A half century ago today Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot dead in Memphis, Tennessee. This remains one of the saddest events in our history. This will not be a long post other than remembering this event that ended the life of this great man. I have only two observations.
One is that in yesterday’s Washington Post there was a long article about how King’s family believe he was not shot by James Earl Ray and that it was ultimately a plot by J. Edgar Hoover that did him in. I had long dismissed these arguments, but the article contained a lot of information about the many loose ends and problems with the assassination. Whereas I have gone from believing some of the conspiracy theories about the JFK assassination to accepting that it was almost certainly done by Lee Harvey Oswald alone, this article has sown serious doubts in my mind about the MLK assassination. They are doubts as there is no clear resolution of this, and I fear we shall not be able to determine the truth of this with so many principals in the matter no longer among the living.
The other is to remember that King was concerned with issues of economic justice as well as of racial justice and a peaceful foreign policy. He was supporting a strike by workers in Memphis when he was assassinated. So this anniversary is a matter of more concern for this blog than the assassinations of some other famous people of the past. Let us remember this and honor his struggles in all their aspects on this sad anniversary.
Barkley Rosser
I think that if you cared about Jack Kennedy, and you really dug into what happened in Dallas, the cover story is an acceptable place to leave it.
Whether or not element of the FBI actually organized Dr. King’s murder will probably never be known. But it is undeniable that they created a climate that made it inevitable.
I remember my father who was a member of a suburban Chicago police department showing me FBI cables in 1967 detailing allegations against Dr. King’s personal behavior and linking him to international communism. These cables were sent to nearly every law enforcement agency in the US. What kind of protection do you think he got from local police after that?
The Reverend Doctor King was a Christian Man he preached a gospel in tune to the Sermon on the Mount. That gospel is still not acceptable to American empire.
Barkley:
I wish he were here today. The young people of all colors scream for a leader of such magnitude amongst them. I did write about MLK and his support to Memphis garbage workers in 2012.
“During hurricane winds and driving rain, Martin Luther King gave his famous “I’ve Seen the Promised Land” speech to an ~3,000 people crammed inside Memphis’s Mason Temple on April 3, 1968. It was also there that he predicted his death to the gathered crowd . . . “I may not get there with you.”
At 6:00PM on April 4th, Martin Luther King was shot to death at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis.”
Ilsm
it does not appear acceptable to even some people here.
which may be why they can’t even understand MLK’s “tactics” , assuming that’s all it was.