April 4, 1968: Do you remember where you were when Dr. King was killed?

I was a junior in high school in East Detroit (a suburb right next to Detroit). That evening, I was taking training to become an umpire in a softball league to earn some easy money that summer, and the class was in the basement of City Hall. In the middle of the course, a guy came downstairs and told us that Dr. King had been killed that evening. I don't remember much reaction, except some guy said he was glad he wasn't in Detroit that night. Bunch of white guys at that time. I was the only one stunned, but was the youngest, too, by a healthy margin. I can still see the room, 40 years later.

Detroit did not suffer big problems that night; our "riot" had been the year before, in 1967. The next day, I went out and bought King's book, "Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?" I'm still on that journey.

Unfortunately, we went with chaos. This is the year that maybe - perhaps - we go with community.

and my mom was on her way home.

I don't remember much of the rest of the night. I was 12 and it was so horrible. We were all weeping the rest of the night and my poor little brother who was about 3 couldn't figure out what was the matter with us all. :(

I was 19, not turning 20 until that summer. A few friends were in my room, just talking. The radio was on very low. One of my friends was listening more closely than the rest of us. All of a sudden, she slumped over on her side and started to cry. She told us to turn up the radio. The news was saying that MLK had just been shot.

She left the room crying. Later she told me that she ran into one of the AA girls we knew in the hallway. She was on the phone. She told my friend to cry for those of us left alive, not for him. The AA students all got together that evening by themselves, away from the rest of us.

I had a hard time getting home for spring break. One of my other friends and I had to go through Chicago. It was too dangerous.

When I did get home to my spring break job, some of the people made me sick. They were telling racist jokes and laughing about the assassination. They were doing that in front of a black employee, too. He just took it. So did I.

Haven't for years. But you still hear it everywhere. As an older white guy, I have no idea why other older white guys think they can get away with the language they use.

Then June came. It was a tough year, 1968.

And I don't take it any more, either.

In my defense, I could not say anything to the customers, or to my supervisor or the business owner. Nor could the black employee. We needed the work. And they would have fired us.

I have told my kids that story. I have told them to speak up when they can. They do speak up.

I have learned since then that there are other ways to fight back against that sort of talk and behavior. There are ways to say things that leave people wondering if you have insulted them or not.

We are both older now, faygokid. It's too bad we had to live through 1968. It's even worse that MLK and RFK did not live through it.

I felt sick, numb and really worried about what would happen.
Boy that spring and summer of 68 was one shock after another.

I was at a restaurant eating with a friend my age. The FM station that was playing interrupted with the news. This was in Texas. Needless to say, the reaction among the people was quite different than where you lived.

There were riots in my city after his death. We were placed under curfew. My grandma died because we could not get an ambulance to respond quickly enough. Of her three children, only my mom was with her. Her son and other daughter were afraid to come out... so they delayed and, missed seeing her before she died.

To be honest, it was a very scary time for us.

Wow. What city was that? I work in downtown DC now, and I know it was very bad here then.

We have all lived through a lot, and many have died because of a lot. I'm sorry for your childhood memory. Childhood was a lot scarier than just the Christmas memories we have. I know that, for sure.

To my recollection, the ambulance did respond... but they were slow. I think they were concerned about it being a prank call. Grandma lived in an older, racially diverse neighborhood.

My mom and I (and my two little sisters) were living there at the time. We were asleep upstairs and she called us down becasue she could not breathe.

I am relaying the memories of a ten year old.... so some of this is probably not exactly right. But, I do remember that we tried to get gran to go to the hospital and she would not go out. Then we called my aunt and uncle... but they wanted to have police escort to drive over and see her.

My grandpa was working overtime at his office, and he walked up to the house. Got there just before she breathed her last. She died in his arms. I remember that. Then the ambulance arrived and announced her dead.

Lost my one Grandma (Dad's side was gone) at 23. Great, tough Swedish immigrant lady. One helluva cook. She did not put up with kid crap, and we loved each other anyway. Dredged up some memories here, and for that I'm sorry - except our memories are what we are made of, difficult and lovely.

I personally would have it no other way.

but i was a few weeks past 1yr. but i was potty trained! all by myself. i still don't know how i could dress myself. no memory of king. my earliest is the monty python theme song.

VietNam for a year, and we were readying for a cross-country move. So I had other worries on my mind........

The 1st Cav was still trying to bail out the Marines at Khe Sanh. Didn't always get a lot of news from the world. Did hear about LBJ not running though.

I was a senior in college at the University of Houston. I was devastated.

ed. I just found something that I still have that I wrote on April 8, 1968, in response to Dr. King's death. As preamble, I should say that I had close African-American friends at the time (of the opposite sex), and I had been called some pretty bad names because of it. This was Houston in 1968, after all, and we had had our own racial violence at Texas Southern University, close to where I lived, the previous year. Race was a very sensitive topic down there -- it probably still is.

I'm no poet, really, but as a shattered idealistic 21-year-old this is what I wrote.

Peace!
The black man cried,
While all around him
Raged the seas of discontent
And the storms of hate and bitterness.
The cities are enveloped
In clouds of fiery disillusionment.
Patience runs thin --
And still he cries,
Peace! Peace, my brothers!
A lone voice in the night.
And suddenly the voice is stilled forever
By one who could not understand
That peace and love can also be
Black.


It brings tears to my eyes to think of it again.

The school day was over and I was home. I heard it on TV. I was attending Catholic school for the first time in my life. In class the next day, a boy who wasn't Catholic and had a lot of "behavior problems," I guess one could say, and was placed in the school by his parents thinking the nuns would straighten him out, flippantly said aloud "hey, did you hear what happened to that n____?" I was shy and passive at that time in my life, so I didn't say anything, but I was taken aback by this and felt very disturbed that, in a Catholic school of all places, I was hearing such hatred. (Like I say, I was new to the parochial school system and I actually expected Catholic kids to live by higher values.)

Not the N word, of course, but one butthead piped up just before we were dismissed from end of day class that he was "glad" it happened. Mrs. Burgoyne, my history teacher, was already weeping. Thinking back, no kid that age came to that hate naturally. It was cultivated at home. So feel sorry for that person, and thanks for posting, and now the older we get, the less we have to put up with such crap.

about not speaking up in the face of bigotry or any other injustice. I pray I always have the courage and discernment to do the right thing.

Hell, I have no guilt whatsoever about still loving "Happy Together" and "Summer in the City."

Seriously, we have all failed. Peter denied Jesus; we are supposed to be better? On this anniversary, you and I can both strive to be strong, but we will never "always" be such.

Guilt doesn't work. Your second sentence is much more powerful and true.

I watched that cartoon every Sunday morning before being shooed off to Sunday School. I still remember the dog's (Goliath's) voice, but I can't remember Da-a-a-avy's.

pretty politically aware for an eighth grader. I remember the funeral with the mule pulling the coffin.

I was in 7th grade when JFK was assassinated. You would never have forgotten that. MLK and RFK were different, I guess, although I remember every sight around me for them. We were so battered in 1968 that we have never recovered. Don't let it bother you. It's now that counts, but we are at now because of where we were then.

Think a good thought, and thanks for sharing your comment.

tanks rolling into Prague? Or LBJ dropping out of the race. I went to bed thinking RFK was going to the White House and awoke to the news he'd been shot. My Mom woke me up to see the police riot in Chicago.

I turned 17 on the day Denny McLain won his 30th game. Will never forget it. I too woke up to the news that RFK had been shot; I was a high school junior for Gene McCarthy. The music, sports, and news of the era were the most powerful of my life. And I was just a kid.

Beware of 2008. George W. Bush will not go quietly into that good night. Thanks for your post, and I hope our nightmares are not repeated.

My grandfather gave me grief because McLain beat Bob Gibson in the 7th game of the Series. I cried the rest of that miserable Sunday. LOL.

And you think you were just a kid-- I was a decade younger than you, but that year has left an indelible mark on my memory, more than any single year before or since.

I recently purchased a Sports Illustrated cover from 1993 marking the 25th anniversary of that season. Gibson and McLain are side by side on the cover, and they both autographed it. Very cool.

For me, that was the greatest thing about that year.

and heard it on the evening news. I think it was Walter Cronkite. I remember my parents just sat there, silent. It was really sad news.

I just posted this http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3101911&mesg_id=3101911

There were so many atrocities, it seemed just one of many.

I barely even remember the aftermath.

From 1963 to at least 1971 there seemed to be constant turmoil. I have this blur of riots, assassinations and funerals. I cried when JFK was killed. It was a loss of innocence. Afterwards, I simply expected the worst. Sadly, I wasn't surprised by the news of his death.

and maybe trying to comfort her... I was three going on four years old at the time.

parents took my brothers shopping for something or other.

I forget what I was watching on TV, but they interrupted it to announce that MLK had been killed. Then they cut to some gathering where a lot of African-Americans were assembled in an auditorium for some unrelated event, and they showed the MC of the event announcing the assassination and the shocked reaction of the crowd.

was probably doing my homework. I had a heavy homework load in 5th grade. Dad and Mom was sorry to hear that he had been killed. My dad grew up in racist East Texas, and he had to personally fight off those feelings.

Bryan Williams has been doing some wonderful segments on the NBC News each night. Tonight they showed color film of MLK, Jr. being interviewed, and showed his "I have been to the mountaintop" speech from the night before his death. I swear, I saw fear and sadness in his face. He must have known his end was near. Somehow, he knew. Either through premonition, or the threats, or a new warning, he knew.

His speech gave me chills. I swear, getting to see the peace-loving Dr. King and those that followed after him made this little white girl realize that we are all from the same stuff and part of my heart is African American.

that speech. He'd been getting death threats for some time. With all of the other assassinations, I'm sure he knew it was just a matter of time.

watching the 6 o'clock news at the dinner table with my family, and the news just jumped from the regular broadcast with me halfway paying attention to catching the words "was shot and killed in Memphis this evening". What I clearly remember is how completely unsurprised I was. I was always a very politically aware kid, and I'd felt it all week, that he was going to be killed, and when it finally happened, I remember thinking "well they got him". What I don't remember is any family conversation afterwards though there must have been some; my whole family ( not just immediate but aunts, uncles, cousins etc) was and is all Jewish liberals who supported King and the civil rights movement 100%. But yet I can remember with amazing clarity sitting at the table and not being the least bit shocked or surprised...And equally clear is the memory of how strongly I'd felt all that week that he was going to die violently any day. I was fortunate to be attending a very integrated high school in which the relations between black and white were still very good ( the younger kids, mostly freshman, were, sadly, starting to have an uneasy divide between them). I don't remember lots of detail, but do remember black and white friends being able to talk openly with each other about what had happened and remember being glad that the violent racists elsewhere in America weren't going to drive a wedge between us; at least not the members of the class of '68, and in fact can remember both black and white upperclassmen looking down on the younger kids for trying to stir up shit in one of the relatively rare, at that time, places where black and white really were in solidarity with each other. ( BTW, this was a suburban Chicago high school, but a very urban suburb)

Now when I hear that troops have access to internet and LIMBOsevic and even Stars & Stripes, I zone out.

At the time of the MLK murder I was on a ship in the Mekong Delta, a month after our ship had rockets shot at it three times, with direct hits and wounded. We were in and out of Saigon and then downriver on 3-weeks round trips one after the other, carrying supplies, but we had NO access to news. I never saw a Stars and Stripes. I don't remember when I heard about MLK's murder.

Same goes for the LBJ renunciation speech. Does not exist except in video seen much later.

As for RFK, the ship was in Guam at dry dock. There *was* a radio in the barracks over the intercom/public-address, and I heard that there. However, I had NO sense of the transformation RFK had undergone as a peace candidate.

Same goes for the moon landing. I was on the 2nd ship, back in the States, off the west coast, a brand new ship but *no* exposure to much of the outside world. Strange, eh?

My parents were union people, fought for parity for the products they grew & sold, voted for Humphrey, and believed that the trains that silently made their way to Hitler's death camps, operating before the world ever know the truth of what was happening, could also happen here in the United States someday if our political system ever became corrupt.
God Bless them both.
Today they would be nearing 90 years of age.

They knew the murders of MLK, Jfk & Rfk were political & from within our own gov't.
They also stated on Sept. 11 when the Towers were hit, "Bush did this."

I was a white boy in Orange County, CA. I had never met a black person. For those who don't remember that time, check this out. I as an 8 year old, had already looked up and learned the exact meaning of the word 'assasination', as they were just that popular when I was a kid. So I asked my Mom why the news said Dr King was assainated, as that word refers to the murder of a head of state or political leader, as I understood it. So Kennedy was not murdered but asasinated, but King was not President or anything. The question hit her hard and she thought a long time and said " He was like Moses, and he was the leader of his people and he was God's man. He said he had a dream for his..." and there she stopped. " no, he had a dream for all people, and he was a leader sent from God and they used the right word on the news, honey."
I think about that every year. My Mom answered well that day, I think. That year Bobby and Chicago and all of that.
That kind of year makes Democrats out of babies, by fellows one and all.

...No, I was not quite 3 1/2 years old at the time, but I do remember where I was when I found and listened to his entire "I Have A Dream" speech. Yes, that's right, there is more Than 45 seconds to that speech, and if you've never heard it from start to finish, you should.

<http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm>

Matchbox too.

but I could never get them to go very fast on my Hot Wheels track-- especially those "Models of Yesteryear" LOL

could go as fast (or faster) as Hot Wheels.

had that tense and serious reaction. I was 7 when President Kennedy died. In 1968 a whole bunch of people died, and everything seemed out of control. We lived in the Chicago suburbs. I remember the specifics of the day Kennedy died, but not the later ones, even though I was older. I guess my parents reaction and my teachers reaction was more intense to Kennedy.

In 1968, it was like, again.

And I recall the rage of many of the black GIs...Some white GI's were scared to travel alone because a few were beat up by the angry blacks. That's what I remember...

but he was rescued by other blacks from his neighborhood before he was seriously hurt.

Evidently, the attackers didn't know that he was black.

I know I didn't hear about it in the office that afternoon ---
I think I didn't know about it until very late that evening ---
My best memory right now is Bobby Kennedy speaking to a crowd and giving them the sad news,
but I'm sure I saw that tape much later.

Our corporate-press prepared us for a racist --- and turned James Earl Ray into one.
The whole story was very shaky from the start. I doubt anyone trusted anything the government
was saying at that point.

Malcolm X had been killed in 1965 ---

There was just so much violence --- I wanted to leave the planet --- and Kent State hadn't
happened yet - Cambodia, Laos. RFK ---

And here we are now ...

The loss of Martin Luther King has been just so tremendous --
While he was here there was hope --
We are a lesser nation/people without him ---
MLK spoke of justice, economic democracy and the insanity of war --
That was a threat to the insane warmongers in our gene pool.

Thoroughly insulated from any violence since we had no blacks in our town. I remember it though. My father was a wise man and even though most around us (this is Oklahoma in the late 60s) were racists, he treated all people the same and did his best to pass that on to me.

It was a very volatile time in our history but in rural Oklahoma it was hardly even talked about except in disparaging terms.

I was in a small, all-white town in Arkansas. I can't remember anyone talking about it. The first time I remember learning about Dr. King's assassination was when my mother got me an encyclopedia of American history the next year and I turned to the 1968 section and saw an artist's depiction of the famous photo of the people pointing to where the shots had come from.

My parents were in Boston and my grandmother was "babysitting"...I was in 7th grade. I still remember it being a Thursday evening, my parents were to return the next day and my grandmother and I were watching TV (NBC I recall) and we both were stunned when we heard the first announcement that Dr. King had been shot. I remember her saying "looks like someone finally got to him".

My other memories are the riots that went on in Chicago the went on for nearly a week. It got so bad that the first Mayor Daley issued his "shoot to kill" order about all looters. Over that weekend, a family friend came over...he had a business on the west side and he had just learned the building had been torched...he was devestated and mad at everyone.

Yes, I have some very vivid memories of that time...a little more than a week earlier LBJ announced he wouldn't run for another term and then halted the bombing of the North. It was a very fluid time indeed.

and my mother said, "Oh, there's going to be trouble now." Being only a wee lass of just four eight--okay, thirteen years, I didn't quite know what she meant.

:headbang:
rocknation

She loved Hazel. Shirley Booth was great.

I didn't learn about Dr. King until I was older. Same goes for Bobby Kennedy. :-(

I was kind of shocked. I didn't relate to King at all; he was primarily for black people, and my family didn't know any.

That Saturday, I rode my bike with a friend to downtown Saint Louis (from University City; a couple of miles). When we got into the black neighborhoods on Delmar, we realized that most of the businesses were closed out of respect to Dr. King. Thank God that Saint Louis was quiet that weekend.

Daddy worked for a car dealership in a black neighborhood. There was violence. He and his car were untouched. His black cohorts at work knew he had great respect for Dr. King and advised him to go home asap. He was pretty shook up. He'd seen several grown men weeping and it tore him up.

maybe a week or so afterward...not sure at all.

I was 12 when he was killed...the only television we had was piped in from Puerto Rico (in espanol) so I wasn't very aware of anything going on in the outside world. I had no idea who MLK was and didn't even know we were at war in Viet Nam. My world consisted of horses, beaches, skin diving, sailing...a world of fantasy cloaking reality everywhere else in the world.

I had a black teacher at the time MLK was killed...Mr. Watson...and he entered the classroom with tears in his eyes telling us about MLK being shot. I suspect it was the morning after it happened. We spent the entire day discussing him and the civil rights movement. Until that day, I didn't know there was racial inequality...living in St. Croix which was 95% black, I naturally had black friends and thought nothing of it. I wasn't raised to be racially biased and wasn't influenced by the media, so I guess you could say I was pure at heart and felt all races were equal. Mr. Watson opened our eyes that day to the real world and all of its ugliness, and I'll never forget that stark dose of reality facing my fantasy world.

And I will never forget Mr. Watson. Forty years later when we're still confronted with racial realities, I think of Mr. Watson and the influence he had on my life. Many years later I realized he not only was an academic teacher, but a spiritual teacher as well. Thank you Mr. Watson. When I think of Martin Luther King, I also think of you. As Ella Baker once said, "we who believe in freedom cannot rest."