His house was bombed - his wife and one year old baby were inside.
He writes on page 137
"By this time the crowd outside was getting out of hand. The policemen had failed to disperse them, and throngs of additional people were arriving every minute. The white reporters inside the house wanted to leave to get their stories on the wires, but they were afraid to face the angry crowd. The mayor and police commisioner, though they might not have admitted it, were very pale.
In this atmosphere I walked out to the porch and asked the crowd to come to order. In less than a moment there was complete silence. Quietly, I told them that I was all right and that my wife and baby were all right. "Now let's not become panciky," I continued. "If you have weapons, take them home, if you do not have them, please do not seek to get them. We cannot solve the problem through retaliatory violence. We must meet violence with nonviolence. Remember the words of Jesus 'He who lives by the sword will perish by the sword' I then urged them to leave peacefully. "We must love our white brothers," I said "no matter what they do to us. We must make them know that we love them. Jesus still cries out in words that echo across the centuries: 'love your enemies; bless them that curse you; pray for them that despitefully use you' This is what we must live by. We must meet hate with love."
I say that Martin provides an awesome example of the way the best people should respond to murderous violence towards even themself.
Now you may say that he is a proven failure, since he was killed at a young age. But he is honored every year on a national holiday (even if many of the people honoring him do not read his books or even try to follow his teachings) and the person who threw that bomb is buried in an obscure grave.
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