In Memory Of Dr. King

[dbt]

gunned down on that motel balcony, 4/4/68.

Dr. King, I was 12 years old when you mounted the March on Washington. A white boy from a small, all-white town, I had heard all the supposed "truths" about black people. As the ABC News cameras panned across the crowd, what I saw was way different from what my townsfolk would have had me believe.

The more I looked at that enormous crowd of people, the more I saw folks who looked just like those who lived in my little town. There were wagons drawn by horses and mules, there were just any number of people wearing work shirts and overalls--they all looked about as rich as our neighbors, which is to say "not very."

The only real difference I could see between "us" and "them" was skin color.

It was on that summer afternoon that I began to see some Truth, and I thank you for it. I wonder when we will see your likes again!

[demnan]

1. Yes what an awful day it was

I was just a few years younger than you and I remember it announced on the elementary school PA system. The reactions for racists were extremely ugly and I felt repulsed by some of my family members and their reaction to the death of this wonderful man.

It was after this that the great anger errupted in the black community. Finally their rights were won through burning buildings and running in the street.

Perhaps we will all have to get angry again.

[FreedomAngel82]

20. I've been angry for so long

about all this. JFK, RFK, MLK, junior. I'm just so pissed how the people get away with this and they won't tell us the truth just to hide someone's (or more then someone) asses. :banghead:

[YellowRubberDuckie]

2. They had an episode of Cold Case that honored Dr. King's message...

And reminded us that not too long ago African Americans were getting killed because of the color of their skin and because they thought Dr. King had a point. It was a great episode where a black girl was raped by a white man. The girl's friend helps her to report it, and ends up getting killed for it. He earned to get to the march on Washington to catch a glimpse of Dr. King, because he believed Dr. King was going to make everything better. It was a great episode and had be bawling for ten minutes after it was over.
Duckie

[Mikimouse]

3. 1968 sucked big time...

but I remember the march in '63 as well. We were in DC on vacation and saw the crowd by the Lincoln Memorial. I was 10 and did not understand the importance of what was happening until years later. Then came 1968 and we lost Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy. I still shake my head everytime I think about it, to think about how much different our society might be had they lived.
Thanks for posting this, and reminding me to be thankful that we have had such men in our midst.

[FreedomAngel82]

21. If they all lived

think of how things would be now. We would be so better as a country I think. The people in power might not even be there. *sigh*

[orpupilofnature57]

4. Kick!!! Truly a man of vision, courage, & altruism., in the highest sense

I was in fifth grade, and if we really knew what was going on, Shrub,kkkarl, and the rest of the "good ole boy" could have never got a hold.

[realFedUp]

5. kicking for real courage shown...n/t

[Ishoutandscream]

6. Man, it's been 37 years!

So much has happened since then, but it still seems like yesterday. 68 was a one of those mixed bags for me; an exciting time of student activism and great music, rolled in to great tragedy and incredible events.

[ulysses]

7. thank you for this, dbt.

:thumbsup:

[LibraLiz1973]

8. This song has been on the brain today

U2- Pride (In the name of love)

Early morning, April 4
Shot rings out in the Memphis sky
Free at last, they took your life
They could not take your pride

In the name of love!
What more in the name of love?
In the name of love!
What more in the name of love?
In the name of love!
What more in the name of love...

[KlatooBNikto]

9. This country's fate was forever sealed in 1968 with the assassinations

of Dr.King and Bobby Kennedy.The same class of men who would not share power with the lower classes and feel entitled to the idea "we are more equal than the rest of you" are in power now.

[seemslikeadream]

10. Death Of Martin Luther King

Champion Jack Dupree


Well the world lost a good man
When we lost doctor Martin Luther King
A man who tried to do everything
He tried to keep the world in peace
And now the poor man is gone to rest
But go on, doctor Martin Luther King, take your rest
There will always be another Luther King.

It was early one evening, when the sun was sinking down
Early in the evening, some dirty sniper shot Martin Luther King down
He was nothing but a coward
He dropped his gun and run
But he will never have no peace
He'll always be on the run
The words that he say just before he died
That I'm, I'm going upon, I'm going way upon, way upon the mountain top
Well nobody know and nobody seem to care
Seem like the whole world, the whole world is in sin
Oh Lord, is in sin. Oh, what will, what will become of me?
I say Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy on this family.
(Spoken)
Yeah they shot him down
Just like they done all the rest
Shot on Abraham Lincoln,
Shot on president Kennedy
And they took poor Martin Luther King
So you know I don't stand a chance
I ain't nobody

I know you people, I know you glad you ain't one of me
I know you people glad, I know you glad you white and free
Oh yeah, white and free, oh, what will, what will become of me?
Oh I am begging, yes, I'm begging to be free.

[H2O Man]

11. Rev. King was a great American.

"Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the docrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race. Even before there were large numbers of Negroes on our shores, the scar of racial hatred had already disfigured colonial society. From the sixteenth century forward, blood flowed in battles over racial supremacy. We are perhaps the only nation which tried as a matter of national policy to wipe out its indienous population. Moreover, we elevated that tragic experience into a noble crusade. Indeed, even today we have not permitted ourselves to reject or feel remorse for this shameful episode. Our literature, our films, our drama, our folklore all exhalt it. Our children are still taught to respect the violence which reduced a red-skinned people of an earlier culture into a few fragmented groups herded into impoverished reservations."

-- Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

[lostnfound]

12. Dr. King, I was only 5, so I really only know you by your absence..

Your speeches, static-ky recordings on Pacifica radio and occasional short clips of videos on TV, have been experienced always in the context of "here was a great American that we lost, a great human being who no longer lives". I know you by your absence, by the footprints you left behind..what would it have been like to know the presence of such a leader?

I wish I knew.

Did our family stop and wonder why? Did my conscientious but middle-of-the-road white parents mourn? I wish I could remember. But I suspect that their hearts were opened a little more that day. And I do suspect that all over America, there were tears in the eyes of 5 year olds, and old ones, and a wish that the world were a better place.

[Al-CIAda]

13. Martin Luther King Jr. -mp3's

Martin Luther King Jr. -mp3's

Martin Luther King Jr.
speaking the truth on vietnam - this is why he was killed
songs with MLK that can enlighten all but the willfully ignorant

MLK 1- Unjust Evil and Futile War
http://ftp.radio4all.net/pub/archive/05.29.04/mlk1-truth.mp3

MLK 2- War on the Poor
http://ftp.radio4all.net/pub/archive/05.29.04/mlk2-waronpoor.mp3

MLK 3- Apathy
http://ftp.radio4all.net/pub/archive/05.29.04/mlk3-apathy.mp3

MLK 4- Hypocrisy
http://ftp.radio4all.net/pub/archive/05.29.04/mlk4-applauded.mp3

MLK 5- God is Love
http://ftp.radio4all.net/pub/archive/05.29.04/mlk5-godislove.mp3

MLK 6- Now is the Time
http://ftp.radio4all.net/pub/archive/05.29.04/mlk6-now_isthetime.mp3

[Wind Dancer]

14. MLK, Jr. gave his infamous speech at Riverside Church

exactly one year before the assassination.

Amy Goodman has a nice tribute today,

REV. DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.: I come to this platform tonight to make a passionate plea to my beloved nation. This speech is not addressed to Hanoi or to the National Liberation Front. It is not addressed to China or to Russia. Nor is it an attempt to overlook the ambiguity of the total situation and the need for a collective solution to the tragedy of Vietnam. Neither is it an attempt to make North Vietnam or the National Liberation Front paragons of virtue, nor to overlook the role they must play in the successful resolution of the problem. While they both may have justifiable reasons to be suspicious of the good faith of the United States, life and history give eloquent testimony to the fact that conflicts are never resolved without trustful give and take on both sides.

Tonight, however, I wish not to speak with Hanoi and the National Liberation Front, but rather to my fellow Americans. That is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I and others have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor, both black and white, through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched this program broken and eviscerated, as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube.

AMY GOODMAN: An excerpt of the speech of Dr. Martin Luther King a year before he was assassinated. This speech given on April 4, 1967. He was assassinated a year later, April 4, 1968. This is the 37th anniversary of his death.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/04/1336245

[H2O Man]

15. the speech

was not "infamous"

[Wind Dancer]

19. You are right, I should have explained my choice of the word "infamous".

I think this was the speech that ultimately sealed his fate - Dr. King eloquently opposed the Vietnam War, the MIC, our treatment of other countries and offered advice to "Conscientious Objectors".


Personally, I think it was one of his best speeches so I apologize for not making my sarcasm more obvious in the post. My cynical pessimism got the best of me.

[seemslikeadream]

16. The FBI's golden record club

From December 1963 until his death in 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was the target of an intensive campaign by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to "neutralize" him as an effective civil rights leader. In the words of the man in charge of the FBI's "war" against Dr. King:

No holds were barred. We have used techniques against Soviet agents. brought home against any organization against which we were targeted. We did not differentiate. This is a rough, tough business. 1

The FBI collected information about Dr. King's plans and activities through an extensive surveillance program, employing nearly every intelligence-gathering technique at the Bureau's disposal. Wiretaps, which were initially approved by Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, were maintained on Dr. King's home telephone from October 1963 until mid-1965; the SCLC headquarter's telephones were covered by wiretaps for an even longer period. Phones in the homes and offices of some of Dr. King's close advisers were also wiretapped. The FBI has acknowledged 16 occasions on which microphones were hidden in Dr. King's hotel and motel rooms in an "attempt" to obtain information about the "private activities of King and his advisers" for use to "completely discredit" them. 2

FBI informants in the civil rights movement and reports from field offices kept the Bureau's headquarters informed of developments in the civil rights field. The FBI's presence was so intrusive that one major figure in the civil rights movement testified that his colleagues referred to themselves as members of "the FBI's golden record club." 3

The FBI's formal program to discredit Dr. King with Government officials began with the distribution of a "monograph" which the FBI realized could "be regarded as a personal attack on Martin Luther King," 4 and which was subsequently described by a Justice Department official as "a personal diatribe ... a personal attack without evidentiary support." 5
http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/churchfinalreportIIIb.htm

[journalist3072]

17. Thank You, Dr. King

Dr. King was before my time. But he left such an incredible gift to my generation: one of peace, courage, kindness, conviction, and a sense of what is right and wrong.

Now only if we can built on his gift, so that we can leave a gift for the generation after us, we would be in really good shape.

So tonight, I want to say thank you to Dr. King, and all of the incredible soldiers of the civil rights movement, for the amazing gift!

[Swamp Rat]

18. Kick for Dr. King