The Second Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

[Nevilledog]

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Tweet text:
Victor Ray
@victorerikray
"Almost a third of Americans polled in April 1968 felt that King himself was to blame for his assassination, felt that he had “brought it on himself.” When King was killed, he was one of the most hated people in the United States,"

Thank you @DrIbram

The Second Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
King’s nightmare of racism is being presented as his dream.
theatlantic.com
5:15 AM · Oct 17, 2021

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/10/martin-luther-king-critical-race-theory/620367/

No paywall
https://archive.is/BHcno

Early on the evening of October 23, 2019, I took a tour of the Lorraine Motel. I’d been to Memphis, Tennessee, several times before, and I’d come back to speak at the National Civil Rights Museum, which encompasses the motel. But until that October, I’d never been able to bring myself to visit the site of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination.

I saw what King saw moments before he saw no more. His second-floor room had been preserved. Walking into there was like walking into 1968. I saw the antique dishes from the motel’s kitchen. I saw two beds: one for King, unmade, and one for his friend Ralph Abernathy. On April 4, 1968, King had been feeling under the weather.

The night before he was killed, King addressed striking Black sanitation workers in Memphis. “If something isn’t done, and in a hurry,” he said, “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.”

I walked out of Room 306, as King did, around 6 p.m. From the balcony, I looked down on a white 1959 Dodge Royal and a white 1968 Cadillac. King looked down to talk with some friends in the parking lot. He turned to walk back into his room. A bullet smashed into his neck. I stood on the concrete square where King’s life fell. I looked to where King’s associates pointed in the sniper’s direction.

*snip*

[WhiskeyGrinder]

1. We see the push for "colorblindness" even here. It's an attractive idea for white people who don't

Last edited Sun Oct 17, 2021, 12:55 PM - Edit history (1)

want to do the hard work of unlearning racial ignorance -- or feel they don't need to.

[kimbutgar]

2. I've been at that museum also

I got such a feeling of sadness and felt the gravity of what Dr. King stood for.

The same third of the people polled are probably older or children of those polled and probably supporters of TFG.

[Mr.Bill]

3. I was 15 years old,

and though I lived in a very diverse neighborhood, sadly I can say that most of the white adults I knew though of Dr. King as someone who was just there to stir up trouble and promote riots. They were not only racist, they were profoundly ignorant. People my age seemed to know better because fortunately we were presented with the facts in school.