Posted on 10/10/2006 5:08:28 AM PDT by Colonel Kangaroo
The march accomplished nothing except to allow Dr. King's enemies to discredit him. It allowed the FBI to become more active in attempting to undermine his position, putting out a blind press release that said, that that the "result of King's famous espousal of nonviolence was vandalism, looting and riot." It allowed Hoover, the next day, to authorize a program "to publicize hypocrisy on the part of Martin Luther King." The fact that, when violence broke out, Dr. King was taken to a different hotel than where he was staying was even exploited by the FBI in another blind item, this one to the black press: "The fine Hotel Lorraine in Memphis is owned and patronized exclusively by Negroes," stated the propaganda sheet, but King had chosen instead "the plush Holiday Inn Motel, white owned, operated and almost exclusively white patronized."
It was only his assassination a week later that caused LBJ to appoint his Undersecretary of Labor to come to Memphis to mediate the dispute, which STILL didn't end for another two weeks. As for getting the strikers noticed, the strike had been going on since Feb. 12. Picketing had been going on since Feb. 19. Thousands of tons of garbage were piling up in the streets. The strike was national news. Believe me, it was noticed. But it took King's murder to make the mayor and city council budge, though.
your opinion, absent EVIDENCE, is worthless.
free dixie,sw
in my experience, the LOUDmouthed, ignorant, arrogant, REVISIONIST, sanctimonious MINORITY ( i suspect the DAMNyankee minority to be about 10-15% of the northern population, but that SMALL minority are REALLY filled with HATE & are anti-dixie BIGOTS!) of northerners, who HATE the southland & our wonderful southern PEOPLE, are the very SAME persons, who support the LEFTISTS from the "blue zone".
i, for just one southerner, just wish they would LEAVE us ALONE & GO AWAY, permanently!
fyi, i have MANY friends in the north. (over my military career, i was stationed in FIVE (5) northern states.)
free dixie,sw
What do you dispute? That the march broke down and almost became a riot? That King was hustled away from the scene? That the FBI took the breakdown of the march to use as a propaganda wedge against his policy of nonviolence? That it wasn't the march but King's assassination that had the effect of making the feds step in and broker an end to the strike? You seem to be quick to call easily-found history bilge, while failing to present anything like an alternative. What was it that made that day so "glorious," to use your word? Was it the window smashing, the boy the police shot? What?
your opinion, absent EVIDENCE, is worthless.
Okay, evidence:
From the National Archives:
Unfortunately the demonstration on March 28 turned sour when a group of rowdy students at the tail end of the long parade of demonstrators used the signs they carried to break windows of businesses. Looting ensued. The march was halted, the demonstrators dispersed, and King was safely escorted from the scene. About 60 people had been injured, and one young man, a looter, was killed. This episode prompted the city of Memphis to bring a formal complaint in the District Court against King, Hosea Williams, James Bevel, James Orange, Ralph Abernathy, and Bernard Lee, King's associates in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).
From the King Center:
March 28 Dr. King leads six thousand protesters on a march through downtown Memphis in support of striking sanitation workers. Disorder breaks out during which black youths loot stores. One sixteen-year-old is killed and fifty people are injured.
From the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis:
A planned peaceful demonstration on March 28 turned into a riot. Stunned, King vowed that he would not give up. He promised to return and hold a peaceful march in support of the workers. King planned a march for April 8th and flew into Memphis on April 3rd where he checked into the Lorraine Motel. That night he delivered his "Mountaintop" speech at Mason Temple during a tremendous thunderstorm. This would be King's last speech. He was assassinated the next day standing on the balcony of the Lorraine.
Here's an article from the Memphis Commmercial Appeal about the army intelligence agents on the scene:
March 28 -- King leads rescheduled march on City Hall. At 11:20 a.m., a riot breaks out. Some 60 people are injured, four of them shot by police. One teenager dies.
From the Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute (holders of King's personal papers):
28 March King leads a march of six thousand protesters in support of striking sanitation workers in Memphis. The march descends into violence and looting, and King is rushed from the scene.
NOBODY except those who were THERE really know what happened. i WAS.
SOME of what your sources say IS accurate. SOME is not.(overall i'd rate your information as "a wash".
free dixie,sw
Then why don't you tell us what really happened? Tell us that the march didn't end in chaos. Tell us that no windows were smashed. Tell us that no one got arrested. Tell us that no one was killed by police. Tell us that Dr. King was pleased as punch with "that glorious day." Tell us that the march didn't become an excuse for the FBI to spread stories trying to discredit Dr. King. Tell us that the mayor of Memphis was so moved by the march that he immediately caved to the strikers' demands. Come on, you claim you were there. Tell us about it.
Tell us that the National Civil Rights Museum has it wrong, the National Archives has it wrong, the King Center has it wrong, and the Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute has it wrong. Tell us that every single available source has it wrong.
But you have it right.
did it ever cross your mind that those sources might know just as LITTLE as YOU do??? or that the writers might just have "an AGENDA" and or were trying to CHANGE the "record"??? (the FBI & the MPD certainly DID!)
better you ask me, who was THERE, than somebody who was NOT! (at least i was just a participant & a 20YO student, who had NO agenda except getting a decent living wage for a bunch of sanitation workers & their families.)
free dixie,sw
Fair enough. Now you have to explain why the King Center, the National Archives, the Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, and the National Civil Rights Museum would all either at best blindly accept this version of events without anyone ever setting the record straight, or at worst be active participants in making the world believe that the last march of Dr. King's life was a disaster, in which his nonviolenc-centered leadership failed. If there's an agenda by those organizations, you'll have to explain how they benefit by casting King into a bad light in the last week of his life, especially almost 40 years after the fact.
I already did that. Still waiting for your version of events. I'd especially like to hear how the march ended.
there WAS a LOT of chanting/SHOUTING & a FEW "fists thrown" & some MINOR "pushing & shoving", by both PRO & ANTI union people. i saw NO violence of any other sort. period. end of story.
i had "turned my ankle" (i had stepped in a "pothole".) rather severely toward the end of the march & "had to be helped to the car", after sitting down for a while. i THINK i would have seen any REAL problems had there been much/any, but perhaps not, as i'm just ONE person.
SOME PRO & ANTI union folks were arrested, i understand, by the MPD.
i suspect, but do not KNOW for sure, that the arrests were at the order of the "bigwigs of Memphis", who definitely did NOT want the strike/demonstrations/march/anything else to be SUCESSFUL. the "city" wanted to continue to pay 50-90 cents an man-hour for the garbage to be picked up (that was the city "father's" agenda!) rather than a living/DECENT wage!
after they "went & got the car" & loaded me into it, we simply went to eat & then drove back to the motel outside of town to spend the night. IF there was ANY serious violence, i did NOT see any! i believe what you've "sourced" was "much ado about nothing" or at least about LITTLE! (as i said earlier, the FBI, the "city" & the MPD definitely DID, imVho, want trouble.)
the NAACP/SCLC/SSL wanted the march to go off "smoothly". frankly, i do NOT know if "strict NONviolence" was the goal of the union and/or the SNCC (SNCC "had the reputation" in those days of being violent!)
wish i had more to offer, but i don't.
free dixie,sw
that could be the reason. i just don't know.
free dixie,sw
This time King stood seething. "Ralph, give me my car keys," he said quietly. Abernathy surrendered them with a stricken, quizzical look as King said they could go on without him. "He did something I've never heard him do before," Levison confided afterward on his wiretapped phone. "He criticized three members of the staff with his eloquence. And believe me, that's murder. And was very negative." King said Young had given in to doubt, Bevel to brains, and Jackson to ambition. He said they had forgotten the simple truths of witness. He said the movement had made them, and now they were using the movement to promote themselves. He confronted Bevel, who had been a mentor to Jackson and Young, as a genius who flummoxed his own heart. "You don't like to work on anything that isn't your own idea," said King. "Bevel, I think you owe me one."Abernathy, Jackson and Young rushed after King. "Doc, doc, don't worry!" called Jackson in the stairwell. "Everything's going to be all right."
King whirled on a landing and pointed up to shout. "Jesse, everything's not going to be all right!" he cried. "If things keep going the way they're going now, it's not SCLC but the whole country that's in trouble. I'm not asking, 'Support me.' I don't need this. But if you're so interested in doing your own thing that you can't do what this organization's structured to do, if you want to carve out your own niche in society, go ahead. But for God's sake, don't bother me!" His fury echoed in the conference room.
i had known Dr King, his father & Coretta from the Mitchellville (Arkansas) Rural Redevelopment Project of 1965-1968.
i was one of the preacher's MANY admirers & (i like to think) his friend. i dug septic tank ditches with him (given the fact that he had an active pastorate, he didn't spend ALL his summers with us kids, but he & his wife spent as many days with us as they COULD. he was just as sweaty & his hands were just as blistered & SORE at the end of the week as anyone else's'! we must have used a 100 gallons of hand lotion that first year!)at the project & therefore knew him WELL, primarily as a Baptist PASTOR & "flesh & blood man", rather than as a celebrity. (is any 16-20YO KID, as most all of us alumni were THEN , really the friend of any grown man???)
MLK, Jr had his faults (for example, he liked the ladies & liquor far more than a serving pastor should. we Southern Baptists are NOT supposed to "mess around" on our spouses, dance and/or drink alcoholic beverages.) but then we ALL have a LEGION of faults. (i have more than most!)
fwiw, his wife was BETTER-liked/admired and YEP, loved. she was "our mender of broken hearts" at Mitchellville, as well as one of the "kitchen ladies" & the "girl's adviser" for the project. (college/HS kids have LOTS of broken hearts!) ALL of us "Mitchellville alumni" MOURNED her passing! there are FEW, if ANY, like her NOW!
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.