"...adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars."

April 4, 2018 4:37 PM

In honor of the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., his hometown NPR station, WABE, has organized content devoted to his memory and the memory of those events: ATL1968

In addition to feature stories, photo collections, and interviews from the (excellent) locally produced talk show "A Closer Look with Rose Scott", they have captured some amazing moments from the StoryCorps Atlanta booth, including this interview with Congressman John Lewis about the moment when he heard of Dr. King's death (and about meeting President Obama).

posted by hydropsyche (8 comments total)

It's a worthy post about a great man, but MeFi members are struggling to write a comment that doesn't riff on WABE and the tendency of borogoves to gyre and gymble.
posted by w0mbat at 5:31 PM on April 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

(hey, from inside the building: thanks for sharing this)
posted by Maaik at 6:37 PM on April 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

This is superficial but -- as part of the coverage today I was newly struck by the fact that he was just 39. That is unreal, it seems impossible that he was so young.
posted by LobsterMitten at 6:48 PM on April 4, 2018 [5 favorites]

Self-link here, but playwright Pearl Cleage describing the riots that broke out in DC while she was in her dorm at Howard is harrowing.
posted by Maaik at 6:51 PM on April 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

Before our current catastrophe, I used to think about 1968 and wonder just how anyone got past it... all those murders of hope in such a short period of time. (I was born in 1965.)

Then I put away childish things and learned that almost all of life is about surviving the murder of hope.
posted by allthinky at 5:48 AM on April 5, 2018

One of my connections to this story is my parents, who were both in college in Atlanta in 1968. They were both young white kids from small southern towns who had attended segregated K-12 schools and were then attending newly integrated universities. They talk about the racism that surrounded and enveloped them, but they also talk about how there weren't riots in Atlanta following Dr. King's murder, how the city was just in deep mourning.

My mom and I went to the King Historic Site together a few years ago. In spite of being a Georgia native, she had never been before. She and I had a lot of frank conversations about what it was like to be them in the city at the time.

Back after Trayvon Martin was murdered, I offered to host MeFites who want to come to Atlanta and learn about the history of the Civil Rights Movement. That offer still stands.
posted by hydropsyche at 7:15 AM on April 5, 2018 [2 favorites]

My family moved here from the north just a few years before this. My dad commuted downtown daily by bus from our near suburb. We could see Stone Mountain from the end of our street where he caught the bus.

I work downtown now, just blocks from where my dad used to work. While Atlanta has far to go, as does the rest of America, it is an amazing place. I am pleased so many are paying so much attention to the occasion and to King's legacy. The governor's office is closing the capitol for a funeral march re-enactment.

Here is much more about the history and observations of his assassination and funeral. From Atlanta Magazine in 2008, a gripping read:

Funeral: An oral history of the remarkable behind-the-scenes effort to stage Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1968 funeral and keep peace in Atlanta while 110 other cities burned.

From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, amazing photos:

Atlanta's 4-mile goodbye to King: This special presentation tells the story of King's funeral procession from three perspectives. First is Ken Guthrie's view and the photos he shot that day along the route. Second is the extraordinary tableau that marchers passed by at the state Capitol: just a block apart, they saw the old and hateful South juxtaposed with the newer and more inclusive South, the one that King died to secure. And third is the route itself: these are streets and avenues that we know well and travel regularly. But most of us don't realize that Martin Luther King Jr. traveled them for a final time on that spring day in 1968.

Video from C-SPAN:

CBS News coverage from April 9, 1968, of the funeral services for Martin Luther King Jr. at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. (SL)

Finally, I recommend Reviving the King, a recent episode of the excellent Radio Open Source show and podcast.

Dr. King had been the incandescent voice in a 15-year civil rights movement that wrote race out of our law.  He is remembered for it on the holiday calendar, in monuments and street names and avenues in hundreds of cities and towns across the land, on postage stamps around the world. This hour we’re listening for what’s not on the MLK stamps, or in the civics books: the religious conviction, the radicalism about wealth and power, the short lifetime crammed with reading, writing, philosophizing.

posted by conscious matter at 11:25 AM on April 5, 2018 [4 favorites]

Thanks for those great links, conscious matter. I love that oral history. So many amazing stories there of how the peace was kept. I'm a member of Central Presbyterian Church, so I knew our part of the story, but it's really cool to see the names of people I know and love pop up in that oral history.
posted by hydropsyche at 5:01 AM on April 6, 2018