April 4, 1968, #CivilRights leader Reverend #MartinLutherKing Jr., was shot & killed while standing on a balcony of the Lorraine Motel in #Memphis, #Tennessee. Considered one of the greatest Americans to ever live, he was assassinated 56 years ago today.
Rising numbers of people, particularly #Republicans, say such #violence may be necessary to "save our country” & coincides w/ #Trump stepping up his violent rhetoric.
#MLK’s son, #MartinLutherKing III, said the family feels it's important to be there in an #election yr, "This is the first yr that we actually are going back as a family to #Memphis, & we felt that it was extraordinarily important…," said King III's wife, Arndrea Waters King.
She said the King family sees little difference between the #violent rhetoric coming from some #ChristianNationalists today & the violent rhetoric from the #KKK 60 yrs ago.
King III says #civility in #politics is diminishing, & he worries that more lives will be lost unless the nation recommits itself to #nonviolence, as his father preached.
"We believe we have to go into difficult areas, to use our platform, to use our voice to lift up what we believe is #good, #just & #right. And so we're willing to make a sacrifice" to visit #Memphis despite the painful memories it brings, he said.
Today In Labor History April 4, 1968: James Earl Ray assassinated Martin Luther King at the Lorraine Hotel, Memphis, Tennessee. King was in Memphis to support the sanitation workers’ strike that had started in February, 1968, for better working conditions and higher pay. The strike began 2 weeks after 2 workers were crushed to death when their truck malfunctioned, intensifying the already high level of frustration and anger over working conditions and safety. King led a protest march on March 28 . Over 20,000 kids cut class to join the demonstration. Some members of the march began smashing downtown windows and looting. The cops intervened with mace, tear gas, clubs and live gunfire, killing 16-year-old Larry Paine, who had his hands in the air when he was shot. On April 3, one day before his assassination, King gave his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech.
Today in Labor History January 30, 1956: Klansmen bombed the home of Martin Luther King Jr in retaliation for the Montgomery bus boycott. No one died in the bombing. However, the explosion destroyed the King’s porch and blasted out their windows. At the time of the bombing, King was giving a speech at the Montgomery Improvement Association at Rev. Ralph Abernathy’s First Baptist Church. No one was ever indicted or convicted for the bombing. The authorities did indict King, and 80 other activists, for “interfering with business,” during the bus boycott and demonstrations.
I'm trying to recall an #MLK quote, something like, "Even if I can't make you stop feeling racist feelings, we can change things so you can't act on them towards me and that's sufficient"
I'm sure I'm mangling it, but that's the general sense. Anyone recall it?
ETA: Thanks to @bazkie for identifying it: "It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.”
“Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race. Even before there were large numbers of Nеgroes on our shores, the scar of racial hatred had already disfigured colonial society… We are perhaps the only nation which tried as a matter of national policy to wipe out its Indigenous population. Moreover, we elevated that tragic experience into a noble crusade.”
"It is mind-boggling to think that after seven years of Trump’s divisive lies and stochastic vitriol, his fascist tendencies ('Lock Her Up!' 'I’d like to punch him in the face!') Iowa’s white Christians, supposedly followers of the teachings of the same man Martin Luther King staked his life and rhetoric on, are driving the Trump bus back into the center of American power."
"How grotesque is America is today, that white-bread midwestern Christians turn away from the idea that MLK urged, of infusing secular politics with love, and toward the hate-filled rhetoric of a man who by 2021, had logged more than 30,000 lies in just four years in office - not counting The Big Lie about the 2020 election that shredded the trust between citizens that is the basis of any democracy."