I live in the land that produced Martin Luther King, Jr. And I live in the land that killed him. He turned the other cheek – and was shot in the face.
Stokely Carmichael:
“White America killed Dr King and they had absolutely no reason to do so. He was the one man, in our race, who was trying to teach our people to have love, compassion, and humility for what white people had done.”
He was killed 50 years ago today: Thursday April 4th 1968 at 6:01 pm in Memphis, Tennessee. Age 39. A week and a day before Good Friday. During that week 125 cities across the US burned.
The night before Dr King spoke at Clayton Temple. He urged his packed audience of 2,000 to buy Black and bank Black and stand bodily with the striking Black sanitation workers. He told how he was stabbed once in New York and narrowly avoided death. He ended by saying:
“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!
“And 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!!”
The next day, getting ready to go out to dinner, he was standing on the second-floor balcony in front of his room at the the Black-owned Lorraine Motel. He was talking to Jesse Jackson and musician Ben Branch in the parking lot below, about an event later that night for the striking sanitation workers:
JACKSON: You remember Ben?
KING: Oh, yeah. He’s my man. Be sure to play ‘Precious Lord’ and play it real pretty.
Solomon Jones, his driver, said he should put on his topcoat, it was going to be chilly. King agreed, straightening his tie. Then came what sounded like a firecracker. Just one shot.
Then came what Coretta Scott King, his wife back in Atlanta, called “the call I seemed subconsciously to have been waiting for all our lives”.
On April 8th, King was to lead a protest of striking Black sanitation workers in Memphis.
On April 22nd he was to lead a March on Washington of poor people of all colours, the Poor People’s Campaign.
King had been on the FBI’s Reserved List, Section A, for six years: someone considered so dangerous that he must be watched and, in case of emergency, jailed.
But he was one of the last two bridges between Blacks and Whites at the national level in the US. Now only Robert Kennedy remained.
– Abagond, 2018.
See also:
- Martin Luther King Jr
- his speech against the Vietnam War – made exactly one year before he was killed
- I’ve Been to the Mountaintop – the speech he gave the night before he died
- Robert Kennedy
- Black Power
- FBI
- Stokely Carmichael
- Coretta Scott King
- Dion: Abraham, Martin and John
- also assassinated
- Patrice Lumumba
- Medgar Evers
- Malcolm X
- Fred Hampton
- Steve Biko (died in police custody)
- Marielle Franco
591
Abagond — Thank you for this.
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Oops! Wanted to dd this link fo some background: https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/on-the-50th-anniversary-of-mlks-death-remember-that-the-fbi-are-pure-scum-f0fc0ebce70c
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The image of the strikers walking past armed men with fixed bayonets show how much the power structure fears Black solidarity and self-respect.
It is a revealing photo.
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Only for 2 more months.
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@ jefe
Are you hinting it was an inside job? “cough” government assassination “cough”
But sure love and protect Trump for some strange reason.
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Fold 1968 over 2018 and see how nothing has really changed. Black people are still hated in America.
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We celebrate MLK’s birthday but we don’t really get to mourn his death by gun violence, his death was not a glorious one but it’s just like the death of all the other black people who died of gun violence in this present day. Hatred was the thing that killed him just like hatred is why police kill black people and suffer no consequences. Social justice activism is dangerous work and there is a horrible price to pay. You could lose your livelihood or the worst outcome your life.
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@Mary Burrell…“We celebrate MLK’s birthday but we don’t really get to mourn his death by gun violence, his death was not a glorious one but it’s just like the death of all the other black people who died of gun violence in this present day. “
I was thinking the same thing yesterday when I posted his, “Beyond Vietnam” speech Lil Sis.
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@Mary Burrell…https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/04/05/police-shoot-and-kill-brooklyn-man-after-mistaking-a-metal-pipe-for-a-gun/?utm_term=.743c915a423b&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1
And the beat goes on, Darlin’ {SMMFH}…
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@TBD,
Not trying to hint anything.
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@ Deb
It effects all darker complected people of color. Hell I remember my baby’s mother telling him (9 yrs old but kind of big) to get in the shop or car before finishing his ice cream sandwich at a parking lot because many police were around and could ‘mistake’ the ice cream for a weapon. This country is ass-holy ridiculous and the demographic with the main political power could care less.
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@ Deb
On closer examination the guy appears to be holding a metal conjoint pipe that resembles a foreign issue or older (maybe even WWII style) pistol. He literally asked for it. Still sad though.
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One day before the shooting Deb posted about, Chicago police encountered a white student who threatened them with a metal pipe and although he was shot the police managed not to kill him.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/chicago.suntimes.com/news/police-identify-charge-student-shot-by-university-of-chicago-officer/amp/
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Some other interesting comparisons:
The white assailant who was captured alive was using his metal pipe to break the windows of cars and apartments, as Stephon Clark was allegedly doing.
At least one caller to 911 in the Saheed Vassell case said that he appeared to be mentally ill.
Saheed Vassell pointed the pipe at the officers and apparently four officers immediately opened fire, shooting ten rounds.
The white student charged the officers with the pipe while yelling threats and obscenities, but the officer gave verbal warnings and backed away for close to a minute before shooting him once in the shoulder.
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@TBD…Saw the video the NYPD released today: https://www.usatoday.com/videos/news/nation/2018/04/05/nypd-defend-fatal-shooting-video-911-calls/33585281/
And yes, what he has in his hand does resemble some kind of weapon. My issue is it seems all of these allegedly well-trained cops just rolled up and opened fire — exactly like they did to Tamir Rice, a boy playing with a toy gun in a park. You mean to tell me, that’s the kind of policing we must continue to deal with?? They’re so damned scared that they shoot first and ask questions later and that’s okay? So Black folk with a mental illness are never to be afforded the courtesy of an experienced officer surveying the situation before they murder somebody in a barrage of bullets?? No, he didn’t ask for that, Brother. Neither did Tamir, nor John Crawford in that Ohio Walmart, nor Philando Castile, and on and on and on. And no, that’s not sad either — that’s a TOTAL disregard for our human, Black lives.
I was in Charleston when Dylan Roof was welcomed into that evening Bible study class, sat down and then murdered nine people. He was on the highway, headed north before they got a tip and arrested him. Now even though they knew he’d left nine dead, bloody bodies scattered in that basement (they had the church video, so they knew it was him, remember?) — they took his ass to Burger King before they brought him in. None of that “fearing for their lives” shit DESPITE the fact they already KNEW he was a MURDERER!!!
Please know my ire’s not directed at you Brother. I just am, and have been for a long time — just sick and damned tired of his shit.
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@ Deb
Precisely. The police take ARMED White men alive all the time, even those who straight-up KILL police officers!
“I feared for my life” and “I thought I saw a gun” is just Whitespeak for “He was Black, so fuck it.”
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@abagond…“I feared for my life” and “I thought I saw a gun” is just Whitespeak for “He was Black, so fuck it.”
Let the church say, “Amen” and “Amen again!”
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