T he P ortland O bserver • J anuary 10, 1996
P age C7
ASSASSINATION
Continued from C6
▲
Memphis,” he told the crowd.
True to his word, on Thursday,
March 28-a hot, uncomfortable day-
King was back in town. The march
began shortly after 11 o ’clock in the
morning, with King leading the way,
Abernathy and the Memphis minis­
ters at his side, their arms interlocked,
their voices raised, singing “We Shall
Overcome.”
Slowly, they moved through the
streets toward City Hall, and thou­
sands followed.
They had gotten only a few blocks
when everything started to go wrong.
Toward the rear of the march, some
angry and undisciplined black youths
started breaking store windows and
looting merchandise. "We can’t have
Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife, Coretta and their children (from that!" King shouted after he heard
left) Martin, Dexter and Yolanda. A fourth child, Bernice, was born in the sound of glass shattering.
'l9 6 3 .
But there was nothing he could do.
5
The march disintegrated into chaos
and the youths went on smashing
windows and throwing stones and
bottles. The Memphis police charged
after them, and a full-scale riot was in
the making.
King himself appeared to be in
danger. “You’ve got to get away
from here!” someone yelled at him.
Confused and frightened, the group
around him pushed forward to main
street, where K ing's bodyguard
waved a white Pontiac to a stop.
“Madam,” he said to the black
woman behind the wheel, “this is
Martin Luther King-we need your
car.” She consented, and King and
Abernathy piled into the back seat.
The car then peeled off, racing for a
hotel on the other side of town.
By nightfall, a 17-year-old black
had been shot dead by the police, 60
of the marchers had been clubbed,
and nearly 300 had been arrested.
Memphis was declared in a state of
emergency. Several thousand Na­
tional Guardsmen were called in to
patrol the streets.
At the Rivermont Holiday Inn, on
the banks of the Mississippi, King
lay on his bed, the covers pulled up to
hischin He was heartsick His march
had turned into a riot, and the marches
had started it. Had all the years of
preaching nonviolence counted for
nothing? Were people no longer lis­
tening to him?
“Maybe we just have to admit
that the day of violence is here,” he
said to Abernathy, “and maybe we
have to just give up and let violence
take its course. The nation won’t
listen to our voice-maybe it’ll heed
the voice of violence.”
“It was the most restless night,”
Abernathy later said.
"It was a terrible and horrible ex­
perience for him. I had never seen
him in all my life so upset and so
troubled.” Throughout the night,
King brooded over the damage done
to his movement and to his reputa­
tion. His critics, he knew, would have
a field day.
White conservatives would point
to the Memphis fiasco and say that
King's nonviolence was a sham.
Cautious, moderate blacks would
urge him to slow down, to cancel the
Poor People’s Campaign in Wash­
ington. And the militant advocates of
Black Power would proclaim the days
of nonviolence and “Martin Loser
King” at an end.
Though agonized and in despair
that night, King resolved not to give
in to his critics or to give up on
Memphis. He had to return and lead
a peaceful march and demonstration.
The Poor People's Campaign de-
▼
Continued to page C8
RETAIL
Portland Public Schools
joins Portland and the nation
in celebrating the life and legacy of
M artin Luther King, Jr.
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