40 Years Later, MLK Murder Still Haunting

For Those Who Witnessed Assassination, Revisiting Memphis Is "Still A Lot To Take"

(CBS/AP)  It was 40 years ago that Martin Luther King Jr. collapsed on a motel balcony, dying from a gunshot. But for those who were there with him, the crack of the rifle has barely faded.

"Sometimes there are playbacks in my head," said the Rev. Jesse Jackson, a former King aide. "I see him talking and laughing and going to dinner.

"All of a sudden," he said with a clap of his hands, "it was over."

Jackson joined the Rev. Billy Kyles, a Memphis pastor, at the site of the assassination recently to talk to The Associated Press about April 4, 1968, the day King died.

Kyles was a few feet from King on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel when the bullet struck. Jackson was below, joking with King about going to dinner at Kyles' house.

Then King fell, and panic ensued.

"Blood was everywhere," Kyles said. "The nightmare was that I was awake. This really was happening."

CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker reports that thousands were due in Memphis to commemorate King's achievements on Friday and to re-dedicate themselves to his life's work.

King was in Memphis helping lead a strike by city sanitation workers. The civil rights leader had shifted his focus to helping the working poor of all races and opposing the Vietnam War, which was stirring up a whole new wave of enemies, Jackson said.

"He is a beloved man today, but a hated man when he was killed," Jackson said.

King had hoped to lead a peaceful protest march with the garbage workers as a sort of dress rehearsal for the Poor People's Campaign he was preparing to take to Washington.

But a march through downtown Memphis on March 28 fell apart when small groups of unruly protesters and looters began breaking store windows. Police rushed in with nightsticks and tear gas leaving many of the marchers - the peaceful and unruly alike - bruised and bloodied.

King, whose career was built on nonviolent opposition to the powerful, was accused of hypocrisy and of having lost control of his followers. Doubts were raised over his ability to lead the Poor People's Campaign.

King was warned he could be in physical danger if he returned to Memphis, Jackson said, but he came back anyway vowing to lead a second march, this one peaceful.

He did, and Coley Jackson, one of the original Memphis sanitation workers who participated in the last march King would ever lead, told Whitaker their strike for a living wage and better treatment from supervisors who would call them "boy" was floundering, until the civil rights icon took up their cause.

"He said freedom is never given by the oppressor. It must be won by the oppressed," Jackson told Whitaker.

In his last public address, King told a packed house at Mason Temple in Memphis that he had been to the mountaintop and 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," he shouted to thunderous applause. "And I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man."

The "mountaintop speech" on April 3 and King's apparent reference to the possibility of an early death showed he was under more stress than even those closest to him had realized.

"We had no way of knowing how much pain ... he was internalizing. How much more he knew than we knew about the threats," Jackson said. "But his courage rose above the threats."

The following day, King and his associates mostly stayed in their rooms at the Lorraine. The conversations were light, "just cracking jokes and having fun," Jackson said.

About 6 p.m. the group prepared to go to dinner.

"I said, guys, come on let's go. We have a rally after dinner," Kyles said. "I turned and walked away, got a few steps, a few feet, and that's when I heard the shot."

The .30-caliber bullet hit King in the jaw, severed his jugular vein and spine and knocked him to his back.

There was little anyone could do but cover him with a blanket and wait for the ambulance. Jackson went into one of the rooms and called King's wife, Coretta Scott King, telling her she had better come to Memphis.

Jackson, seen at left, said he told her King was shot in a shoulder, though it was obvious he was mortally wounded. "I just couldn't say it," he said.

James Earl Ray, a career criminal and prison escapee from Missouri, confessed to killing King and drew 99 years in prison. Numerous conspiracy theories have cropped up over the years, but none has been proven. Ray died in prison in 1998.

It's unlikely Ray could have killed King alone, Jackson said, and King's vilification by the FBI and other champions of the status quo had created a dangerous emotional climate that lead to the murder.

"He was trying to live in peace and they just blew him away," Jackson said. "They didn't have to kill him."

Jackson's voice began to break as he talked with Kyles on the Lorraine's balcony.

"I don't come back much. It's a lot to take," Jackson said, his eyes growing wet. "It's still a lot to take."

Whitaker said presidential candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain were scheduled to join civil rights leaders and citizens, including the former sanitation workers, at events in Memphis on Friday.

[bwlewis1964]

Racism is condoned at CBS.

[gunsrevil]

Why do we have to hear about mlk so much ? We celebrate his life way to much.


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Posted by cheddarboy82 at 11:27 AM : Apr 04, 2008

We don''t celebrate his life, we celebrate his death.
The movement would have gone nowhere without a martyr!!

[swwils]

Mr.King was an inspiration to me,I was 7 yrs old when he was brutally assassinated.I really didn''t know what he was about at that age,but my mother made me watch the coverage on the news so I would realize what had happened.I wrote an essay on Dr.King when I was in 8th grade(got an A+) I never knew what we lost that day until I researched for my essay.We truly lost a great man.We need to remember what he spoke of,unity,equality,and peace,and harmony between all of us.Racial tension in this country is escalating to the 60''s era again.The terrorist love us to be hating on each other.That gives them an advantage that we can''t afford them to have.If your American that is what you are forget what color your skin is,an realize my blood is as red as everyone else.My blood can save a black person,as well as theirs can save me.Let''s all grow up and fight the evil, instead of each other within our nation.God bless us all!

[swwils]

Mr.King was an inspiration to me,I was 7 yrs old when he was brutally assassinated.I really didn''t know what he was about at that age,but my mother made me watch the coverage on the news so I would realize what had happened.I wrote an essay on Dr.King when I was in 8th grade(got an A+) I never knew what we lost that day until I researched for my essay.We truly lost a great man.We need to remember what he spoke of,unity,equality,and peace,and harmony between all of us.Racial tension in this country is escalating to the 60''s era again.The terrorist love us to be hating on each other.That gives them an advantage that we can''t afford them to have.If your American that is what you are forget what color your skin is,an realize my blood is as red as everyone else.My blood can save a black person,as well as theirs can save me.Let''s all grow up and fight the evil, instead of each other within our nation.God bless us all!

[swwils]

I read a book written by a CIA operative that was dying of cancer.Anyway he stated he was in Memphis with 7 Special Forces sniper''s the day Mr.King was assassinated.He didn''t directly say that the Government did this but he hinted a conspiracy like JFK''s assassination.Dr.Kings son believes that Ray didn''t act alone ,or that he was even the shooter.That man was trying to bring the American people together,which we really need today.If your an American no matter what race we must unite against the evil being brought to our great nation.The extreme Radical movement from the Middle East don''t care what color you are only that your American and they want us all dead.So we need to do like Dr.King wished,Come together,and become a civilized equal nation of brotherhood,no matter what your ethnic back ground!

[kailumego1]

"The Negro Problem", will only be cured when African Americans get off their A[SS] and purge itself of those "Judases" that continue to hold them back,unite collectively to form "networking units" for economic enfranchisement, demand quality education for all inner-city public schools, form alliances with local law enforcement to rid their communities of drug dealers, gangs, common criminals etc., recognize fractionalization has existed among African Americans, which has been the stumbling block that has held them back, and promote vehemently enforce self-determinism among African Americans.

[kailumego1]

M.L.K. was a "great man", with all his faults, Malcolm X was a "great man", also, however, whites like to compare the two favoring King over Malcolm X, because he stood for nonviolence, when in reality it would be Malcolm X''''s message they would have adhere too if the shoe had been on the other foot.

The only reason white America has accepted king or his message, because it''''s of "nonviolence", which is oxymoronic of their own beliefs towards survival/defense of violent aggression, e.g. the Civil War, the infamous riots, the Cold War, the Iraq War, etc.

White America pontificates how King was great, while pointing out his stance on non-violence, because this directly affected them, when, however, many felt King was a communist, a law-breaker, a racist, etc.

What an oxymoron white Americans are!

King spoke harshly about the Vietnam War and white America''''s ignorance and arrogance towards the people of Africa and Asia, as being obstacles of imperialism.

King was assassinated by the "U.S. government, e.g J.Edger Hoover" and "Capitalist warmongers", for bringing white and black proletariats together in arms against wage exploitation, which he paid dearly with his life, and all you neofascist racists can muster is I liked him because he stood for "nonviolence".

[cattlekate]

posted by wesleyjl at 10:41 PM : Apr 04, 2008

uh. uhm. okay. Thank you for your thoughts.

I remember things differently. Guess ''cuz I am old and Was There.

The most troubling, and enlightening, movie I rented in the last year was "Weatherman." It does tell the tale of Then.

[jlwesley]

I am sorry that MLK was killed, but no more than if anyone else was killed under the same circumstance. There is however no reason to name a holiday to honor someone so responsible for division in this country even if he had a dream, there is no reason to continue to celebrate him other than to placate his followers or those that profess to be his followers, MLK was a law breaker, maybe not just laws, but laws non the less, he incited his followers to break laws, riot, and in all ways disobey civil authority, he endorsed and in fact promoted anarchy. His actions gave his followers an undeserved sense of entitlement which only served to drive an even bigger wedge between the races which continues to this day and to turn his followers into the one thing that he professed loudly to oppose, racists.

I find it totally unacceptable that someone of John McCains caliber should stoop to pandering to the blacks in this country I had hoped he would have more back bone than that.

[dylanxxv]

Posted by DylanXXV

Your infinitely more intelligent folk-singing namesake would disagree.

Posted by USBrit at 03:04 PM : Apr 04, 2008


As if I care what he thinks...You just go about thinking your dead hero is some kind of god...I''ll remember him as a fool and as an idiot...His last march was marred by what? Riots and looting? Yep...Them black folk were looting and running wild in the streets...