revealed her true nature over the course of the campaign.

I too am disheartened by the divisions and animosities that have been unearthed during this cycle but I cannot say that I am surprised. I always knew what America really was just beneath the surface and now many are waking up to that fact because many are now being personally affected by changing economic and social conditions. This is both bad and good. A wakeup call has been initiated and now all that is left is America's response to determine the future of our country. If we fail we fail by our own choices and we will deserve no pity. FOX news, Rush Limbaugh, and others have large audiences and America allows them to continue to spew their toxic venom year after year. G. Bush was elected to office twice. Though he stole the election both times there were no mass demonstrations or people lying on airstrips to stop the planes from landing in protest of his theft of Democracy. We were too busy playing with our gadgets. Well it appears play time is over.

[Ono4Hoopono]

Thanks for laying this out in context. We've felt that "drop by drop upon the heart" for forty years. And now a light in that yonder window breaks.

[Mariel]

Kennedy's quotation from his "favorite poet", Aeschylus, priceless. I never read this speech before, and it was a humdinger, particularly the quote from Aeschylus. Those whose hearts are never touched in this way cannot be the best leaders. Few leadership hearts have been touched this way in recent years. that is part of what is missing.

[Ono4Hoopono]

"Those whose hearts are never touched in this way cannot be the best leaders." Well said, so true.

[fcrooster]

We are stronger as true patriots!

"I will hold up America to the lightning scorn of moral indignation. In doing this I shall feel myself discharging the duty of a true patriot; for he is a lover of his country who rebukes and does not excuse its sins." -- Frederick Douglass

Today, while we pause to honor the dream and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, we reflect on how we become a More Perfect Union! We need constructive criticism and honest dissent over the misperceptions and attack machines. Truth is always the main ingredient of freedom. While precedents and traditions are a part of us, they can be flawed. We must never confuse our Constitution or the rationale behind Separation of Church and State as un-American. America has never been about monolithic thought. It never suffices or makes us stronger. Rebuking Reverend Jeremiah Wright, while dismissing Reverend Pat Robertson as a kook, will never do.

Our main concern now should be about turning the page. As we do, we must never again allow the voices of a few to think for the rest of us. “We hold these truths to be self-evident…” It takes ALL of us!

[GrainOSand]

Curtis Mayfield said, "Fred is dead".

Thanks, for resuscitating him and reminding all of us what true patriotism is.

[BinBaldwin]

I love the photo. MLK and the man who illegally wiretapped him. RFK . Priceless liberalism.

[castlerider]

If he wiretapped him it was at the behest of Herbert Hoover, who was the no. 1 Pig of Priceless rightwing ideology.

I'd rather have liberalism any day. But you probably can't see that well from your bathroom stall, to understand. .

[ARBOC2]

I worked with one of the agents who wire tapped King. By all accounts King's continuous sexual exploits made Bill Clinton look like a choir boy celibate. Hoover reportedly had many of the recordings and some explicit pictures delivered to Corretta, who somehow managed to endure. She was indeed a remarkable woman.

[starboymikey]

If he wiretapped him it was at the behest of Herbert Hoover, who was the no. 1 Pig of Priceless rightwing ideology.
__________­__________­__________­__________­__________­__________­_

Herbert Hoover? I think you have your vacuum cleaners mixed up.

[bethinCary]

Great post Joseph.

In MLK's gr4eatest legacy-maybe yet to be seen.

But I believe in my heart- 2008 will be the year to bring some justice to his death.

[TrixtersMom]

What a beautiful, beautiful article. Thank you so much for posting it. You know, people think we should concentrate more on other things rather than on coming together with love and understanding, but the fact remains: Divided we cannot change. I know King is so very proud of Obama now, just as his supporters are. He is inspiring so many millions of new voters and young people, old people, people of all races and classes. May God protect him. YES WE CAN and YES WE WILL! Obama '08!

[fisharefreinds]

I am sorry I did not read your whole article through; just worried in Washington about the state of our affairs right now makes reflection almost quaint.
J.Edgar Hoover turned the FBI into a surveillance arm of the Federal Government; it has always spied on America and has never succeeded in doing anything other than creating bogus scandals and infiltrating organizations to bring about discredit to good people. Where were they @ 9/11 or Oklahoma, or TWA....
No where cause that's not their job.
I always thought, "how convenient for Nixon," Bobby Kennedy's death was, because he would never have won without all that tumultuous year brought about--King's death, Bobby's death.
Imagine if there had been another Kennedy/Nixon race in 68? Who do you think would have won?

[J E Mugford]

There is no doubt that RFK would have won if he would have lived. That was the threat to the military-industrial complex, those that make money off of war-profiteering and associated malfeasance could not afford to have his intelligence and perceptive eyes turned towards them. While Hoover was a stooge in many ways, he was an effective stooge for those that made the profits from war and oil. Now we don't need Hoover, the current President stands in as stooge to those self-same interests.

[calibpatriot]

I'm old enough to remember Bobby Kennedy. He was always deeply committed to progressive causes. One could scarcely watch a news broadcast when he wasn't at the foreground of a march or demonstration by such groups as the farm laborors, civil rights groups or labor organizations. He was deeply committed to bettering the conditions of society's disenfranchised. He had a great following among the younger generation and the progressives of that period. Bobby was assassinated at a victory rally in L.A. following his victory in the California primary assuring his being the Democratic candidate in the coming general election. His assassination assured a victory for Richard Nixon.

I believe that there is a direct link between the political assassinations in the sixties and the far-right regimes that we've been experiencing starting with "tricky Dick" and continuing into the current Bush/Cheney regime. Let's all hope and work for a real meaningful change.

[GrainOSand]

I see and feel the link too. We have some smart people in the electorate. I hope they are the majority.

[HeadScratcher]

I also remember Bobby Kennedy. He's always been my personal political hero. He wasn't the "progressive" he's known for now, especially when historically compared to Gene McCarthy and Hubert Humphrey - but he had an epiphany after his brother Jack's death. I don't believe that there has ever been a political leader like Bobby. The intelligence, the courage, the inexhaustible quest for equality. As with JFK and MLK, we were able with Bobby to experience the giants of our time. I think that is what the youth of today is experiencing with Obama. That feeling of moving on past the bias and polarization and seeking what might be instead of accepting what is.

[GrainOSand]

Distortion­s—Distract­ions—and--­Democracy --Comment IV

I have never met anyone who does not appreciate wealth. I have never met anyone who does not want the best life possible. I have never met anyone who does not want to feel proud and capable of doing for self. I have met people trapped in generational poverty, ignorance, and despair. I have met people who look out on their future here in this country and can envision no future. I have met people who were born and who died with nothing but misery between the two endpoints. I have met people who distrust government because when they think about government they see a body that does not represent them or consider them in the work that the body does. I have met people who through a fierce hate would seek to ruin or take the life of another. I have met the ambitious who would sellout their human brother or sister for the shine of a dime.

I Have a Dream –though an unequaled symphony of hope was not Martin’s greatest speech. The Drum Major Instinct speech is the speech that best defines the problems of our times and best provides the solution for how we might emerge from the darkness of division along ethnic lines. The speech makes no distinction between white and black, Asian and Latino, Eskimo and Indian. It makes the distinction between servant of the people and servant of self-interest to the detriment of the people.

[ohboy]

How is it that a candidate who says he wants to move a fictional war from one place to another become an anti-war candidate?

I guess, along with Bush, Gingrich and company, you also missed the lessons of the great civil rights leader you now lionize. If King were alive, we could reasonably speculate that real anti-war, anti-military industrial candidates like Kucinich and Nader might get a decent chance at national office because we would probably be a different nation. As it is, we've devolved into a craven, small minded, corporately owned society stalked by Christian fascists.