Literary Lunch

Today is the 41st anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King Jr.

I originally published this on my blog, RememberingRFK last year.

On April 4th, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot and killed in Memphis, Tennessee. He was standing on the balcony of a motel with Jessie Jackson and others, when he was shot. His convicted assassin was James Earle Ray, who was arrested in London, England for carrying a fake Canadian passport (coincidentally on the same day as RFK’s funeral).

Robert F. Kennedy found out about the shooting just before he got on a plane going to Indianapolis, Indiana; he was to attend a rally in one of the black neighbourhoods there. When he arrived in Indianapolis, he was denied a police escort into the area; he went anyway. Whether or not it was due to the speech, Indianapolis was one of the few US cities that did not have widespread rioting that night.

This is the speech he gave from the back of a flat-bed truck:

Statement on the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Indianapolis, Indiana
April 4, 1968

I have bad news for you, for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world, and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and killed tonight.

Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice for his fellow human beings, and he died because of that effort.

In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it is perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in. For those of you who are black–considering the evidence there evidently is that there were white people who were responsible–you can be filled with bitterness, with hatred, and a desire for revenge. We can move in that direction as a country, in great polarization–black people amongst black, white people amongst white, filled with hatred toward one another.

Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and to replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand with compassion and love.

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.

We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times; we’ve had difficult times in the past; we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; it is not the end of disorder.

But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings who abide in our land.

Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.

Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.

Sources:

The RFK Memorial

A Time it Was: Bobby Kennedy in the Sixties. Photographs and text by Bill Eppridge. Essay by Pete Hamill.New York : Abrams, 2008. 191 p., hardcover

Photographer Bill Eppridge had unprecedented access to Bobby Kennedy during the 1968 campaign. He was working as a photographer for Life Magazine at the time and travelled with Bobby and his entourage.

This book features many photographs that have never been published before. Also, Eppridge’s text helps you to feel that you were actually there; a few times his words reduced me to tears. The photographs featured in the book are from 1964 to 1968, the majority of which are from his 1968 presidential campaign.

Eppridge’s description of the shooting of Bobby and its aftermath are the most touching parts of the book. While Ethel tried to get all the press and photographers out of the room after Bobby was shot, I am glad Eppridge continued shooting. They are some of the most powerful photographs I have ever seen. Eppridge even managed to get inside Good Samaritan hospital to take photographs.

There is some humour in the book. One story that Eppridge relates had me almost laughing out loud. On the way to Arlington, the press bus took its place right behind the hearse carrying Bobby’s body (as they had always taken their place right behind his convertible on the campaign), even though the Presidential limousine was meant to be in that spot. It took the Secret Service three tries before the press bus backed off.  As Eppridge said, Bobby would have gotten a laugh out of this last dig at LBJ.

I would definitely recommend you get this book for the rare photographs it contains. It is great for those of us were weren’t there to see how people reacted to Bobby and see that the emotions and the crowds were real. Freckles, Bobby’s dog, gets a few mentions and there are lots of photographs of him. I especially love the photograph of someone holding a sign saying “Freckles for First Dog.”

The format of the book is what I would call a small coffee table book; longer than it is wide. This is the perfect format to present the great photographs featured in this book.