APRIL 4TH, 1968
When Martin Luther King was shot I felt the
When Martin Luther King was shot I felt the
sudden shift in the atmosphere, like trying to
breathe underwater. It was three years since
Malcom X’s assassination and my new radical
friends and reading had opened my eyes to the
realities of class in the USA. Malcolm verbally
attacked white folks with impunity, but the
minute he decided it was not about race but
about the poor and the wealthy, BAM! King
spent years fighting racism and despite attempts
on his life and tons of threats seemed invulner-
able, but as soon as he organized a poor people’s
campaign talking about the haves and have-nots,
BAM! I wondered if the Marxists had it right.
(C) 2018 Michael Lally
1 comment:
I agree with what you are saying. I've been a supporter of the civil rights movement since the mid to late 1950's. I remember the day that he was shot. I was in the Navy and my shop was in dry dock in Portsmouth, Va. I spent the day getting drunk in a bar and hadn't heard about his assassination. I was walking back to the ship yard when I heard a muffled gunshot. I kept walking and then a Shore Patrol vehicle stopped and told me to get in and that someone was shooting at sailors and two had been shot with a .22 rifle but weren't hurt badly. I asked why and they told me about Martin. What a miserable day that was.
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