Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget,
Falls drop by drop upon the heart,
Until, in our own despair, against our will,
Comes wisdom, through the awful grace of God—Robert F. Kennedy, quoting Aeschylus
When the news bulletin flashed onto the television screen forty years ago tonight, the announcer said that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had been shot and killed.
I had never heard Martin Luther King referred to as “Junior” before, and for a few minutes, I thought, “Maybe it’s not him.” But it was him.
If you’re young enough, you might imagine that the whole country joined in mourning the loss of our greatest civil rights leader. But to many Americans, King was nothing but a trouble-maker.
A high school friend asked, “If he was so non-violent, how come there were riots everywhere he went?” The violence was usually started by whites, sometimes by white police and officials, but that was irrelevant — “It’s his fault because he oughtta know that whites aren’t gonna take this sitting down.”
After King’s funeral, I heard a man I knew complain that Robert Kennedy, who was running for the Democratic presidential nomination, should be ashamed of himself for attending the funeral.
Time deceives us. It smooths over the ragged edges; it erases the sweat and struggle; it papers over the hatred; it replaces bravery with mythology. We forget that, throughout history, every advance of liberty and human dignity has had to be won against fierce, fiery and often violent opposition. It was true forty years ago, and it’s true today.
On the night Dr. King was murdered, Robert Kennedy was scheduled to speak to a mostly black audience at a campaign rally in Indianapolis. This is what he said:
Spink Nogales | 04-Apr-08 at 11:20 am | Permalink
“If you’re young enough, you might imagine that the whole country joined in mourning the loss of our greatest civil rights leader. But to many Americans, King was nothing but a trouble-maker.”
This is part of the reason that I am a supporter of Hillary Rodham for President. She has had a life-long involvement in the issues that are important to democrats.
From the Wikipedia Hillary Clinton biography:
… she saw and met civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. in Chicago in 1962.
… she sought to work for change within the system, rather than take then-popular radical actions against it. In her junior year, Rodham was affected by the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., and became a supporter of the anti-war presidential nomination campaign of Democrat Eugene McCarthy. Rodham organized a two-day student strike and worked with Wellesley’s black students for moderate changes, such as recruiting more black students and faculty.
[If you resent the idea of using this issue in the current political debate, then I do not object to it being deleted by the administrator of this website.]