Early Evening, April 4
Early evening, April four
Shot rings out in the Memphis sky
Free at last, they took your life
They could not take your pride
Pride, In the Name of Love - U2
Shortly after 6:00 PM on this date in 1968, the bullets of an assassin took the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the only American born in the 20th century honored with a national holiday. At the time of his death, King was one of the most unpopular men in the United States. He's probably received more death threats than anyone involved in the Civil Rights movement. Many people believe that he foresaw his own death.
King was in Memphis that day in support of striking sanitation workers. He was stridently anti-capitalist, dedicated to a world where wealth wasn't relegated to a tiny minority while working people lived in poverty. In his speech the night before his murder, King's prophetic words are chilling:
Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop.
And I don't mind.
Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. 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!
I was only three years old when Dr. King died, so I have no memory of him. I do remember the struggle to get his birthday made into a holiday. Some Southern states insist on co-honoring Robert. E Lee on the same day because, well, some southern states are run by racist assholes, kind of like out whole country is now.
Later on the evening of April 4th, Robert Kennedy, Sr., gave a speech in Indianapolis that he led off by annoucing King's murder, eliciting screams of rage and pain from those in the audience. He spoke for the first time in public about the murder of his brother in Dallas five years prior. Then he uttered the words that were to be engraved on his memorial, for he too was to die by an assassins bullets just a couple of months later.
"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 is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice towards those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black."
Every honest person in the US knows that we still haven't gotten to the promised land. We still have the same division that Kennedy spoke about. Despite the fascist victory last November, the dream isn't dead, though. We still have the time and the means to make it come true. It's going to take hard work and courage. Will you help?
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