44 Years Ago Tonight

[Octafish]

[mike_c]

1. .

[Octafish]

4. He was just 39 years old.

J. Edgar Hoover vs. Martin Luther King, Jr.: Book Exposes FBI Targeting of the Civil Rights Leader

[WillyT]

2. Yep...

Peace...

[Octafish]

5. He was a man of peace, the bravest of the brave.

"Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak of the -- for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home, and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our own nation: The great initiative in this war is ours; the initiative to stop it must be ours." —Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm

[zappaman]

3. Amazing how one man with a gun can change history. K & R. n/t

[DisgustipatedinCA]

6. the converse is true also, of course

It's amazing how this one man without a gun, ultimately a victim of gun crime, changed history.

[zappaman]

8. Absolutely spot on!

Him and sadly, many others...

[Octafish]

10. Perhaps. Seeing how J Edgar Hoover and the FBI were doing all they could to encourage his suicide...

...I tend to believe it was a lot more like what William Pepper and Douglas Valentine wrote:

An Act of State.

[zappaman]

12. Wow, that is some serious WOO you linked to!

I prefer facts and rational thought over woo myself, but whatever floats your boat!
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/mlk1.html

[Octafish]

15. William Pepper is an attorney. Douglas Valentine is an author specializing in state crime.

What do you specialize in, zappaman?

[zappaman]

17. LOL!

Didn't realize one's profession was an indicator of their propensity to believe bullshit.
WOO!

[Octafish]

20. So, instead of laughing, why don't you post something to support your contention?

Woo us some J Edgar Hoover. He was on the up-and-up, right?

[zappaman]

22. I did. n/t

[Octafish]

24. Not really. Infoplease is, at best, a mixed bag of stuff.

"All the knowledge you need™" may work for you, but it doesn't for me.

[yardwork]

7. He's with Trayvon Martin tonight.

[Octafish]

11. In my heart, that is what I believe, too.

Men can not kill a soul.

[Martin Eden]

9. I remember finding out about it the next morning.

I was 10 years old, in the 6th grade. After waking up I came downstairs and found my Aunt Kate weeping because she had just heard the news. Aunt Kate (50 years older than I) had been a union organizer and champion of civil rights from the late 1920's into the 1950's, and was one of the 3 ladies featured in the 1977 documentary Union Maids:
http://www.newday.com/reviews.lasso?filmid=FaEpshGkS|

|

It was a sad day in out family. When I went to school that day in my all-white neighborhood on the west edge of Chicago near Midway airport, there was an air of celebration in the playground. Apparently most of the parents had a different view of Dr. King.

[Octafish]

14. Dr. King stood for Justice -- social, political, economic...

From Eesha Pandit at Feministing:

"There is no human circumstance more tragic than the persisting existence of a harmful condition for which a remedy is readily available...In our struggle for equality we were confronted with the reality that many millions of people were essentially ignorant of our conditions or refused to face unpleasant truths. The hard-core bigot was merely one of our adversaries. The millions who were blind to our plight had to be compelled to face the social evil their indifference permitted to flourish...We knew that there were solutions and that the majority of the nation were ready for them. Yet we also knew that the existence of solutions would not automatically operate to alter conditions. We had to organize, not only arguments, but people in the millions for action. Finally we had to be prepared to accept all the consequences involved in dramatizing our grievances in the unique style we had devised."

- MLK upon accepting the Planned Parenthood Federation of America's Margaret Sanger Award.

PS: Thank you, Martin Eden, for sharing about your experience in sixth grade. We are of the same my age and school grade. Yours also are my impressions of school that next day, across the lake from you in St. Joseph, Michigan. It seems most people went on as if there were nothing to be sad about. Already 44 years. As for you, there's a sadness that has never left my heart.

[Martin Eden]

40. Thanks, Octafish

44 years later the memory remains, along with the sad assessment that King's Dream has not been fully realized.

[struggle4progress]

13. 1968 CBS News Assassination Report

[ScreamingMeemie]

18. Thank you for posting that.

I never tire of hearing MLK speak.

[Octafish]

19. An amazing clip, that footage from Dr. King's address on April 3, 1968...

Thank you, struggle4progress. Very much obliged.

Dr. King was just getting started when he was taken. Had he been given a full life, I am certain this nation would be a most different place today.

PS: I haven't seen that report from Walter Cronkite in 44 years. It is amazing how much that broadcast shook its memories on my engrams.

[HangOnKids]

21. LBJ Sounds About As Sad As he Did When Kennedy Was Assassinated

Cronkite was moved and made a rare verbal gaff. Sad day for America.

[Octafish]

29. That echoed for me, also.

Looking back, it's clear civil rights were a complicated matter for the Texan.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

39. As an aside, you can see there was a certain dread in Cronkite as he prepared to announce the news.

First JFK and now this, and soon after RFK. Coupled with Vietnam and the Civil Rights Struggle, and peppering in the Cuban Missile Crisis. The news during the 1960s--with the exception of perhaps the space race--was often so hard to report.

[unkachuck]

16. K&R....n/t

[Octafish]

23. Each passing year, fewer memories remain.

...and the ones that do have more new memories to compete with -- from reality tee vee to the latest outrage at the bank.

Perhaps one day, if those who hated what Dr. King stood for have their way, no one will remember. For as long as we can, let's keep fighting the good fight, unkachuck.

The King Philosophy

[unkachuck]

30. ....amen, brother Octafish, amen....n/t

[RufusTFirefly]

32. "The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today"

One of Dr. King's greatest speeches ever, exactly a year before he was murdered

[SunDrop23]

25. Although I have seen that picture dozens of times...

...it still takes my breath away.

[Octafish]

26. An image burned forever onto my memory and upon my heart.

Important info on another photographer, from the great DUer MinM:

Merrell McCollough - agent provocateur - Memphis PD Mole

[mzmolly]

27. :(

[Octafish]

37. The FBI's War against Dr. King Revisited

A real enemy of the state:

The FBI's War against Dr. King Revisited

Posted by Steve Gosset, ACLU, Jan. 16, 2012 at 10:17am

Over the course of two decades, the FBI went to war against Dr. Martin Luther King, even though the civil rights leader never knew he was under attack.

As Dr. King’s political power, stature and influence grew, the FBI, under the direction of J. Edgar Hoover, grew increasingly obsessed with King. In turn, they used various tactics in the ‘50s and ‘60s to try and discredit him, such as mounting a full-court press to portray him as a Communist provocateur, attempting to disrupt tributes after Dr. King won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 and repeatedly bugging his hotel rooms.

The FBI so viewed Dr. King as a threat that they even tried to covertly besmirch his reputation after his assassination, when Congress in 1969 first considered making his birthday a national holiday.

These shameful actions were detailed in a 2002 ACLU report that highlighted one of the sorriest chapters in FBI history, in order to bring attention to the dangers of domestic spying.

[font color="red"]“His ‘crime’ was to challenge the laws enforcing segregation and preventing the right to vote,” the report said. “His ‘crime’ was to protest the Vietnam war and to denounce policies that did not address widespread poverty in this country.”[/font color]

CONTINUED...

http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/fbis-war-against-dr-king-revisited

If that's how Uncle Sam treated a man of peace, imagine what's in store for people who still think change is possible?!

[goclark]

28. One of the most memorable days of my life was the day I met Dr. King

I was attending my Sorority Conference in Philadelphia.

Dr. King was speaking at a Historic Baptist Church.

After he addressed us, our President asked all of the Under Grad Ladies to form a line.

To our surprise she announced that Dr. King had graciously agreed to speak to each of us.
There were about 50 in our long, long line.

When it was my turn, he took my hand and I told him my name.
I was not nervous at all.
He asked me what I planned to be when I finished college.

He had the most amazing eyes... they looked right into my eyes.

I told him that I planned to be a TEACHER.

I'll never forget his response.... YOUNG LADY YOU WILL BE A GREAT TEACHER!

I carried his words inside my heart every day of my 30 years as a Teacher, Principal and Teaching Supervisor for UCLA.

[Octafish]

38. AKA

When I was a newspaper reporter, I loved it when one of the city's middle schools would call me in for "Career Day." Each year, I'd go into a class of seventh graders and ask: "How many of you think you're in prison, when you're at school?"

Almost all the hands would shoot up and the teacher's eyes would grow wide, as he or she wondered "Who the heck sent this guy?"

I'd add: "School sure seems that way, with small windows to the outside world. A regimented day, where you have to be in certain places at certain times. You have to do what you're told, sit down, be quiet. And you have to follow instruction. But kids, school is the exact OPPOSITE of a prison. This is where you go to become free. For there is only one way to be truly free in this world -- and that is to have an education. Then, you can set your own course in life. And go and accomplish your dreams."

The teacher's would breathe a sigh of relief. More than a few kids, I hope, got the point of the story.



Somehow, I think you would have been a great teacher, no matter what, goclark.
Knowing that you had crossed paths and touched a special spirit who agreed is truly a wonder of life.
I remember you related this story on a thread on DU2 a couple years back.
Even before then, though, I have known it is my honor to know you.

[goclark]

46. Octofish you made my day!

I tried to pull up my post from years ago and couldn't find it ~ so the other day I had to use my 60 + years Memory. : )


All the best to you always

You are the BEST

goclark

[RufusTFirefly]

31. RFK on MLK

(Apologies to those few non-Italian speakers among us.)

[RobertEarl]

33. 44 long years

This would have been a different country had we been able to share it with him and RFK and JFK. We have been ripped off, stolen from.

:.....(

[EFerrari]

36. The 60s were a killing field.

[chrisa]

42. I had a professor tell us he believes we were in a state of Civil War at the time.

I don't know if I agree, but I bet we were pretty close.

[EFerrari]

44. I think we lost a very important battle

that took out progressive leadership for two generations.

That's not exactly civil war. I don't know what the term would be besides repression.

[ChazInAz]

34. Oh god!

That was just the beginning of one of the worst summers in our history.
Martin was first, then they took Bobby.
I said to hell with it all, and went to Chicago with thousands of others, and learned just what our government thought of us. With all those others, I got tear-gassed, clubbed to the ground and stomped by the pigs. (As an aside, I was obviously a threatening person: 120 lbs, walked with a cane.)
Some of us learned our lessons well, and never trusted a cop or the powers that be again.
That furious summer hasn't ended yet.

[countryjake]

43. +1000

(I was only 95 lbs)

Yes, an important lesson-learning year, it was.

Still fighting.

[Luminous Animal]

35. MLK Occupied!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002253760#post14
http://www.communitywalk.com/location/chicago_freedom_movement_slum_building/info/162702

In February 1966, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and other representatives of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the West Side Federation, and the Chicago Coaliton of Community Organizations took over the management of this six-flat "slum building." The eighty-one-year-old building owner John Bender told the Chicago Tribune that of the six buildings he owned, the one King had taken over was, a "white elephant," and that he would be "more than happy to give it to [King] if he would take over the mortgage." King argued that the legality of their actions paled in comparison to the "moral question" of helping to clean up "slum" housing. (emphasis mine)

[countryjake]

45. That surely must have ruined his "image", eh?

Goodness gracious me, a trespasser?

Breaking and entering?

Whatever was he thinking?

[hifiguy]

41. I remember hearing about it on the news

Almost certainly from Walter Cronkite; mine was a CBS family. I was 11 at the time.