PUSH to hold Chicago interfaith Dr. King commemorative service

Growing up in the segregated south, I remember the day he was murdered.

“We got to Mason Temple”.

“We still look like there is a shadow over us, still seems like something is holding us back”, Charles Wilson, a black man from MS, said during a recent visit to the site.

Kyles would be the witness of King’s last moments as he stepped out of motel room where he was staying – room 306.

And they pray it will bring peace and unity to Memphis and beyond.

Grandma didn’t have to explain much. “When we look at the world today we see white supremacy, racism, disparities and all those things still exist”.

Ford is etched into the pages of history via in a famous photo after the shooting.

Bob’s work assignment was to report on the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., which had occurred the day before on April 4, 1968. “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” was delivered in support of the striking sanitation workers who wanted to form a union for better working conditions and fair wages. Their slogan was: I am a man.

The piece, titled King’s Market: Now Closed, will include “sound, scent and ritual elements” according to a statement and is meant to suggest both the violence that has followed the fight for racial equality in the United States and the fleeting nature of human life. “Then he got to Dr. King and said “You did a good job and you had a dream'”. Fifty years later, his legacy continues and his words are just as powerful. The all-day event will be held at the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist.

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. The original Poor People’s Campaign was carried out in 1968 after King’s death by other civil rights leaders. On that night in Memphis, Dr. King said “And when we have our march, you need to be there”. You may not be on strike. “We just knew that he preached his heart out”.

The Rev. Clayton W. Hoag Sr., district superintendent of the Methodist Church, said “Martin Luther King stands among the immortals in American history, and in the continuing story of the worldwide struggle for freedom, he was a dedicated Christian”. Faith leaders were not the only ones to pay tribute to King after his assassination.

On the day after his death, Memphis, like many other cities across the nation, was in “lock-down” with the National Guard on duty, and a dusk-to-dawn curfew in effect. There can be no racial justice without economic justice. He has not been silent all these years about his relationship with King and how it was during his final years.

“I think it is quite fitting that we remember the death of Dr. King (who was killed by a gunman) by coming together”, said Rev. Jackson. But we need to take that, not as a discouragement, but as a challenge.