THE LAST DAYS OF DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
In death, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. achieved more human and labor rights breakthroughs than he could in life. His posthumous civil rights and labor achievement was a lightening rod that spread to other municipalities of the South, rooting out Jim Crow in months and years, that otherwise would have taken years and decades. Other key parties involved in the events surrounding his death were Ralph Abernathy, Andrew Young, Jesse Jackson, Memphis Mayor Henry Loeb, Memphis City Council, Department of Public Works (DPW), American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), AFL-CIO, Memphis Minister's Association, A. Philip Randolph Institute, NAACP, SCLC, FBI, US Attorney General, US Undersecretary of Labor, President Lyndon Johnson and Coretta Scott King.
One day in late January 1968, twenty-one African American sanitation workers were sent home due to rainy weather. They only received two hours of show-up pay. Meanwhile their European American counterparts were permitted to remain the entire day without working, yet earning a full day's wage. This human rights indignity along with no pay for overtime and reprisals against union activity were common practice. It persisted because a 1966 court injunction prohibited city employees from striking and picketing. Then on 1 February 1968 two Black sanitation workers were killed when a packer blade on a truck accidentally activated. Risks associated with the packer blade had been previously reported by sanitation workers, but ignored by management. That event combined with the other grievances compelled the public workers union into action. After many attempts to resolve grievances with the DPW, on 12 February, 1,200 out of 1,300 public works laborers went on strike. Their official demands were for pay raises, overtime pay, union recognition, open check-off of union dues, and improved safety conditions. Their unofficial demand, as the "I Am A Man" signs they wore attest, was for human dignity. Only 34 of the city's 180 garbage trucks were able to operate on the first day of the strike.
Despite the anti-strike court injunction, on 13 February sanitation workers marched to City Hall to attempt a peaceful resolution to their grievances. But in the days following, the mayor and city council would not agree to any of the demands of the sanitation workers, since they considered the strikers to be, among other things, lawbreakers. The mayor hired 51 temporary workers and ordered police to supervise garbage pick-up. In response, the AFSCME urged the strikers on, the NAACP and Union leaders organized a small boycott of downtown businesses until the strike ended, and a thousand sanitation workers held peaceful marches and sit-ins at City Hall. But on 23 February, policemen maced the marchers, which included children, women and Back ministers. In response, Black leaders of all stripes joined the ministers to form COME (Community On the Move for Equality) and call for a general business boycott until the strike ends.
On 29 February, the mayor offered better pay, but without union recognition. So the union filed suit in federal court. In the weeks ahead police arrested strikers and African American students who participated in the march. On 14 March, Roy Wilkins of the NAACP and Bayard Rustin of the Asa Philip Randolph Institute addressed more than 10,000 people at Mason Temple Church of God in Christ in support of peaceful protest.
On invitation, Dr. King addresses 17,000 Memphians at Mason Temple and calls for a citywide march on 22 March. The march was deferred due to a record snow storm, while strike negotiations continued. On 27 March, SCLC leader Ralph Abernathy addressed a strikers rally at Mason Temple, as negotiations collapsed. The two sides were no longer meeting. In 1968 Clayborn Temple AME Church became a focal point. It was the site of many rallies, the principal march staging area and pastored by a white minister.
On 28 March, Dr King led a gathering of 15,000 people at Clayborn Temple who intended to conduct a non-violent march to City Hall. The gathering consisted of organized, marchers and many opportunistic youths, who had no affiliation with the objectives of the marchers. Dr King slowly led the procession across Hernando Street (now a parking lot), then made a left on Beale Street, continuing up to Main Street where he made a right, heading towards City Hall. But only 7 blocks and 25 minutes into the march, disgruntled youths shattered windows, looted merchandise from Beale Street merchants and clashed with police. In the ensuing melee, Dr. King and the organized marchers were persuaded to return home or to Clayborn Temple for their own safety. The day saw 280 arrests, 60 injured and one youth shot before 4,000 National Guardsmen moved in. It would be years before commerce on Beale Street recovered. Furthermore, it was the lowest point of Dr King's leadership in the Civil Rights Movement. He had never led a march where its organizers were loosely associated with others responsible for triggering violence. Consequently, Dr. King would return to Atlanta that day with his reputation as an effective leader severely tarnished worldwide.
On 29 March, 300 sanitation workers and ministers, escorted by armored personnel carriers, marched peacefully from Clayborn Temple to City Hall. President Lyndon Johnson and AFL-CIO president George Meany offered assistance to resolve the dispute, but were both rejected by Memphis Mayor Loeb.
From 1966-1968, Dr. King's reputation as a national leader able to get results was declining. Old Jim Crow practices proved resilient against new Civil Rights legislation and peaceful SCLC demonstrations. Some Black-led organizations believed that non-violent principles were outdated, so they jockeyed to fill what they perceived as a leadership vacuum. Some other Black-led organizations and the white establishment who embraced his non-violent principles, now perceived Dr King as leading Negroes disturbingly astray with his "Stop the Vietnam War" rhetoric. Concerned that he needed to restore his reputation as an effective non-violent leader, on 31 March Dr. King canceled his trip to Africa to lead another peaceful march in hopes that it would reopen negotiations.
Upon return to Memphis on 3 April, Dr King faced an injunction by city officials preventing him from leading another march. That night he delivered what Dr. Michael Eric Dyson and many others describe as his greatest speech, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop”. For one moment at Mason Temple, King pierced through the prism of the future, foreseeing his own death and our progress towards social equality as a nation. His closest associates say he had no wish to be a martyr, but in that final perfect speech he preached the fear of death out of himself.
Early morning 4 April 1968 SCLC lawyers got the injunction against King overturned. Dr. King heard the good news, but strangely remained in a somber mood. At mid-day, he and several associates were leaving the Lorraine Motel to meet with march organizers. While exiting just outside his 2nd floor balcony, Dr King was mortally wounded by a rifle shot from a building across the street. His aides, which included Andrew Young and Jesse Jackson, rushed to the side of their fallen leader even as they pointed at the direction of the gun shot. A 39-year old Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.
On 5 April, federal troops arrived, President Johnson sent the US Attorney General to Memphis and pressured the FBI to conduct an international manhunt for the killer. To his credit, President Johnson also assigned US Undersecretary of Labor, James Reynolds to take charge of mediation to settle the strike. On 8 April, Coretta Scott King led dozens of national figures in a peaceful memorial march through downtown to City Hall in tribute to Dr. King. With Undersecretary Reynolds turning up the heat, on 16 April 1968, AFSCME leaders announced an agreement had been reached. Union members ratify it. Ralph Abernathy described the agreement as a "Significant and just breakthrough for labor and unions in the South". Despite riots around the nation, Dr. King's reputation was repaired and elevated to martyrdom as the symbol of America's Civil Rights Movement. He achieved posthumously more than he ever could in life. All over the nation municipalities called on the memory of the Dr King, "The Drum Major for Peace", as they finally began implementing civil rights legislation in earnest and renaming boulevards. The civil rights many young people take for granted today, were made possible since 1968.
But the tale of Dr. King's assassination does not wrap up neatly with closure. For many years thoughtful, but legally powerless Americans wondered how James Earl Ray, a man of limited intelligence and even less money, could singularly perpetrate the assassination, escape to Europe until capture in June 1968 with an unexplainably large amount of money in his possession, then be quickly convicted as the sole assassin.
The backstory details are still finding daylight, but access to FBI documents via the Freedom of Information Act reveals much of what was hidden from government officials and the media then. FBI documents having the signature of the late FBI Director, J. Edgar Hoover, reveal that he gave explicit directions for his agents to publicly and privately destroy the reputation and influence of Dr. King using a variety of means. Those illegal means were wiretaps, tampered recordings, paid informants, mailings, wrongfully branding him a communist, and tracking his every move without just cause. Moreover, Hoover's FBI did nothing to ensure Dr. King's safety despite repeated evidence from wiretaps and tracking that parties had the intent and means to assassinate him. Unfortunately, Memphis was the happenstance venue for this Greek tragedy.
Broader implications of the FBI climate created by J. Edgar Hoover's directive, even if unintentional, have recently emerged. One FBI agent is linked to having knowledge of critical events surrounding James Earl Ray just prior to the assassination. After several meetings with James Earl Ray, new evidence and testimony, the King family now believes others were involved in Dr. King's assassination. At this time there is insufficient evidence to exonerate the late James Earl Ray or to pinpoint his assistants or to adequately characterize the FBI's complete role in this matter. For concerned citizens however, there is incontrovertible evidence that the treatment of Dr. King was one of the most sordid and unlawful episodes ever committed by America’s top law enforcement officer--the infamous and dastardly J. Edgar Hoover.
BLACK CULTURAL TRAVEL MADE EASY