Then in April came the assassination of Dr. King, who was in Memphis supporting a
garbage workers' strike (he had switched to supporting all the poor of America
regardless of race).[1] Blacks responded in what was becoming a
rather typical fashion now, going on a rampage plundering neighborhoods and
then torching them, in American city after city. Police had to be called in to protect the
firemen who were being shot at by the rioters, and afternoon curfews, requiring
everyone to be inside their homes, had to be imposed to bring order back to
America. It took several days to get
things calmed back down again.
This
was definitely not how Dr. King would have wanted to be remembered. But this was no longer about Dr. King. This was about Black power, and Black Panther
militancy. White man's world needed to
be destroyed.
Thus
so much for Federal poverty and educational assistance offered by Washington to
the Black minority community in order to put the icing on the cake of the Great Society. It all seemed so pointless now.
Dr. King's last sermon – Washington National Cathedral – Sunday, March 31, 1968
(and by some act of God, I was there to hear it!)
Most
eerily (in retrospect), he spoke very prophetically about
his focus on
merely Black civil rights being over (he was not
going to be part of
the Black Power takeover of the movement).
Little did he know how "over" that would be.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
during his last public appearance
the night before his death – April
1968
Dr. Martin Luther King on
the balcony where he would be shot
on the following day
Rev. Dr. King's aides point
to where the sniper shot that
killed King came from – Memphis, April 4,
1968
His assassin, James Earl Ray – a hard-core racist ... and
prison escapee (1967) earlier convicted of fraud, theft and
robbery
Washington burning in the
wake of the assassination of Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. – April 1968
National Guardsmen patrolling
a burning section of
Washington, D.C. – April 1968
The nation's capital after the riots
Chicago burning in the wake
of Martin Luther King's
assassination – April 1968
Mules bearing King's coffin
through the streets
of Atlanta – April 1968
[1]By another one of those strange interventions of what I at the time
called fortuna, I found myself at the Washington National Cathedral the
Sunday before King's assassination (at this point attending more for
sentimental than for theological reasons), with King as the featured
pastor. He spoke prophetically (as it
turned out) about how his focus on Black civil rights was coming to an end, as
he took up a new line of work in promoting America's poor, Black and
White. He was in fact, planning a Poor
People's March on Washington for the next month (May). He was stepping back
from the Black Movement – which had been taken over by the Black
Panthers, whose brand of politics he did not approve of. Tragically he had no idea of how indeed his
work in favor of Black civil rights was coming to an end. And I gave that last prophetic sermon of his
much thought that week, as I saw the racial unity that he sought so earnestly
go up in the smoke of burning American cities.
THE HIPPIE TAKEOVER OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
(APRIL-MAY) |
Tet (January-February)
Johnson's announcement (March) 
King's assassination (April) 
The hippie takeover of Columbia University (April-May) 
The Poor People's March on Washington (May-June) 
The second Kennedy assassination (June)
Rioting at the Democratic National Convention (August) 
