April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King Is Assassinated

April 4, 1968: Dr. Martin Luther King is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. He had been there to help the city's all-black sanitation workers' union negotiate a better contract with the all-white City government.

He had faced attempts on his life before. He had been stabbed. His house had been firebombed. And anytime he allowed himself to be arrested, there was the threat that he could be severely injured or even killed in jail. He was lucky to live to be 39 years old.

The night before, he spoke at the Mason Temple in Memphis, central headquarters of the Church of God in Christ, the largest African-American Pentecostal group in the world. He seemed to predict what was coming, though, like the Second Coming of Christ, he knew neither the day nor the hour. He compared himself to Moses, who was allowed see the "promised land" that he'd led his people into, but not to enter into it. And he closed with the opening line of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic":

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now.

I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land! So I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything! I'm not fearing any man! Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!

King and his associates, including fellow ministers Ralph David Abernathy, Andrew Young and Jesse Jackson, were staying at the Lorraine Motel, owned by black businessman Walter Bailey, and named for his wife. King's room was Room 306. At 6:01 PM, Central Time (7:01 Eastern), King and the others walked out onto the 3rd floor balcony, to head to their cars to attend a meeting. Music would be played there, directed by jazz musician Ben Branch. King told Branch, "Ben, make sure you play 'Take My Hand, Precious Lord' in the meeting tonight. Play it real pretty."

He was then struck in the face by a single bullet, which descended, severing his jugular vein and his spinal cord. He never had a chance. He was taken to St. Joseph's Hospital, but there was nothing the doctors could do. He was pronounced dead at 7:05 (8:05 Eastern).

Coretta Scott King was left a widow with 4 young children. In addition to disgusting hate mail, she received letters of condolence from all over the world, including one that she found particularly moving, from Marguerite Oswald, mother of Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy.

JFK's brother, Robert F. Kennedy, now a Senator from New York and running for President, was campaigning in the Indiana Primary. When his plane landed in Indianapolis, he was met by that city's Mayor, Richard Lugar, who would himself later be elected to the U.S. Senate and run for President (in 1996, without winning any Delegates). Because RFK had been in the air, without phone contact with the ground, or a television set on the plane, let alone modern social media, he didn't know about the assassination until Lugar told him.

RFK had planned to speak in a black neighborhood, as he had done everywhere he went. He was one of the few American public figures, Dr. King also among them, who could speak to black people and white people and reach both of them. Lugar asked him to cancel the speech, especially since many people hadn't yet seen a TV broadcast or heard a radio, and didn't yet know. RFK went ahead with the speech, and started by announcing it. Many people in the audience screamed.

Then, for the first time since his brother's assassination, he made direct reference to it in a speech, in an effort to keep the city calm:

For those of you who are black, and are tempted to be filled with hatred and distrust at the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I can only say that I feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man.

But we have to make an effort in the United States. We have to make an effort to understand, to go beyond these rather difficult times.

My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He wrote: "In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."

What we need in the United States is not division. What we need in the United States is not hatred. What we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness, but love, and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black.

So I shall ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King, that's true. But, more importantly, to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love, a prayer for understanding and that compassion of which I spoke.

Many cities broke out in riots that night, because, to so many, the murder of the apostle of nonviolence had proven to their acceptance that his way didn't work. The worst of it was in Washington: Members of Congress could not only see, but smell, the smoke that came over from the nearly-all-black Northeast section of the city. It was particularly bad in nearby Baltimore and in Chicago as well.

Because of Bobby Kennedy's speech, Indianapolis did not break out into racial disturbance. Only one other major American city managed to avoid it. That city was Boston, because of two men: A white Mayor named White, and a black "Godfather" named Brown, in a green garden with yellow seats.

King's funeral was held in his hometown of Atlanta on a hot April 8, his coffin on a horse-drawn carriage. People walking behind it sang, "We Shall Overcome." Among them were singers Aretha Franklin and Harry Belafonte, baseball integration pioneer Jackie Robinson, and actor Marlon Brando, all of whom had been witnesses to his speech during the March On Washington 5 years earlier.

Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York, running a pro-civil rights campaign for the Republican nomination for President, paid for his funeral. The other major Republican candidate, former Vice President Richard Nixon, attended. So did the 3 leading candidates for the Democratic nomination: RFK, Senator Eugene McCarthy of Wisconsin, and Vice President Hubert Humphrey. President Lyndon B. Johnson had dropped out of the race on March 31.

When LBJ called Mrs. King to console her the night of the assassination, he asked her if it would be all right to have former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy come, and she said it would. Mrs. Kennedy sat next to Bobby.

RFK was assassinated himself 2 months later. On June 8, the day of RFK's funeral, James Earl Ray, who had escaped to Canada and then to Europe. was arrested at Heathrow Airport in London, and extradited to America. He pled guilty, and was sentenced to 99 years in prison.

Years later, he recanted his confession. Dexter King, MLK's son, met with him, and came to believe in his innocence. So did the rest of the family. Ray died in prison in 1998.

Coretta Scott King died in 2006. Daughter Yolanda King, an activist and actress, and died in 2007, from a heart condition, only 51 years old. Martin Luther King III was elected to the Fulton County Commission in Atlanta, serving from 1987 to 1993, and served as President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, his father's old job, from 1997 to 2004. Bernice King, the only one of Dr. King's children to also join the ministry, was elected SCLC President in 2009, but declined the post. She is now CEO of the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change. Son Dexter Scott King is also involved with the King Center. (UPDATE: Dexter King died in 2024, of cancer, at 62.)

Yolanda played Rosa Parks in the 1978 film King, starring Paul Winfield. Dexter played his father in the 2002 film The Rosa Parks Story, starring Angela Bassett. Martin III and Dexter have married, but Martin is the only one of Dr. King's children who has married and had any children, a daughter, Yolanda Renee King, born in 2008.

Dr. King once said, "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." We must always speak, or the other side will be the only one heard.

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When President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, baseball was out of season. But the National Football League, already beginning its approach to becoming (apparently) more popular than baseball, was 48 hours from a new round of games, and Commissioner Pete Rozelle had to make a quick decision on whether to let the games go on. He did, and was ripped for it by the press and the public. The American Football League postponed its games.

Dr. King was not the President. But he was America's preeminent civil rights figure, and when his funeral was set for Atlanta on April 8, which was Opening Day for some Major League Baseball teams, many black players didn't want to play.

William "Spike" Eckert, the retired Air Force General who was then Commissioner of Baseball, considered both the wishes of the black players and the possibility of backlash of what would happen if he didn't, since several cities faced rioting in the wake of the assassination. So he went against expectations, and agreed to postpone the day's games.

But no Major League Baseball games were scheduled to be played on the Thursday night that Dr. King was killed. And since the shooting happened at 6:01 PM Central Time, 7:01 Eastern, some of the games might have been about to start. The National Football League was in its off-season. And the National Basketball Association was between rounds of Playoffs.

But the American Basketball Association, in its 1st season, played Game 1 of its Eastern Division Finals. The Pittsburgh Pipers beat the Minnesota Muskies, 125-117 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh. The Pipers went on to win the series, and beat the New Orleans Buccaneers in the finals, to win the 1st ABA Championships.

The National Hockey League's Stanley Cup Playoffs were scheduled to get underway that night, and were not rescheduled. The New York Rangers beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 3-1 at what was, 2 months into its use, still being called "The New Madison Square Garden Center." The Montreal Canadiens beat the Boston Bruins, 2-1 at the Montreal Forum. The St. Louis Blues beat the Philadelphia Flyers, 1-0 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia. And the Los Angeles Kings beat the Minnesota North Stars, 2-1 at The Forum in the Los Angeles suburb of Inglewood, California.

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Two months later, when Senator Robert F. Kennedy, JFK's brother, was assassinated while running for President, some players didn't want to play on the day of the funeral, June 8, 1968. Some of the black players got some of the white players to stand with them. Some teams agreed to postpone their games and make the next day a doubleheader. Some agreed to move their day games to night games. Some refused to do either, and the objecting players refused to play, and were fined.

Eckert didn't add any punishment for the players. This, plus his handling of the MLK assassination, may have led to his removal as Commissioner before the 1969 season. He was replaced with Bowie Kuhn, and I have no good things to say about him.