APRIL 1968: MEMPHIS
When Martin Luther King Jr. boarded a plane at Hartsfield Airport in Atlanta for what turned out to be his final trip, the plane was delayed on the tarmac for an hour as dogs were called in to sniff luggage in response to a bomb threat Eastern Airlines had received towards their most famous passenger. The white pilot was nice enough to inform everyone on the jet that the cause of their delay was the Civil Rights leader. On the day President Johnson withdrew from the race (March 31), King was at the National Cathedral in Washington and showing a more pronounced move from demands for equal rights to demands for more to be done to address black poverty. He flew to Memphis in support of striking union sanitation workers. One injustice inflicted upon them (and largely where it began) occurred when workers were sent home for bad weather and white workers were paid for a full day but black workers for only two hours. Seven weeks of garbage were thus piled up, and the city stank. But King himself was conflicted.
He still held to the nonviolent philosophy he’d drawn from Jesus and Gandhi, but he was beginning to wonder if it was going to be enough. Blacks had splintered into differing coalitions that included militants (like Black Power), King’s own group of nonviolent protestors (among them Ralph David Abernathy, Jesse Jackson, and future Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young), and those that attempted to use both. A crowd of two thousand awaited him at the Mason Temple in Memphis, which was a bit of a disappointment given 14,000 had heard him the last time he spoke at the same venue. King wanted to take a pass, but Abernathy convinced him it would be unfair to those who, after all, were striking for a cause close to King’s heart. They were in the arena, and he also needed to be. Thus was recorded that night, perhaps facing the inevitable, King’s speech about having “been to the top” and “seen the promised land.” The speech in retrospect sounds like a recognition of early martyrdom. During the speech, King mentioned his being stabbed in 1958, the bomb threat in Atlanta, and even threats as he arrived in Memphis as allegedly an offer to assassinate him for $5,000 had been posted. And also, Tennessee Governor Buford Ellington (a Democrat as virtually all Southern governors were at the time) was accusing King of coming to Memphis to train 3,000 people to “start riots”.
To look at how different the time was, take in mind that the celebrities of the Civil Rights movement AND black entertainers such as Count Basie were not at fancy hotels but at dump motels. The Lorraine Motel, where King was staying, is right next to the Mississippi River as one exits the (now) I-55 bridge. In retrospect, what happened on the balcony of the motel the next night now seems inevitable. King was dressed in an overcoat because the early April weather was unusually cool. Indeed, forgotten over time is the fact that five Tennesseans were killed in tornadoes that same night. Leaning over the balcony at 6:01 pm on April 4, 1968, a single shot fired from a 30.06 rifle hit King in the right cheek and lodged into his right shoulder. Sixty-four minutes after bullet impact, King was pronounced dead at 7:05 pm. And all hell – and riots – broke loose in many American cities. By coincidence, Robert Kennedy was on his way to address a predominantly black group in Indianapolis. It was there that RFK informed the group of MLK’s murder and asked for those present to follow King’s prescription of nonviolence while at the same time saying he could understand the feelings of rage that might lead one to choose to engage in it. For the first time ever, Kennedy mentioned the murder of his late brother, the President, in public. And his speech, rightly or wrongly, is credited for having eased enough tensions that on a night when so many cities erupted.
There was also some full-on insanity that night. New York’s liberal Republican Mayor John Lindsay, who already had his eyes on the Presidency, was attending a Broadway play when he was informed of King’s murder. The mayor then decided this was the right night for him to stroll through Harlem and thus left the play in order to be seen by, well, the gathering mob. He had a few aides but none were armed, and one would later say Lindsay looked “more like a Southern sheriff” than the mayor of America’s largest city. He was bailed out by Manhattan’s borough President, who sent a limo to retrieve the mayor. Oh, and the borough President was black. (cf. Perlstein, 270). But Lindsay was a politician, so the following day he deployed his Streets and Sanitation Department to clear up anything left over and persuade the national press that despite what they heard, there’d been no violence in New York City. It worked; Lindsay’s mug was on the cover of “Life” magazine the very next month, and he was being touted as a possible Nixon running mate. Estimates are between 75 and 125 American cities had fires and rioting that night, and 600 residents in Newark were left homeless by fires. The President declared April 9, 1968 to be a National
day of Mourning.
Kennedy finished his speech in Indianapolis and called King's now widow, Coretta Scott King. Asking if she needed anything, she charged Bobby with seeing that her husband's body was brought back to Atlanta. Kennedy kept as low a profile as he did and attended the funeral. In fact, most of the candidates (declared and undeclared) attended King's funeral. President Johnson opted out, saying he would be a security risk, and - unsurprisingly - George Wallace opted out as well. So, too, did Georgia governor and avowed racist Lester Maddox.
Richard Nixon attended the funeral, and it is here where a bit of the "evidence" of Nixon's so-called Southern strategy begins. I say "evidence" because it is believed by some historians that Nixon did attend the funeral but not wanting to be seen on national television at the funeral of the Civil Rights leader, he allegedly skipped out on the march to the cemetery. In a 762-page book that is generally accurate (though often juvenile), one historian writes:
The boss, recalling how Kennedy had won a critical edge on campaign eve in 1960 by supporting King when he was in jail, recalling, too, his ongoing negotiations for the loyalty of the Pope of Southern Republicans, Strom Thurmond, ended up playing it down the middle: he traveled to Atlanta to pay his respects to the family, but when the funeral procession made its way down the street, he was nowhere to be seen. (Perlstein, "Nixonland," 2008: 277).
There you have it. Good ole dog whistle Nixon getting credit for attending the funeral but cagily avoiding having his picture taken in the South with all of those black people. Well, except for the one taken of Nixon marching to the cemetery next to an obscure black man named Wilt Chamberlain, who would later come out during the GOP Convention and be one of the few blacks to publicly support him.
According to Pat Buchanan - who had just come on board the Nixon train - Nixon vacillated repeatedly over whether he should go to the funeral or not simply because of what would be said. Some aides thought he should, some thought he shouldn't, but all agreed he needed to simply exist for now. He then came up with a safe plan: he would walk with Democrat Eugene McCarthy and they'd peel off together in a show of bipartisanship upon arrival at the gravesite. Nixon would later say that being shown on television in the South had probably cost him quite a few votes. But just to show it was not mere opportunism, Nixon then came out in favor of an Open Housing law Congress hurriedly passed in their grief. And upon his return to the campaign trail on April 25, he gave a speech endorsing black capitalism that aired on CBS national radio. Nixon did many things wrong for which Perlstein and other historians criticize him. But skipping out on the march to the cemetery for the burial of Martin Luther King in order to appeal to Southern racists was not one of them.
In fact, all of the candidates learned that if they did attend the funeral they got criticized...and if they DIDN'T attend the funeral, they also got criticized. Bobby Kennedy drew wrath for taking off his coat during the march, accused of drawing attention to himself. This after he'd gone the extra mile to keep a low profile during the transfer of King's body from Memphis to Atlanta.
JUST A BIT OF DAMAGE.....
What city had the worst rioting and damage in the wake of the King assassination?
Chicago.
The city that in less than five months would host the Democratic National Convention.
The next day, Mayor Daley came out and said he’d told his police superintendent to “shoot to kill” rioters unless they were children. This drew the wrath of Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who informed him such an admonition was tantamount to committing murder. Daley then turned right around with the skill of a politician and denied that he’d ever said what he said on television.
Law and order was already the top issue in the country per the January Gallup Poll. The assassination of King and the riots in the immediate aftermath would push it higher. And yet another assassination just nine weeks later would push it even higher.
When Martin Luther King Jr. boarded a plane at Hartsfield Airport in Atlanta for what turned out to be his final trip, the plane was delayed on the tarmac for an hour as dogs were called in to sniff luggage in response to a bomb threat Eastern Airlines had received towards their most famous passenger. The white pilot was nice enough to inform everyone on the jet that the cause of their delay was the Civil Rights leader. On the day President Johnson withdrew from the race (March 31), King was at the National Cathedral in Washington and showing a more pronounced move from demands for equal rights to demands for more to be done to address black poverty. He flew to Memphis in support of striking union sanitation workers. One injustice inflicted upon them (and largely where it began) occurred when workers were sent home for bad weather and white workers were paid for a full day but black workers for only two hours. Seven weeks of garbage were thus piled up, and the city stank. But King himself was conflicted.
He still held to the nonviolent philosophy he’d drawn from Jesus and Gandhi, but he was beginning to wonder if it was going to be enough. Blacks had splintered into differing coalitions that included militants (like Black Power), King’s own group of nonviolent protestors (among them Ralph David Abernathy, Jesse Jackson, and future Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young), and those that attempted to use both. A crowd of two thousand awaited him at the Mason Temple in Memphis, which was a bit of a disappointment given 14,000 had heard him the last time he spoke at the same venue. King wanted to take a pass, but Abernathy convinced him it would be unfair to those who, after all, were striking for a cause close to King’s heart. They were in the arena, and he also needed to be. Thus was recorded that night, perhaps facing the inevitable, King’s speech about having “been to the top” and “seen the promised land.” The speech in retrospect sounds like a recognition of early martyrdom. During the speech, King mentioned his being stabbed in 1958, the bomb threat in Atlanta, and even threats as he arrived in Memphis as allegedly an offer to assassinate him for $5,000 had been posted. And also, Tennessee Governor Buford Ellington (a Democrat as virtually all Southern governors were at the time) was accusing King of coming to Memphis to train 3,000 people to “start riots”.
To look at how different the time was, take in mind that the celebrities of the Civil Rights movement AND black entertainers such as Count Basie were not at fancy hotels but at dump motels. The Lorraine Motel, where King was staying, is right next to the Mississippi River as one exits the (now) I-55 bridge. In retrospect, what happened on the balcony of the motel the next night now seems inevitable. King was dressed in an overcoat because the early April weather was unusually cool. Indeed, forgotten over time is the fact that five Tennesseans were killed in tornadoes that same night. Leaning over the balcony at 6:01 pm on April 4, 1968, a single shot fired from a 30.06 rifle hit King in the right cheek and lodged into his right shoulder. Sixty-four minutes after bullet impact, King was pronounced dead at 7:05 pm. And all hell – and riots – broke loose in many American cities. By coincidence, Robert Kennedy was on his way to address a predominantly black group in Indianapolis. It was there that RFK informed the group of MLK’s murder and asked for those present to follow King’s prescription of nonviolence while at the same time saying he could understand the feelings of rage that might lead one to choose to engage in it. For the first time ever, Kennedy mentioned the murder of his late brother, the President, in public. And his speech, rightly or wrongly, is credited for having eased enough tensions that on a night when so many cities erupted.
There was also some full-on insanity that night. New York’s liberal Republican Mayor John Lindsay, who already had his eyes on the Presidency, was attending a Broadway play when he was informed of King’s murder. The mayor then decided this was the right night for him to stroll through Harlem and thus left the play in order to be seen by, well, the gathering mob. He had a few aides but none were armed, and one would later say Lindsay looked “more like a Southern sheriff” than the mayor of America’s largest city. He was bailed out by Manhattan’s borough President, who sent a limo to retrieve the mayor. Oh, and the borough President was black. (cf. Perlstein, 270). But Lindsay was a politician, so the following day he deployed his Streets and Sanitation Department to clear up anything left over and persuade the national press that despite what they heard, there’d been no violence in New York City. It worked; Lindsay’s mug was on the cover of “Life” magazine the very next month, and he was being touted as a possible Nixon running mate. Estimates are between 75 and 125 American cities had fires and rioting that night, and 600 residents in Newark were left homeless by fires. The President declared April 9, 1968 to be a National
day of Mourning.
Kennedy finished his speech in Indianapolis and called King's now widow, Coretta Scott King. Asking if she needed anything, she charged Bobby with seeing that her husband's body was brought back to Atlanta. Kennedy kept as low a profile as he did and attended the funeral. In fact, most of the candidates (declared and undeclared) attended King's funeral. President Johnson opted out, saying he would be a security risk, and - unsurprisingly - George Wallace opted out as well. So, too, did Georgia governor and avowed racist Lester Maddox.
Richard Nixon attended the funeral, and it is here where a bit of the "evidence" of Nixon's so-called Southern strategy begins. I say "evidence" because it is believed by some historians that Nixon did attend the funeral but not wanting to be seen on national television at the funeral of the Civil Rights leader, he allegedly skipped out on the march to the cemetery. In a 762-page book that is generally accurate (though often juvenile), one historian writes:
The boss, recalling how Kennedy had won a critical edge on campaign eve in 1960 by supporting King when he was in jail, recalling, too, his ongoing negotiations for the loyalty of the Pope of Southern Republicans, Strom Thurmond, ended up playing it down the middle: he traveled to Atlanta to pay his respects to the family, but when the funeral procession made its way down the street, he was nowhere to be seen. (Perlstein, "Nixonland," 2008: 277).
There you have it. Good ole dog whistle Nixon getting credit for attending the funeral but cagily avoiding having his picture taken in the South with all of those black people. Well, except for the one taken of Nixon marching to the cemetery next to an obscure black man named Wilt Chamberlain, who would later come out during the GOP Convention and be one of the few blacks to publicly support him.
According to Pat Buchanan - who had just come on board the Nixon train - Nixon vacillated repeatedly over whether he should go to the funeral or not simply because of what would be said. Some aides thought he should, some thought he shouldn't, but all agreed he needed to simply exist for now. He then came up with a safe plan: he would walk with Democrat Eugene McCarthy and they'd peel off together in a show of bipartisanship upon arrival at the gravesite. Nixon would later say that being shown on television in the South had probably cost him quite a few votes. But just to show it was not mere opportunism, Nixon then came out in favor of an Open Housing law Congress hurriedly passed in their grief. And upon his return to the campaign trail on April 25, he gave a speech endorsing black capitalism that aired on CBS national radio. Nixon did many things wrong for which Perlstein and other historians criticize him. But skipping out on the march to the cemetery for the burial of Martin Luther King in order to appeal to Southern racists was not one of them.
In fact, all of the candidates learned that if they did attend the funeral they got criticized...and if they DIDN'T attend the funeral, they also got criticized. Bobby Kennedy drew wrath for taking off his coat during the march, accused of drawing attention to himself. This after he'd gone the extra mile to keep a low profile during the transfer of King's body from Memphis to Atlanta.
JUST A BIT OF DAMAGE.....
What city had the worst rioting and damage in the wake of the King assassination?
Chicago.
The city that in less than five months would host the Democratic National Convention.
The next day, Mayor Daley came out and said he’d told his police superintendent to “shoot to kill” rioters unless they were children. This drew the wrath of Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who informed him such an admonition was tantamount to committing murder. Daley then turned right around with the skill of a politician and denied that he’d ever said what he said on television.
Law and order was already the top issue in the country per the January Gallup Poll. The assassination of King and the riots in the immediate aftermath would push it higher. And yet another assassination just nine weeks later would push it even higher.
