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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMLK's Mother Was Assassinated, Too: The Forgotten Women Of Black History Month
By AURIN SQUIRE Published FEBRUARY 4, 2015, 6:00 AM EST
On June 30th, 1973, Alberta Williams King was gunned down while she played the organ for the Lords Prayer at Ebenezer Baptist Church. As a Christian civil rights activist, she was assassinated...just like her son, Martin Luther King, Jr. But most people remember only one. Until a month ago, I was one of those people.
When a friend told me about Alberta Williams King, my first reaction was who? This question was followed by a wave of shame. It was the same feeling I had a few years ago when I first heard about Fannie Lou Hamer. Then later came Ida B. Wells and other leaders who seemed to appear in the discussion of American history to my confused, uninformed silence. I started to suspect that I had half an education and that I had been leaving out the role of women and feminism in Black History.
I thought I was fairly well-versed in African-American history. My parents filled our shelves with the core curriculum: Up From Slavery, Letters from a Birmingham Jail, Native Son, Black Boy, Go Tell it On the Mountain, Soul on Ice, The Miseducation of the Negro, Before Columbus, and many more pieces of literature and non-fiction. I immersed myself in books, hagiography, essays, videos, encyclopedias. My extracurricular studies came from an authentic curiosity (instead of dutiful obligation) to know more about my family. Black females held the role of poetry and song: Phillis Wheatley, Maya Angelou, Gwendolyn Brooks, Nikki Giovanni, Sapphire. But as far as activism and leadership, the ranks were all-male.
Well, we dont study it that much because theres no such thing. As South Florida child attending privileged white schools, I heard this answer a lot in response to request for getting more out of February. Usually I was the only black face in the honors classes and would be the lone petitioner. By the time I was in middle school, the atmospheric ignorance didnt invoke anger in me. Instead I became curious as to who else did not have a history.
more
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/mlk-mother-was-assassinated-forgotten-women-black-history-month
hlthe2b
(102,357 posts)I STILL don't know much about her or anything about what happened. It is like the author dropped a bombshell--only to immediately move on with an "oh, well".
I find that kind of writing/journalism simply infuriating.
Still, I will go and seek more information...
samsingh
(17,601 posts)wonderful lady.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)kiva
(4,373 posts)Her assailant, a young black man, who eye-witnesses said "went berserk," and who was later reported to have said that "all Christians" were his enemies, was held by members of the church choir after he had wounded two other members of the congregation, one of them fatally.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/01/martin-luther-kings-mother-slain-in-church-1974
MADem
(135,425 posts)The perpetrator was sentenced to death, the sentence was converted to life, but he died following a stroke. From NYT:
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/08/22/obituaries/m-w-chenault-44-gunman-who-killed-mother-of-dr-king.html
Mr. Chenault was serving a life sentence at the state prison in Jackson, Ga., when he suffered a stroke on Aug. 3. He never regained consciousness, a hospital spokeswoman said.
Within weeks of the slaying of Mrs. King and a 69-year-old church deacon, Edward Boykin, on June 30, 1974, Mr. Chenault was tried, convicted and sentenced to die in the electric chair. He said he had acted out of hatred for Christianity and because his god had told him to. His lawyers said he was insane. ... At his arraignment, Mr. Chenault told a magistrate that he had come to Atlanta "on a mission," and said he decided months earlier that black ministers were a menace to black people and must be killed.
He also told the police that his mission was to kill the Rev. Martin Luther King Sr., but he shot Mrs. King instead because she was close to him. Their son Dr. King, the civil rights leader, was assassinated by an escaped convict, James Earl Ray, in Memphis on April 4, 1968.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)about the attack because I was watching the news in that era. I do not remember one news cast that named the names of the dead.
demmiblue
(36,885 posts)MadDAsHell
(2,067 posts)she was killed by a young black man, and same-race crime isn't nearly sensational enough for the vultures in the media. Thus, forgotten to history by many.
Also, this was 1974, not 1973.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)As wikipedia notes: " Without her knowledge or consent, she was sterilized in 1961 by a white doctor as a part of the state of Mississippi's plan to reduce the number of poor blacks in the state"
Response to DonViejo (Original post)
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