The millions in Dr. Martin Luther King?????s firing squad

[_Nomomo]

The Chicago Daily News published this column April 5, 1968, the day after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The millions in Dr. Martin Luther King’s firing squad
By Mike Royko - April 5, 1968

FBI agents are looking for the man who pulled the trigger and surely they will find him.

But it doesn’t matter if they do or they don’t. They can’t catch everybody, and Martin Luther King was executed by a firing squad that numbered in the millions.

They took part, from all over the country, pouring words of hate into the ear of the assassin.

The man with the gun did what he was told. Millions of bigots, subtle and obvious, put it in his hand and assured him he was doing the right thing.

It would be easy to point at the Southern redneck and say he did it. But what of the Northern disk-jockey-turned-commentator, with his slippery words of hate every morning?

What about the Northern mayor who steps all over every poverty program advancement, thinking only of political expediency, until riots fester, whites react with more hate and the gap between the races grows bigger?

Toss in the congressman with the stupid arguments against busing. And the pathetic women who turn out with eggs in their hands to throw at children.

Let us not forget the law-and-order type politicians who are in favor of arresting all Negro prostitutes in the vice districts. When you ask them to vote for laws that would eliminate some of the causes of prostitution, they babble like the boobs they are.

Throw in a Steve Telow or two: the Eastern and Southern European immigrant or his kid who seems to be convinced that in 40 or 50 years he built this country. There was nothing here until he arrived, you see, so that gives him the right to pitch rocks when Martin Luther King walks down the street in his neighborhood.

They all took their place in King’s firing squad.

And behind them were the subtle ones, those who never say anything bad but just nod when the bigot throws out his strong opinions.

He is actually the worst, the nodder is, because sometimes he believes differently but he says nothing. He doesn’t want to cause trouble. For Pete’s sake, don’t cause trouble!

So when his brother-in-law or his card-playing buddy from across the alley spews out the racial filth, he nods.

Give some credit to the most subtle of the subtle. That distinction belongs to the FBI, now looking for King’s killer.

That agency took part in a mudslinging campaign against him that to this day demands an investigation.

The bullet that hit King came from all directions. Every two-bit politician or incompetent editorial writer found in him, not themselves, the cause of our racial problems.

It was almost ludicrous. The man came on the American scene preaching nonviolence from the first day he sat at the wrong end of a bus. He preached it in the North and was hit with rocks. He talked it the day he was murdered.

Hypocrites all over this country would kneel every Sunday morning and mouth messages to Jesus Christ. Then they would come out and tell each other, after reading the papers, that somebody should string up King, who was living Christianity like few Americans ever have.

Maybe it was the simplicity of his goal that confused people or the way he dramatized it.

He wanted only that black Americans have their constitutional rights, that they get an equal shot at this country’s benefits, the same thing we give to the last guy who jumped off the boat.

So we killed him. Just as we killed Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy. No other country kills so many of its best people.

Last Sunday night the president said he was quitting after this term. He said this country is so filled with hate it might help if he got out. Four days later we killed a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

We have pointed a gun at our own head and we are squeezing the trigger. And nobody we elect is going to help us. It is our head and our finger.

https://chicago.suntimes.com/opinion/mike-royko-martin-luther-king-assassination/

[_Res Ipsa]

Man, I’d forgotten how well Royko could write a column. Thanks for posting that.

[_MeDotOrg]

On the night of the King assasination, Robert Kennedy was in Indianapolis. He wanted to announce to the crowd that King had been assassinated. Police told him they couldn't vouch for his safety. He wrote his speech in the car on the way to the rally.

Here's a link to a Youtube video of the speech.

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.

When Robert Kennedy spoke, he had literally minutes to collect his thoughts. Donald Trump and Mike Pence had a year to think about what they would say on Martin Luther King day. Trump and Pence spent 3 minutes at the MLK memorial. Not a word was spoken.

[_Jersey Girl]

MeDot looking over the text of that speech I'm almost certain it's the one that was made from the flat bed of a truck.

We have no statesmen like this any more. They have been lost to history.

[_Res Ipsa]

We won’t get it again until we decide to value it.

[_Jersey Girl]

Reading those and listening the other day to a clip of Dr. King that was aired on The View (via youtube) just makes me so sad I cannot tell you guys.

[_Jersey Girl]

I found the exact clip they used on The View.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0Bt-ga8vJc

[_Jersey Girl]

Here's the whole interview with Dr. King from which the clip was extracted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xsbt3a7K-8

[_MeDotOrg]

MeDot looking over the text of that speech I'm almost certain it's the one that was made from the flat bed of a truck.

We have no statesmen like this any more. They have been lost to history.

I think you are correct. On all statements.

[_Jersey Girl]

MeDot looking over the text of that speech I'm almost certain it's the one that was made from the flat bed of a truck.

We have no statesmen like this any more. They have been lost to history.

I think you are correct. On all statements.

For those of us who recall an America with at least some element of inspiration and vision in it, and people who were capable of delivering it and reporting on it so eloquently, these current times are difficult to witness.

We have been cheapened.