Interview Archive:King in the Wilderness/Documentary

From JSTOR Labs Wikibase
Revision as of 15:46, 16 February 2021 by WikibaseAdmin (talk | contribs) (Created page with "__NOTOC__ === 00:00:59 === ==== Speaker: XERNONA CLAYTON: ==== <evlplayer id="kitw000059" w="800" service="youtube"></evlplayer> {{#evl:|:|0|service=youtube|id=https://www.yo...")
(diff) ← Older revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
Jump to navigation Jump to search


00:00:59

Speaker: XERNONA CLAYTON:

:  I came over in the morning to pick Martin up to drive him to the airport to go to Memphis. The children saw him going to the airport all the time. But this day, the boys blocked the door and said “Daddy, don’t leave.” And he said, “Oh I’ll be right back. I’m just going down to Memphis! I’ll be back.”

Xernona Clayton Martin Luther King Jr. Memphis airport

00:01:28

Speaker: XERNONA CLAYTON:

:  Then they ran ahead of him and blocked the stairs, and said, “Daddy, don’t leave us.” And he said, “Listen, I’m coming right back. I’m just gonna go down there for a march. You know I explained why I’m going. These people have been mistreated in Memphis and I’m going to do something about it. That’s my work and you know that.”

Xernona Clayton Martin Luther King Jr. Memphis Sanitation Strike

00:01:55

Speaker: XERNONA CLAYTON:

:  They ran over to my car, and then they jumped on the hood of the car, pleading again through the window, “Daddy, please don’t go. Daddy, please don’t leave us. Daddy, please!”

Xernona Clayton Martin Luther King Jr. child

00:02:06

Speaker: XERNONA CLAYTON:

:  (music sound up) Such pleading.

00:02:13

Speaker: XERNONA CLAYTON:

:  We backed out of the driveway and got on the way. And he said, “What in the world happened to these kids? They must be trying to tell me that they’re missing me more. And when I come back, I’ve gotta change my habits. I can’t go through this.”

Xernona Clayton Martin Luther King Jr.

00:02:44

Speaker: HARRY BELAFONTE:

:  I watched the transformation take place from the man that I met in the first instance to the man he became in the end. With all of his experience, he really was not quite ready for the human heart to reveal as much villainy. What he saw was more hate than he saw resolve.

Harry Belafonte Martin Luther King Jr. hatred

00:03:10

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  We were trying to redeem the soul of America from the triple evils of racism, war, and poverty, and Martin had become far more exposed to enemies by taking on both civil rights and the war issue.

Andrew Young Martin Luther King Jr. enemy

00:03:28

Speaker: JOAN BAEZ:

:  I couldn’t imagine the pressure that was on him—nobody could. None of us could imagine that. It was just too overwhelming.

Joan Baez Martin Luther King Jr. stressor

00:03:41

Speaker: CLARENCE JONES:

:  The most difficult time of his life was the 18 months before his assassination. Very difficult time.

Clarence Benjamin Jones Martin Luther King Jr. stressor

00:03:53

Speaker: RALPH ABERNATHY:

: 

The Moses of nineteen hundred and sixty-eight, Martin Luther King. (cheers and applause)

Ralph Abernathy Martin Luther King Jr.

00:04:02

Speaker: BERNARD LAFAYETTE:

:  He was disappointed, and he wondered whether or not he could do any more than he’d done.

Bernard Lafayette Martin Luther King Jr. disappointment

00:04:11

Speaker: XERNONA CLAYTON:

:  It had bothered him deeply that the nation had turned against him and I always tell people he died of a broken heart.

Xernona Clayton Martin Luther King Jr. emotion

00:04:23

Speaker: C. T. VIVIAN:

:  I think he worried about dying before he had accomplished enough. It’s as though he knew that he was not going to be here for the rest of the struggle.

C. T. Vivian Martin Luther King Jr. Civil Rights Movement

00:04:36

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

We’ve got some difficult days ahead.

Martin Luther King Jr.

00:04:39

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  The movement ceased to be political for him—it was spiritual.

Andrew Young Martin Luther King Jr. Civil Rights Movement spirituality

00:04:43

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

But it really doesn’t matter with me now.

Martin Luther King Jr.

00:04:45

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  He said, ‘We have wondered in the wilderness of separate but equal, and we’re about to move into the promised land of creative integration, and I don’t know whether I’ll get there, but my people will get to the promised land.

Andrew Young Martin Luther King Jr. I've Been to the Mountaintop

00:05:01

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

: 

(Overlapping with Martin Luther King’s “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech) ...Get to the promise land! (few seconds of applause)

00:05:02

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!’

00:05:14

Speaker: CLARENCE JONES:

:  I’m 86, and you know, there’s an African proverb that says, “If the surviving lions don’t tell their stories, the hunters will get all the credit.”

Clarence Benjamin Jones African proverbs

00:05:26

Speaker: XERNONA CLAYTON:

:  I tell the story of Martin Luther King and Coretta King as I knew it. I lived it. I value all of what they gave me now that I can remember.

Xernona Clayton Martin Luther King Jr. Coretta Scott King

00:05:42

Speaker: XERNONA CLAYTON:

:  I’m not just telling stories. I’m not making a speech. I’m telling you what happened.

Xernona Clayton

00:06:10

Speaker: FILM CREW:

: 

Speed. Civil Rights, King, Vanocur, roll 20, sound 36.

00:06:20

Speaker: SANDER VANOCUR:

: 

Dr. King, this church is as good a place as any to go back over your commitment to the Civil Rights Movement.

Sander Vanocur Civil Rights Movement Ebenezer Baptist Church

00:06:30

Speaker: SANDER VANOCUR:

: 

When you went to Montgomery, Alabama and started the Bus Boycotts there, what was the philosophy of the Civil Rights movement as you saw it then, more than ten years ago?

Montgomery Montgomery Bus Boycott

00:06:42

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

Well, I would say, then, the philosophy was that we must go all out to use legal and nonviolent methods to gain full citizenship rights for the negro people of our country. And that particular struggle centered on breaking down all of the barriers of legal segregation.

Martin Luther King Jr. nonviolence Racial segregation in the United States

00:07:06

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

That period was a great period of hope for me, and I’m sure for many others… Many of the negroes who had about lost hope saw a solid decade of progress in the South.

Martin Luther King Jr. hope Southern United States

00:07:20

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

And I think we are in a new era, a new phase of the struggle, where we have moved from a struggle for decency, which characterized our struggle for ten or twelve years, to a struggle for genuine equality, because there are three evils in our nation; it’s not only racism, but economic exploitation of poverty would be one, and then militarism.

Martin Luther King Jr. Civil Rights Movement racism poverty militarism

00:07:43

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

And I think, in a sense, and in a very real sense, these three are tied inextricably together, and we aren’t gonna get rid of one without getting rid of the other.

Martin Luther King Jr.

00:07:52

Speaker: SANDER VANOCUR:

: 

When you stood in that August day in 1963 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, (Clapping from overlaid clip) and you said, “I had a dream,” did that dream envision a war in Asia, and in the ghettos of the North?

Lincoln Memorial I Have a Dream

00:08:10

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

No, I didn’t envision that then. In 1963, to be in the March on Washington, it meant a great deal; it was a high moment, a great watershed moment.

March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

00:08:22

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

But I must confess that that dream that I had that day has in many points turned into a nightmare.

nightmare

00:08:44

Speaker: CLEVELAND SELLERS:

:  We were all caught off guard when we saw the rebellions begin. They started in Harlem and then Philadelphia in 1964, and then Watts in 1965, which was the most massive.

Cleveland Sellers The sixties riot Harlem Philadelphia Watts riots

00:09:03

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  Martin called me early in the morning saying that, “There’s a riot in Watts. We’ve gotta go to Los Angeles.”

Andrew Young Martin Luther King Jr. Watts riots

00:09:23

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

Thank you very much my dear friends of Los Angeles and the Watts area of this city—

00:09:32

Speaker: WOMAN IN CROWD:

: 

—Quiet!

00:09:34

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

Now I live approximately 2,500 miles from here. I’m not free there and our brothers and sisters are not free there, and you are not free in California and in the North (loud cheers).

00:09:54

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

I’ve said all over America, and I come out to Watts to tell ya today, no matter what color you are, you are somebody! (cheers in agreement) And all over the United States of America, the negro must join hands—

00:10:18

Speaker: MAN IN CROWD:

: 

And burn!

00:10:19

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

—and we must work.

00:10:21

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

(crowd laughs)

00:10:28

Speaker: JOHN LEWIS:

:  Dr. King once said that, “The riot became the language of the unheard.”

John Lewis riot

00:10:36

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

You all know my philosophy; you all know that I believe firmly in nonviolence. Or maybe some of you don’t quite agree with this. I want you to–

nonviolence

00:10:43

Speaker: JOHN LEWIS:

:  Nonviolent is more than a tactic. It is one of those immutable principles that you cannot deviate from if you’re going to be able to redeem the soul of America.

John Lewis nonviolence

00:10:55

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  The issues in Watts, and in the North, were far more complex than black and white, as they had been in the South. Q959635 Q1687279 [the north] Q49042 He was dealing with racism, but he was dealing with racism that was complicated by unemployment and unprepared migrants moving from the South to the North. And I realized we were in a different movement.

Andrew Young racism unemployment Great Migration

00:11:19

Speaker: CLEVELAND SELLERS:

:  What we saw it as… a lot of people who were suffering from the same kind of poverty, the same kind of absence of employment opportunities, and police brutality were in the urban areas, and they responded with whatever weapons they could find.

Cleveland Sellers poverty police brutality

00:11:39

Speaker: JOSEPH CALIFANO:

:  The president during the riots was just depressed. About a week before, Johnson had signed the Voting Rights Act— tells me, “this is the most important piece of legislation I’ll pass. Even more important than the ’64 Civil Rights Act.”

Joseph A. Califano, Jr. Lyndon B. Johnson Wallace Ford Voting Rights Act of 1965 civil and political rights

00:11:57

Speaker: JOSEPH CALIFANO:

:  He’s virtually carried out of the room on shoulders, and then, we start the massive rioting in Watts. So he tells me, “Call Dr. King.”

Joseph A. Califano, Jr. Lyndon B. Johnson Watts riots

00:12:08

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. (Phone call):

: 

Hello?

Martin Luther King Jr.

00:12:09

Speaker: LYNDON B. JOHNSON:

: 

Yes, Dr. King.

Lyndon B. Johnson

00:12:10

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

Yes, we‘re expecting a difficult situation here.

Martin Luther King Jr. Watts riots

00:12:14

Speaker: LYNDON B. JOHNSON:

: 

How do you see it?

Lyndon B. Johnson

00:12:16

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

Well, I’ll tell ya, Mr. President, I have met with people in the Watts area. I’m fearful that if something isn’t done to give a new sense of hope to the people in that area, that a full-scale race war can develop here.

Watts race Race war

00:12:33

Speaker: LYNDON B. JOHNSON:

: 

I’ve spent the biggest part of my life for the last four years on civil rights bills, but all of it comes to naught if you have a situation like war in the world or a situation in Los Angeles.

civil and political rights legislation war riot

00:12:45

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

Yes.

00:12:46

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  All of this was happening about the same time that the war in Vietnam heated up, and the President was in the midst of a very heavy burden both with the war and domestically.

Andrew Young Vietnam War Lyndon B. Johnson

00:13:00

Speaker: LYNDON JOHNSON (Phone call):

: 

I want peace as much as you do, and more so, ‘cause I’m the fellow that had to wake up with morning with 50 Marines killed.

Vietnam War peace United States Marine Corps

00:13:07

Speaker: LYNDON JOHNSON (Phone call):

: 

But these folks, they all got the impression, too, that you’re against me in Vietnam.

Vietnam War anti-war movement

00:13:11

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

And I have said this, Mr. President. I am concerned about peace.

Vietnam War peace

00:13:16

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  Dr. King made the decision in ’65 that he had to be against the war.

Andrew Young 1965 Martin Luther King Jr.

00:13:23

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  We went to meet with Ambassador Goldberg at the United Nations. And Goldberg pretty much agreed with us that the war in Vietnam was not in anybody’s interest. But the press said that he had no business having an opinion about foreign affairs. He was a civil rights leader, see. And it hurt him.

Andrew Young Arthur Goldberg anti-war movement Martin Luther King Jr. Vietnam War

00:13:47

Speaker: C. T. VIVIAN:

:  He said to me, he said “Vivian, you don’t think I know what I’m talking about do you?” But he knew how he felt about the war.

C. T. Vivian Martin Luther King Jr. Vietnam War

00:13:58

Speaker: C. T. VIVIAN:

:  Also, I think Martin knew that he had to be a part of the North sooner or later.

C. T. Vivian

00:14:05

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

One must understand that the civil rights legislation that we have had over the last few years, even the voting bill—rights bill—which came the other day didn’t do too much to improve the lot of the thousands and millions of negroes in teeming ghettoes of the north.

Voting Rights Act of 1965 ghetto

00:14:26

Speaker: DIANE NASH:

:  I opposed SCLC moving North because we weren’t finished in the South. We needed to continue political education.

Diane Nash Southern Christian Leadership Conference

00:14:43

Speaker: DIANE NASH:

:  And we needed to work on building an economic base.

Diane Nash economics

00:14:49

Speaker: DOROTHY COTTON:

:  Martin could sit there for an hour, listen to us argue about, “no—let’s go here. Let’s go there. Let’s teach this, let’s d—whatever.”

Dorothy Cotton Martin Luther King Jr. Listening

00:14:58

Speaker: DOROTHY COTTON:

:  But he would teach a lot by asking questions. Then a sudden quiet would come over the room because he wanted to make people think about what they wanted. Martin could be very quiet and have all the power in the room.

Dorothy Cotton leadership

00:15:18

Speaker: HARRY BELAFONTE:

:  Martin had decided that we had to prove that nonviolence was relevant in the North. That we had to find a way to get into these northern cities before the riots occurred. And so, we went North, to Chicago. I do not know that everything that Martin said or did he was quite prepared for. He had felt that in many ways, dealing with the South was a more predictable outcome, because in the North, the racial hypocrisy was very subverted.

Harry Belafonte Martin Luther King Jr. Southern United States hypocrisy

00:16:12

Speaker: HARRY BELAFONTE:

:  It gave the appearance of being not like the South; the South was the center of all evil, and that the North was a place of the higher experience. And Dr. King said, “No, that’s not the case.”

Harry Belafonte Southern United States

00:16:31

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

: 

We moved into an apartment on 16th and Hamlin. It was a walk-up apartment, with no lights, no heat, and… it took quite an adjustment. I never got scared in the South. (Cops cheering)

Andrew Young Chicago

00:16:53

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

: 

I knew the dangers, and I was prepared to get killed in the South, but I wasn’t ready to, you know, to have a junkie stick a knife in me in the middle of the night, coming into that apartment for maybe fifteen or twenty dollars that I had in my pocket.

Andrew Young danger

00:17:15

Speaker: MARY LOU FINLEY:

:  That first night was a very cold night, and I got really worried that there weren’t gonna be enough blankets, so we went and got the blankets, and went over to see Dr. King in his apartment. And, as we were sitting there, the doorbell rang, and there was a young man there. The first thing he said when he came in the door was, “Are you really Martin Luther King?”

Chicago cold

00:17:37

Speaker: MARY LOU FINLEY:

:  They had a very lovely conversation with Dr. King really saying, “We want you to join the movement.” Pretty soon later, there was another knock on the door, and there was like a whole train of them going down the stairs. And those young men came back a number of times to see Dr. King.

Martin Luther King Jr. neighbor Civil Rights Movement

00:18:00

Speaker: BERNARD LAFAYETTE:

:  People in the community, they would just hang around waiting for him to come downstairs, you know, so they could see him. But he would invite them in, sit down and talk to people. They didn’t think he was the kind of person he could talk to and it made them feel, well honestly, that they were worthwhile as well.

Bernard Lafayette Martin Luther King Jr. Cicero neighbor conversation

00:18:25

Speaker: C. T. VIVIAN:

:  Martin understood that if you ran with folk, you could organize folk. Remember, we’ve spent all of our lives being hated in one form or the other. But when we see somebody who really cares for people—people, period—right, that person is worth knowing.

C. T. Vivian Martin Luther King Jr. community organizing

00:18:58

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  The first week we moved in, temperature dropped to about sixteen degrees below zero. And people came to us to complain that they had no heat. And, to find babies wrapped in newspaper, we had to start—fire the furnaces. So we got all the money we could and we got enough coal and to get all of the furnaces to work.

Andrew Young Chicago cold heating furnace

00:19:27

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  We called the movement in Chicago the movement to end slums. And It plunged us into several issues. One was the area of poor housing. The other was the area of quality education, and also unemployment.

Andrew Young Chicago Freedom Movement

00:19:46

Speaker: REVEREND MITCHELL:

: 

I feel like we know more about our problem than Dr. King because we live here.

00:19:50

Speaker: PRESS:

: 

What would you suggest that he do, Reverend Mitchell?

00:19:52

Speaker: REVEREND MITCHELL:

: 

I would suggest when it comes down to our city, he should get the hell out of here.

00:19:59

Speaker: JESSE JACKSON:

:  So first we ran into stiff black resistance. We had never met that in Montgomery or Birmingham or Selma before, that was different.

Jesse Jackson resistance movement

00:20:09

Speaker: BERNARD LAFAYETTE:

:  A lot of the ministers were part of the patronage system. Mayor Daley’s patronage system was one where people’s jobs were handed out based on the number of votes that they could produce. They called it the Daley Machine.

Bernard Lafayette Richard J. Daley Political machine

00:20:25

Speaker: DIANE NASH:

:  Martin had anxiety, because, as he put it, “We don’t want to flunk. (laughs) We don’t want to fail in our projects.”

Diane Nash Martin Luther King Jr. anxiety

00:20:38

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  We met regularly with Mayor Daley, and we disagreed, because we were challenging the way Chicago was structured.

Andrew Young Richard J. Daley Chicago

00:20:48

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG (Archival):

: 

I think we’re beginning to crystalize some of the problems and understand what we might do to begin to make some changes.

Andrew Young

00:20:56

Speaker: REPORTER:

: 

Does it mean demonstrations, too, possibly?

00:20:58

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG (Archival):

: 

Yes, it would mean demonstrations, but I think just when it would mean demonstrations, we wouldn’t be able to say.

Andrew Young demonstration

00:21:10

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG (Archival):

:  At the same time, we were still being pulled back to the South, and James Meredith decided to have a march in Mississippi.

Andrew Young James Meredith March Against Fear

00:21:22

Speaker: NEWSCASTER:

: 

When James Meredith, a negro who desegregated the University of Mississippi, started the march only three friends walked with him.

March Against Fear

00:21:29

Speaker: JAMES MEREDITH:

: 

The surest way to power is through the vote. And it is for this reason that I have decided to use all of my spare time trying to encourage negroes to register and vote, and that is the purpose of this march today.

James Meredith voter registration

00:21:46

Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN:

:  Mississippi wanted black folk to leave. They didn’t want them to be there to vote. They were trying to starve them out. They were pushing people off the land and wanted them to go North. And the violence continued.

Marian Wright Edelman Mississippi Voting rights in the United States violence

00:21:59

Speaker: CLEVELAND SELLERS:

:  James Meredith’s march was a march against fear. We had seen people in Mississippi getting killed for trying to register to vote because they didn’t want them to have power. So he was trying to empower African Americans to not be fearful of all the threats.

Cleveland Sellers James Meredith March Against Fear

00:22:17

Speaker: NEWSCASTER 2:

: 

“If I can walk through Mississippi without harm,” Meredith told reporters, “Other negroes will see that they can too.”

00:22:23

Speaker: CLEVELAND SELLERS:

:  At that time, me and Stokely Carmichael were officers of SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. And someone came along and told us that James Meredith had been shot.

Cleveland Sellers Stokely Carmichael Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

00:22:36

Speaker: JAMES MEREDITH:

: 

I’m hit in the leg, and in the head. Ain’t nobody (tires screeching) gonna get me in a car.

00:22:41

Speaker: MAN:

: 

Here it comes right now Jimmy.

00:22:43

Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN:

:  The Meredith March wasn’t on anybody’s agenda. He didn’t consult with anybody. But with the shooting of Meredith, Dr. King and civil rights leaders rallied around that.

Marian Wright Edelman March Against Fear Martin Luther King Jr.

00:22:53

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

This march that we are continuing, started by James Meredith, I am convinced will have as great an impact, or probably a greater impact than the march from Selma to Montgomery.

Selma to Montgomery marches

00:23:08

Speaker: STOKELY CARMICHAEL:

: 

If a man can still be shot down on the highways in Mississippi peacefully walking, that march needs to be big.

Stokely Carmichael

00:23:14

Speaker: REPORTER:

: 

Thank you very much, gentlemen.

00:23:17

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  Martin felt we could not ignore what was happening in Mississippi. So, we had to divide what we were doing in, in Chicago, and so we had a Mississippi March and a Chicago Movement.

Andrew Young Martin Luther King Jr. March Against Fear Chicago Freedom Movement

00:23:36

Speaker: WHITE BOYS:

: 

(Playing “Dixie” on Clarinet) Where’s Meredith? Go home! (Inaudible) fucking tootsie roll! (screaming and yelling) Nigger go home! Where’s Meredith?

Dixie

00:23:51

Speaker: REPORTER:

: 

From the moment that the civil rights leaders rushed in to continue James Meredith’s march, there has been a struggle to see whose philosophy would guide the steps. The philosophical struggle deepened as the march column moved deeper into Mississippi.

00:24:04

Speaker: REPORTER:

: 

The voice of Stokely Carmichael, young leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, spoke louder and louder. At Greenwood, he sounded the marches new rallying call.

00:24:13

Speaker: STOKELY CARMICHAEL:

: 

…faggot—It’s time we stand up and take over (crowd cheers). We want Black Power.

Stokely Carmichael Black Power

00:24:16

Speaker: CROWD:

: 

Black Power!

00:24:17

Speaker: STOKELY CARMICHAEL:

: 

We want Black Power.

00:24:19

Speaker: CROWD:

: 

Black Power!

00:24:19

Speaker: STOKELY CARMICHAEL:

: 

We want Black Power.

00:24:21

Speaker: CROWD:

: 

Black Power!

00:24:21

Speaker: STOKELY CARMICHAEL:

: 

We want Black Power.

00:24:23

Speaker: CROWD:

: 

Black Power!

00:24:23

Speaker: CLEVELAND SELLERS:

:  In SNCC, we saw a changing movement tactically.

Cleveland Sellers Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

00:24:28

Speaker: STOKELY CARMICHAEL:

: 

We want Black Power! (crowd cheers)

00:24:29

Speaker: CLEVELAND SELLERS:

:  Our focus was on empowering communities.

Cleveland Sellers community

00:24:33

Speaker: STOKELY CARMICHAEL:

: 

We don’t have to be ashamed of it.

00:24:34

Speaker: CLEVELAND SELLERS:

: 

Not only politically, but in terms of culture and identity.

Cleveland Sellers empowerment

00:24:38

Speaker: STOKELY CARMICHAEL:

: 

What do you want? (crowd: “Black Power!”) That’s what we gonna get.

00:24:41

Speaker: BERNARD LAFAYETTE:

:  What they were basically saying is that black people needed to appreciate black and it wasn’t a color, it was a culture. Now, when I was growing up, to call a person of color black was considered derogatory. Those were fighting words. But, there was a term that was used as well during that period: “white power.”

Bernard Lafayette Black Power movement

00:25:08

Speaker: CLARENCE JONES:

:  Stokely Carmichael gets control of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and he purges the organization of all white people.

Clarence Benjamin Jones

00:25:15

Speaker: CLARENCE JONES:

:  He said, “You go back and work in your community. We want to have total control. It rippled throughout the movement.

Clarence Benjamin Jones Stokely Carmichael Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

00:25:25

Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN:

:  I will never forget Dr. King’s face when Black Power first began to emerge. He looked like the most stricken man.

Marian Wright Edelman Martin Luther King Jr. Black Power movement

00:25:33

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

We must never forget that there are some white people in the United States just as determined to see us free as we are to be free ourselves.

00:25:44

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  We were taught that there were good people and bad people and we never viewed this as black against white.

Andrew Young African Americans White people

00:25:51

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  We’re taught that racism was a sickness and you don’t get mad with sick people. They just don’t know any better. They’d been taught that they are better than you.

Andrew Young racism

00:26:02

Speaker: FRANK MCGEE:

: 

What do you mean when you shout “Black Power” to these people back here?

Frank McGee

00:26:06

Speaker: STOKELY CARMICHAEL:

: 

I mean that they are oppressed because they are black, and their rallying cry must be “Black Power” so that they can use that to ensure justice for themselves–

oppression

00:26:16

Speaker: CLARENCE JONES:

:  Martin was very uncomfortable, but he knows that he has to be there to support the courage of Stokely Carmichael without supporting the message, or the form of the message.

Clarence Benjamin Jones Martin Luther King Jr. Stokely Carmichael

00:26:30

Speaker: CLARENCE JONES:

:  Dr. King was not opposed to power, but to elevate so-called Black Power over white power would break that which he was seeking to build—the coalition among white and black people.

Clarence Benjamin Jones coalition

00:26:44

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

I feel that while believing firmly that power is necessary, that it would be difficult for me to use the phrase “Black Power” because of the connotative meaning that it has for many people, and the feeling that this may represent our desire to rise from a position of disadvantage to one of advantage, thereby subverting justice. On the other hand—

power justice

00:27:13

Speaker: CLEVELAND SELLERS:

:  Some of the people on the march were intimidated by the whole effort of Black Power.

Cleveland Sellers March Against Fear Black Power movement

00:27:18

Speaker: STOKELY CARMICHAEL:

: 

They must ask themselves why they are afraid of the word “black” and why they are afraid of the phrase “black power.”

Black Power

00:27:24

Speaker: CLEVELAND SELLERS:

:  As long as we were talking about non-violence and all that kind of thing, everybody felt comfortable.

Cleveland Sellers nonviolence

00:27:29

Speaker: REPORTER:

: 

Do you think they’re really afraid of it or just feel that it’s not a good…

00:27:32

Speaker: CLEVELAND SELLERS:

:  Anytime when we talk about black people having power the assumption is that black people want to be violent against white people.

Cleveland Sellers African Americans power

00:27:40

Speaker: REPORTER:

: 

Mr. Carmichael, are you as committed to the nonviolent approach as Dr. King is?

Stokely Carmichael nonviolence

00:27:44

Speaker: STOKELY CARMICHAEL:

: 

No, I’m not.

00:27:45

Speaker: REPORTER:

: 

Why aren’t you?

00:27:45

Speaker: STOKELY CARMICHAEL:

: 

Well, I just don’t see it as a way of life. I never have. I grew up in the slums of New York and I learned there that the only way that one survived was to use his fists. I realized the reality –

slum New York City

00:27:55

Speaker: BERNARD LAFAYETTE:

:  When Stokely became chairman of SNCC, he had a different approach.

Bernard Lafayette Stokely Carmichael Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

00:28:01

Speaker: STOKELY CARMICHAEL:

: 

For me, it’s always been a tactic and never a way of life.

principle

00:28:01

Speaker: BERNARD LAFAYETTE:

:  He believed in self-defense.

Bernard Lafayette philosophical viewpoint

00:28:05

Speaker: REPORTER:

: 

Could you comment on that Dr. King?

00:28:07

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

The negro has an opportunity to inject morality in the veins of our civilization and for this reason I will continue to preach non-violence, I will to continue to –

morality nonviolence

00:28:20

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  Martin was an amazingly tolerant, understanding father-figure for all of us. He understood Stokely’s frustrations, and he never took it personally.

Andrew Young Martin Luther King Jr. leadership

00:28:33

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  I think Dr. King never forgot that we were all on the same side. He didn’t have any enemies.

Andrew Young Martin Luther King Jr.

00:28:41

Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN:

:  What I remember was the listening, the patience. He was always there to say, “I don’t go there, but I want to really understand why you go there.” But that was the first real breach in the nonviolence commitment that many of us had grown to accept.

Marian Wright Edelman Martin Luther King Jr. Listening patience

00:29:00

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

I’m sick and tired of violence. I’m tired of shooting, I’m tired of hate, I’m tired of selfishness, I’m tired of evil! I’m not gonna use violence no matter who says it. (crowd cheers)

violence

00:29:14

Speaker: HARRY BELAFONTE:

:  I had not, before meeting Dr. King, ever taken the option of violence off the table. We are a minority living in the belly of the beast.

Harry Belafonte violence

00:29:30

Speaker: HARRY BELAFONTE:

:  When Dr. King stepped in, he methodically would look at violence and challenge those who would seek the gun as the solution, because morally, you cannot defeat the enemy by becoming the enemy.

Harry Belafonte projectile weapon

00:29:47

Speaker: HARRY BELAFONTE:

:  But Stokely really believed that in the long run, the gun was gonna have to be the answer.

Harry Belafonte Stokely Carmichael

00:29:54

Speaker: STOKELY CARMICHAEL:

: 

We begged the president, we begged the federal government, that’s all we’ve been doing…

00:29:58

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  I accused Stokely of being just an angry, frustrated young man.

Andrew Young Stokely Carmichael

00:30:04

Speaker: STOKELY CARMICHAEL:

: 

It’s time we stand up and take over. (crowd cheers) Every courthouse in Mississippi oughta be burned down tomorrow to get rid of the…

00:30:10

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  Anger eats away at your own soul, and it hurts you. Everybody has a right to be angry. Everybody has a right to be frustrated. But, if you give in to your anger and your frustrations, you’re gonna lose.

Andrew Young anger

00:30:35

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

This day, we must commit ourselves to make any sacrifice necessary to change Chicago, this day.

00:30:47

Speaker: MARY LOU FINLEY:

:  That summer of ’66 did feel like a very turbulent time.

1966 Chicago Freedom Movement

00:30:50

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

We must avoid the error of building a distrust for all white people.

00:30:55

Speaker: MARY LOU FINLEY:

:  There was some question about whether it was appropriate for white people to stay working with the movement. And I remember one of my black friends saying to me, “We need to know we can do this ourselves.” And in the middle of all that, was the rising of the Vietnam War.

Civil Rights Movement Vietnam War

00:31:15

Speaker: MARY LOU FINLEY:

:  Many of the staff who were very strongly opposed to the war were trying to get Dr. King to speak out against it.

00:31:24

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  Martin was now being pulled back in to the war issue by the student left and so you had almost three things coming together in Chicago, pulling the same leadership in different directions.

Andrew Young Vietnam War Chicago

00:31:39

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

This day, we must decide that our votes will determine who will be the Mayor of Chicago next year.

00:31:51

Speaker: MARY LOU FINLEY:

:  Mayor Daley was very upset about what was going on here and he was in touch with Lyndon Johnson and said, “Get this Martin Luther King off my back.”

Richard J. Daley Lyndon B. Johnson

00:32:00

Speaker: LYNDON B. JOHNSON (Phone call):

: 

How are you, my friend?

00:32:01

Speaker: RICHARD DALEY:

: 

Oh, good. How are you, Mr. President?

00:32:02

Speaker: LYNDON B. JOHNSON:

: 

What shape have you got King in? Is he about ready to get out?

00:32:06

Speaker: RICHARD DALEY:

: 

Well, I don’t think so. I think we've gone a long way with the Good Doctor, Mr. President. He’s not your friend, he’s against you on Vietnam. He’s a goddamn faker.

00:32:19

Speaker: LYNDON B. JOHNSON:

: 

Do you think that you got things in pretty good shape in Chicago?

00:32:22

Speaker: RICHARD: DALEY:

: 

Well, as good as they can be…(fades out)

00:32:25

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  The area that the movement insisted on getting into was open housing.

Andrew Young Chicago Freedom Movement housing

00:32:29

Speaker: REPORTER:

: 

What, what is the make-up of the community here, what would be the reaction of the community to a Negro family moving in?

00:32:35

Speaker: REAL ESTATE AGENT:

: 

Oh, I don’t think they’d like it. They’re very clannish in a way.

00:32:40

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  Chicago is probably the most segregated city I know. It’s not only segregated black and white, but the Irish, the Italians, the Polish, the Jewish community. Almost everybody lives in its own enclave in Chicago.

Andrew Young Chicago Racial segregation in the United States

00:32:58

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  And so we started marching into those ethnic neighborhoods, and we were challenging Chicago simply by marching.

Andrew Young Racial segregation in the United States neighborhood protest march

00:33:08

Speaker: WOMAN:

: 

I’ve moved out of a neighborhood that was colored. Everybody that lives with a colored has to move.

00:33:12

Speaker: REPORTER:

: 

Why?

00:33:12

Speaker: WOMAN:

: 

Because you’re not safe walkin’ the streets at night. You cannot leave the house.

00:33:16

Speaker: MAN:

: 

Negroes have a right to move in under the constitution. The only thing is, what kind of a negro?

00:33:26

Speaker: BERNARD LAFAYETTE:

:  Our marches were to the real estate offices, because the real estate agents controlled the movement of people. They’re the ones who were managing this discrimination.

Bernard Lafayette real estate broker housing discrimination

00:33:40

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

Every time Negroes went in, the real estate agents said, “Oh, I’m sorry, we don’t have anything listed.”

00:33:48

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

And then we sent some of our fine white staff members in to those same real estate offices and the minute the white persons got in they open up the book, “Oh yes, well we have several things.

00:33:58

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

Now what exactly do you want?” (applause) Something is gonna happen as a result of this, and I’m not losing faith. I still have faith in the future.

00:34:17

Speaker: PROTESTORS:

: 

Communist! Communist! Communist! Communist!

00:34:21

Speaker: POLICE OFFICERS:

: 

Move it back! Move it back!

00:34:27

Speaker: WHITE MEN:

: 

(chanting) We want King! We want King! We want King! We want King!

00:34:24

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  I remember marching through Gage Park, and the difference in the South… you had maybe a couple hundred, at most, of the riff raff of the Klan. (sound of small blast) But, in Chicago it was ten thousand. I mean everybody came out.

Andrew Young Ku Klux Klan

00:34:54

Speaker: OFFICER:

: 

(to white man) Get out of here!

00:34:56

Speaker: WHITE MAN:

: 

I live in here!

00:34:57

Speaker: OFFICER:

: 

Get out of here!

00:34:57

Speaker: WHITE MAN:

: 

I live here! Those fucking niggers don’t live here!

00:35:04

Speaker: BERNARD LAFAYETTE:

:  I remember coming on those marches, prepared for anything.

Bernard Lafayette protest march

00:35:13

Speaker: MAN:

: 

Dr. King, did you get hit?

00:35:14

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

(Crowd cheering) Well, I said, “Did you know that I’ve been hit so many times, I’m immune to it.”

00:35:18

Speaker: BERNARD LAFAYETTE:

:  But it was well beyond what we anticipated.

Bernard Lafayette protest march violence

00:35:22

Speaker: BERNARD LAFAYETTE:

: 

(White counter-protestors yelling)

00:35:29

Speaker: INTERVIEWER:

: 

Dr. King, the superintendent of police of Chicago said that your civil rights tactics have aroused hatred among Chicago white residents and are hampering the negroes’ progress.

00:35:40

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

There is no doubt about the fact that there are many latent hostilities existing within certain white groups in the North. And these latent hostilities have come out in the open and I don’t think you can blame the civil rights movement for that.

00:35:57

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

Certainly no one would blame a physician for using his instruments and his know-how to reveal to a patient that he has cancer. Now we have only revealed in Chicago that there is a blatant social hate-filled cancer. And what we’re trying to get rid of is hate.

00:36:22

Speaker: JESSE JACKSON:

:  Nonviolence had the power to pull the worst fever out of them and show our moral strength. They had the stick, we had the bible.

Jesse Jackson nonviolence

00:36:33

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  I remember this one young lady came up to Dr. King just spitting in his face, calling him all kinds of names. And he said, “You know, you’re much too beautiful to be so mean.”

Andrew Young nonviolence Martin Luther King Jr. Spitting

00:36:45

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

: 

(Police talk to angry crowd)

00:36:48

Speaker: POLICE OFFICER:

: 

Why don’t you go home and act like adult people?

00:36:50

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  And, when we came back through there, she came out of the crowd again and went up to him and shook his hand and apologized and said, “I’m sorry. (chuckles) I never should have been so rude.”

Andrew Young Martin Luther King Jr.

00:37:05

Speaker: BERNARD LAFAYETTE:

:  The nonviolent approach is radical. Radical enough to believe that under the worst conditions, there’s hope.

Bernard Lafayette nonviolence hope

00:37:18

Speaker: BERNARD LAFAYETTE:

:  It’s radical enough to believe that people who display some of the most insensitive kind of attitudes can be changed. Its ultimate goal is to win your opponents over.

Bernard Lafayette

00:37:35

Speaker: BERNARD LAFAYETTE:

:  So, you had to psychologically disarm them. You confront your opponent, and you look at your opponent in the eyes so that they will not see you as a target, but as a human being. So, you are forcing your humanity on them.

Bernard Lafayette nonviolence strategy human

00:37:54

Speaker: MARY LOU FINLEY:

:  Mayor Daley was very distressed and he really wanted it to end. So, one of the religious groups in Chicago decided to call a meeting to try to come to some agreement that would stop the marches.

Richard J. Daley religious denomination protest

00:38:07

Speaker: MAN:

: 

Through the democratic process of discussion around the conference table, an agreement has been reached unanimously, and I think all of Chicago will be indebted to them. Thank you very much. (applause)

00:38:28

Speaker: MAN:

: 

Would you hold it one second please. Just hold your questions.

00:38:35

Speaker: REPORTER:

: 

Dr. King.

00:38:36

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

One of the most significant programs ever conceived to make open housing a reality in a metropolitan area was agreed upon here today at the table of reconciliation.

00:38:50

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

Therefore, the Chicago Freedom Movement hereby agrees to halt neighborhood marches and demonstrations in Chicago on the issue of open housing, so long as these pledged programs are being carried out.

00:39:07

Speaker: REPORTER 2:

: 

Dr. King, you say you’re satisfied, but are you? You don’t sound too happy about what’s happened in there. Are you?

00:39:15

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

Well, I don’t know what you mean. What do you mean?

00:39:17

Speaker: REPORTER 2:

: 

You don’t seem like you really are happy.

00:39:20

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

Well, I’m a very honest man, and ah, I wouldn’t say on this paper something that I don’t believe. I think that this is a very significant step forward.

00:39:30

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

I’m not happy about the total problem that we face in the United States of America. I always have to look at the ultimate, and in terms of the ultimate, we are still a long, long way from our goals.

00:39:47

Speaker: MARY LOU FINLEY:

:  The staff was really disappointed. We did not get a definitive statement from them that discrimination in housing will end in Chicago. But one of the things that Andrew Young said was: “Sometimes you only win half a loaf and then you have to keep pushing for the rest of it.” The extent that there were successes that came later, Dr. King didn’t get to see that.

Cicero housing discrimination Andrew Young

00:40:20

Speaker: HARRY BELAFONTE:

:  Up to the moment of his death, I think that Dr. King referred to the experiences in Chicago more regularly than any other experience. I think Chicago was a huge awakening for him. He saw that the movement now was reflective more of the truth of what America was about than just what we’d experienced in the south.

Harry Belafonte Martin Luther King Jr. Chicago Civil Rights Movement United States of America

00:40:47

Speaker: CLARENCE JONES:

:  And Martin said to me, “Clarence, I’ve seen some hate filled eyes and mouths in Mississippi and Alabama.”

Clarence Benjamin Jones Martin Luther King Jr. Mississippi Alabama

00:40:58

Speaker: CLARENCE JONES:

:  He said, “But the hate I saw in Illinois was equal or greater than any of the hate I’ve seen in Mississippi.” He was really shaken.

Clarence Benjamin Jones Martin Luther King Jr. hatred Mississippi Alabama Illinois

00:41:12

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  When we left Chicago, I remember his…battles with conscience. He was very depressed that he hadn’t been more forceful in his non-violence.

Andrew Young Chicago Martin Luther King Jr.

00:41:27

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

I will continue to work against violence and riots with all my might —that it is just as important to work passionately and unrelentingly to get rid of the conditions that bring violence into being.

00:41:39

Speaker: SENATOR RIBICOFF:

: 

Do I sense that it is your feeling that the Civil Rights Movement, as a movement, has entered sort of a different stage –

00:41:48

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  I said “wait a minute,” y’know, “you’re doing better than anybody else is doing, there’s no reason for you to feel guilty.” But he always felt he was not doing enough.

Andrew Young Martin Luther King Jr. emotion

00:41:57

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

It was easier to integrate public facilities; it was easier to gain the right to vote because it didn’t cost the nation anything. And the fact is that we are dealing with issues now that will call for something of a restructuring of the architecture of American society. It’s gonna cost the nation something.

00:42:18

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  As much as he did, he always blamed himself for not doing enough. He was a kind of workaholic where he was never content. He was driven by a kind of a need for perfection. And he was always feeling that he wasn’t doing his best.

Andrew Young Martin Luther King Jr. Le Bellay-en-Vexin

00:42:43

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  I think because of his feeling that somehow he wasn’t good enough to be the leader. Those were periods when he was really just physically exhausted.

Andrew Young Martin Luther King Jr. Le Bellay-en-Vexin leadership

00:43:08

Speaker: HARRY BELAFONTE:

:  Dr. King came to New York with great regularity, and whenever he was here on quiet time, he often stayed at our home. And we also made sure that his space was filled with the things that brought him pleasure, including his favorite drink, Bristol Cream Sherry.

Harry Belafonte Martin Luther King Jr. New York City

00:43:30

Speaker: HARRY BELAFONTE:

: 

(Acoustic guitar)

00:43:43

Speaker: HARRY BELAFONTE:

: 

I think one of the things that attracted him to my environment was that, here I was a very prominent black American.

Harry Belafonte Martin Luther King Jr.

00:43:52

Speaker: HARRY BELAFONTE:

: 

And my wife then was a young woman named Julie Robinson who was white and she and I were married and brought children into the world and at no point was her presence in my life ever obscured. And Dr. King watched the environment around me, accept that and treated us with a lot of kindness and respect.

Harry Belafonte Martin Luther King Jr. interpersonal relationship

00:44:19

Speaker: HARRY BELAFONTE:

:  In Martin’s earlier life, in his youth as a student, his first real love was a white woman. He adored this young lady and was deeply pained when the wrath of Daddy King and everybody else came down on him when he suggested that he wanted a relationship with this young lady. It betrayed everything that Daddy King had in mind for his son.

Harry Belafonte Martin Luther King Jr. African Americans interpersonal relationship interracial marriage Martin Luther King, Sr.

00:44:51

Speaker: MERV GRIFFIN:

: 

It’s rare, Doctor, that we get a chance to see you in New York. You’ve discovered it’s a fun city?

00:44:57

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

Well I have -- I haven’t quite discovered that side of New York. Being a Baptist clergyman, they keep me involved in other areas. (laughs)

00:45:10

Speaker: MERV GRIFFIN:

: 

Your home is actually in Atlanta? Atlanta, Georgia.

00:45:12

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

Atlanta, yeah.

00:45:14

Speaker: MERV GRIFFIN:

: 

Do you have a church at this time in Atlanta?

00:45:16

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

Yes, I am the co-pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, and my father is Pastor. So, we are working together there as a team.

00:45:27

Speaker: MERV GRIFFIN:

: 

Both you and your father?

00:45:28

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

—That’s right… they put up the two Kings.—

00:45:29

Speaker: MERV GRIFFIN:

: 

—Is there any seniority?

00:45:32

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

…Well he makes it clear, sometimes consciously and sometimes unconsciously, that he is the pastor and I’m the co-pastor.

00:45:48

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, SR.:

: 

Jesus was the leader in the way. For he said, “I am the way, the truth, and the light.” Now that gets all of it –

00:46:00

Speaker: HARRY BELAFONTE:

:  When I met Daddy King in Atlanta, I understood the real meaning of patriarch. He was a huge force in the community as a black minister.

Harry Belafonte Martin Luther King, Sr.

00:46:12

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, SR.:

: 

Glory God.

00:46:14

Speaker: HARRY BELAFONTE:

:  Very imposing.

Harry Belafonte

00:46:15

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, SR.:

: 

Something wrong with your head.

00:46:18

Speaker: HARRY BELAFONTE:

:  And when you met him you understood that you were dealing with the power. What was also fascinating for me was the subservience that Martin reflected when talking with his father.

Harry Belafonte Martin Luther King, Sr. Martin Luther King Jr.

00:46:35

Speaker: HARRY BELAFONTE:

:  Not just parental, but as someone whose view of where we should be going as a people held great substance for Martin.

Harry Belafonte Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King, Sr.

00:46:46

Speaker: C. T. VIVIAN:

:  Martin really understood his father, but he understood also the difference between he and his father.

C. T. Vivian Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King, Sr.

00:46:56

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

So in a sense we look into a future shrouded with impenetrable uncertainties.

00:47:02

Speaker: C. T. VIVIAN:

:  There was a great difference between he and his father’s preaching. Martin made his points at a different level and in a different way than most other preachers did. And the reason for that was—is—because he had this unusual education.

C. T. Vivian Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King, Sr. minister education

00:47:24

Speaker: JESSE JACKSON:

:  Dr. King finished high school at fifteen. He finished Morehouse at nineteen. He finished seminary at twenty-two, his PHD at twenty-six. He knew that strong minds break strong chains.

Jesse Jackson Martin Luther King Jr. education

00:47:38

Speaker: HARRY BELAFONTE:

:  I think his faith in the teachings that he had studied, his constant references to Thoreau and -- I never knew of these guys, never heard of these people,

Harry Belafonte Martin Luther King Jr. Henry David Thoreau

00:47:49

Speaker: HARRY BELAFONTE:

:  until Martin came in one day and in the midst of some rather casual moment, he would evoke what Nietzsche said, and what Thoreau -- and I’m sitting there saying, “Well who’s Nietzsche?”

Harry Belafonte Martin Luther King Jr. Friedrich Nietzsche

00:48:05

Speaker: HARRY BELAFONTE:

:  Daddy King used to say, “Just get in there and talk the gospel, stop all with this college stuff and all these highfalutin people you keep evoking. People don’t know who they are. He said, “Yes they do.”

Harry Belafonte Martin Luther King Jr. Henry David Thoreau Friedrich Nietzsche Martin Luther King, Sr.

00:48:21

Speaker: DOROTHY COTTON:

:  You could wake Martin up from a nap and he could do a sermon. I remember saying to him, “You are due at the church in twenty minutes.” I mean like his mother.

Dorothy Cotton Martin Luther King Jr. nap

00:48:36

Speaker: DOROTHY COTTON:

:  And when he got to the church, you would think he’d been studying all night. He was a natural preacher.

Dorothy Cotton Martin Luther King Jr. minister

00:48:46

Speaker: C. T. VIVIAN:

:  Everybody loved Martin as soon as they heard him. There was a desire for people to be a part of an educated ministry. The only thing that we had was Christianity. The only thing that white America allowed us to have was our churches.

C. T. Vivian Martin Luther King Jr. minister audience education church building

00:49:14

Speaker: HARRY BELAFONTE:

:  Martin’s moments when the curtain was drawn, and he was not on public display, was a man who revealed his deepest concerns about his right to do what he was doing.

Harry Belafonte Martin Luther King Jr.

00:49:30

Speaker: HARRY BELAFONTE:

:  The fact that he was touched by that calling in history, disturbed him because he didn’t quite understand it. He referred everything to divine intervention, to divine power. It’s what God has called on me to do.

Harry Belafonte Martin Luther King Jr. Le Bellay-en-Vexin

00:49:53

Speaker: HARRY BELAFONTE:

:  And in the depth of that belief, that religious commitment, those voices that he heard really existed for him. Daddy King, I don’t think, was fully approving of where the movement was going. He saw nothing but chaos.

Harry Belafonte Martin Luther King Jr. religion Martin Luther King, Sr.

00:50:19

Speaker: MAN (to police officer):

: 

Those fucking niggers don’t live here.

00:50:21

Speaker: HARRY BELAFONTE:

:  He saw nothing but rage, he saw these young, young people.

Harry Belafonte Martin Luther King, Sr.

00:50:26

Speaker: STOKLEY CARMICHAEL:

: 

We’re gonna pitch the tents! [crowd joins in] We’re gonna pitch the tents! We’re gonna pitch the tents!

00:50:31

Speaker: HARRY BELAFONTE:

:  With the birth of SNCC, (teargas canister exploding) and the kinds of passion that poured forth from these young people.

Harry Belafonte Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee emotion

00:50:38

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

Come on, everybody follow me.

00:50:39

Speaker: HARRY BELAFONTE:

:  Many of whom were not much younger than his son. And, the fact that his son was at the spearhead of it, was even more threatening for him.

Harry Belafonte Martin Luther King, Sr. Martin Luther King Jr. danger

00:51:03

Speaker: CLEVELAND SELLERS:

:  Dr. King asked me and Stokely to come over and have dinner at his house, and that he just wanted to talk. And so, we went over to his house. He wanted to understand where Black Power came from.

Cleveland Sellers Martin Luther King Jr. Stokely Carmichael discussion Black Power movement dinner

00:51:19

Speaker: CLEVELAND SELLERS:

:  He wanted to know everything we were thinking, where we were going with it. The discussion was about three hours long. And then what we wanted to know was, as a moral icon of the movement, when was he going to make a statement against the war in Vietnam.

Cleveland Sellers Black Power movement discussion Vietnam War

00:51:44

Speaker: CLARENCE JONES:

:  The leaders of the peace movement were reaching out the Dr. King and wanted him to get more actively and publicly involved, but I resisted because my initial reaction is I felt that they were trying appropriate the legitimacy they didn’t have.

Clarence Benjamin Jones peace movement leader Martin Luther King Jr.

00:52:00

Speaker: CLARENCE JONES:

: 

(chanting) Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you killed today? Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you killed today?

00:52:06

Speaker: CLARENCE JONES:

:  Politically, we had to be very cautious about whether or not we wanted to publically criticize what could be described as having been the greatest president for civil rights since Abraham Lincoln.

Clarence Benjamin Jones Lyndon B. Johnson civil and political rights Abraham Lincoln

00:52:19

Speaker: CLARENCE JONES:

:  This is after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and here we’re going to publically excoriate and criticize the man without who’s leadership none of this would have been possible.

Clarence Benjamin Jones Civil Rights Act Voting Rights Act of 1965 Lyndon B. Johnson

00:52:35

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  The anti-war movement was a new constituency for us. There was a spiritual connectivity that we were comfortable with, and we understood their positions. They wanted to emulate our tactics.

Andrew Young anti-war movement tactic

00:52:54

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  But, there were radical elements of violence and anti-American discussion, and we didn’t want him taking his moral position in to an extreme left environment with kids who were kind of anti-American, who were communists, who were burning American flags. And we could not control that.

Andrew Young political radicalism violence communism flag desecration

00:53:26

Speaker: JOSEPH CALIFANO:

:  Johnson was worried, because communists were on the other side on the war, and over the years the FBI was constantly investigating King and citing one or two of his associates who they said were communists. He was afraid that the FBI would leak it, Hoover would really get King branded as a communist, and it would build up an enormous backlash.

Joseph A. Califano, Jr. Lyndon B. Johnson communism Vietnam War Federal Bureau of Investigation

00:53:57

Speaker: CLARENCE JONES:

:  For a long period of time, every conversation was wire-tapped secretly by the FBI. And the contents of the conversations, written down, transcribed verbatim, and put in files marked “Top Secret”.

Clarence Benjamin Jones Federal Bureau of Investigation surveillance telephone tapping

00:54:18

Speaker: CLARENCE JONES:

:  And a top agent at the FBI said that Martin Luther King Jr. is the most dangerous and most powerful Negro in America.

Clarence Benjamin Jones Federal Bureau of Investigation Martin Luther King Jr.

00:54:29

Speaker: JOSEPH CALIFANO:

:  In 1964, they were bugging Dr. King and they also picked up his sexual activity. Hoover would send these memos out. The memos would be all about King’s life. I mean, they were obviously designed to destroy this guy.

Joseph A. Califano, Jr. Federal Bureau of Investigation telephone tapping Martin Luther King Jr. Rufmord

00:54:54

Speaker: JOHN LEWIS:

:  I think J. Edgar Hoover hated, despised Dr. King.

John Lewis J. Edgar Hoover Martin Luther King Jr.

00:55:01

Speaker: CLIFFORD ALEXANDER:

:  Hoover just was one of these people with an immense amount of power who abused that power. He used information improperly. He was singularly arrogant about his position. And underlying it had this feeling of superiority to people of color. And I said, “they should take that son-of-a-bitch’s name off the building,” because he was the antithesis of what you wanted in a democracy.

Clifford Alexander, Jr. J. Edgar Hoover power person of color

00:55:34

Speaker: JOHN LEWIS:

:  You know, during those days, we assume that we all were being wiretapped or spied on. But I think the people who made the recordings were really sick.

John Lewis telephone tapping surveillance

00:55:56

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  Everything the FBI was doing to hurt us made us question whether this country was so sick that it couldn’t be saved. We were never running a program of personal piety.

Andrew Young Federal Bureau of Investigation Southern Christian Leadership Conference

00:56:11

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  We were running a program of social and political and economic justice, and it’s while we are yet sinners that Christ died for us. And, it’s one of the things that makes it possible for us to understand the difficulties and weaknesses in other people is that we’re aware of them in ourselves.

Andrew Young Southern Christian Leadership Conference social justice

00:56:34

Speaker: JOAN BAEZ:

:  I think it’s very important for us to see that you can go on doing the good works and have slipped and fallen, you know, or gotten drunk or womanized. But since we have no idea how his struggle felt, we don’t have any room to criticize it.

Joan Baez Martin Luther King Jr.

00:56:57

Speaker: CLARENCE JONES:

:  Martin Luther King Jr. was a human being, and he was imperfect. He was conflicted by traveling so much, and may not have felt that he was being the best father or husband that he could be, but his love for his family was unchallengeable.

Clarence Benjamin Jones Martin Luther King Jr. family

00:57:24

Speaker: CORETTA SCOTT KING:

: 

When I met Martin, I had, unfortunately, a stereotype impression of a minister. Piety is good but I think there’s a kind of a false piety, you know, which I don’t like.

00:57:38

Speaker: CORETTA SCOTT KING:

: 

And he was a, just a – a human being, a very, very warm and, and very down to earth, and just different.

00:57:48

Speaker: XERNONA CLAYTON:

:  Coretta believed in his cause so much that she was willing to pay the price, and she tried hard to have him spend as much time with the children as he could cause he wasn’t home that much.

Coretta Scott King Martin Luther King Jr. family

00:58:04

Speaker: CORETTA SCOTT KING:

: 

…you pass your plate this way—

00:58:07

Speaker: XERNONA CLAYTON:

:  When he was home, she insisted that he have dinner with the children.

Coretta Scott King Martin Luther King Jr. dinner family

00:58:12

Speaker: KING CHILD:

: 

Where are the rolls?

00:58:13

Speaker: MARTIN III:

: 

Daddy, you not talking.

00:58:14

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

I’m too hungry, Marty. I’m so hungry, I’m busy with this dinner.

00:58:21

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

I guess this is one of the most frustrating aspects of my life. The great demands that come as a result of my involvement in the struggle for justice and peace.

00:58:32

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

It’s just impossible to carry out the responsibilities of a father and husband when you have these kinds of demands, but fortunately I have a most understanding wife.

00:58:45

Speaker: ARNOLD MICHAELIS:

: 

Now, alright. This leads me to ask you, did you educate Mrs. King to become equal to you in terms of sharing this burden or did you research her before your marriage to see that she had the potential for this, or?

00:58:58

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

I wish I could say, and satisfy my masculine ego, that I led her down this path, but I must say we went down together because she was as actively involved and concerned when we met as she is now.

00:59:14

Speaker: REPORTER:

: 

Mrs. King are you taking part in this demonstration as an individual or as a wife?

00:59:19

Speaker: CORETTA SCOTT KING:

: 

Well, I’m taking part as an individual and a wife. I’m both.

00:59:26

Speaker: BERNARD LAFAYETTE:

:  Martin Luther King wrestled with coming out publically taking a stand against the war in Vietnam. But, Mrs. King was involved in the anti-war movement long before, so she had a lot of influence on Martin Luther King coming to that conclusion.

Bernard Lafayette Martin Luther King Jr. Vietnam War Coretta Scott King anti-war movement

00:59:47

Speaker: CORETTA SCOTT KING:

:  I come to express my own personal witness for the cause of peace. In the civil rights struggle if we win all of the rights and privileges that we are fighting for and have no world in which to exercise these, then there is really no need for our efforts.

01:00:10

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

I decided that I would leave it to my wife to take the stands and make the meetings on the peace issue, but I came to the conclusion that I could no longer be a silent onlooker, but that in some real way, I had to be an involved and concerned participant.

01:00:34

Speaker: RICHARD FERNANDEZ:

:  Andy Young had called me. I was the Executive Director of a group that wanted to stop the war and engage the religious community to help do that. So, Andy proposed that Dr. King give a speech in New York and Dr. King decided to make a full-blown statement. So, I said, well, what about Riverside Church? Because I think place makes a big difference.

Andrew Young Martin Luther King Jr. Riverside Church

01:01:08

Speaker: HARRY BELAFONTE:

:  When he came to the Vietnamese speech he struggled with it. And, I remember very much because he wrote a big part of it in our home. I have on my wall in the hallway, a copy of his writings and the notes that he made.

Harry Belafonte Martin Luther King Jr. Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence

01:01:27

Speaker: HARRY BELAFONTE:

:  He had a habit of using a yellow pad, constantly making notes, and he’d crumble up these things at the end of an evening and toss it away and I just do a swan dive right into the garbage pail and retrieve those papers ‘cause he always left some really profound sentence or something that I thought was worth retrieving and saving.

Harry Belafonte Martin Luther King Jr. writer

01:01:53

Speaker: JOAN BAEZ:

:  Dr. King knew where his heart was, but he also knew the criticism and the splits that would happen the moment he said anything against the war in Vietnam, and, of course, he did.

Joan Baez Martin Luther King Jr. Vietnam War

01:02:07

Speaker: JOHN LEWIS:

:  The night of April 4th 1967, I believe that Martin Luther King Jr. delivered probably one of the most powerful speeches I ever heard him deliver.

John Lewis Martin Luther King Jr. Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence

01:02:19

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

Ladies and gentlemen.

01:02:22

Speaker: JOHN LEWIS:

:  He said, in effect, that he was not going to butcher his conscience.

John Lewis Martin Luther King Jr. Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence

01:02:28

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today—my own government.

01:02:45

Speaker: JOHN LEWIS:

:  He said as a nation, we talk about nonviolence here in America, and then we engage in violence abroad. He said in effect that the bombs that we’re dropping in Vietnam, they would be shattered over America.

John Lewis Martin Luther King Jr. Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence

01:03:07

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  Dr. King was worried that the government had gotten us into war where we didn’t need to be, and we were hurting ourselves. The returning veterans, the inflation, the unemployment: the consequences of the war.

Andrew Young Martin Luther King Jr. Vietnam War war

01:03:23

Speaker: JOHN LEWIS:

:  He literally poured out his heart, the depth and essence of his soul. I’ve heard many sermons, I was at the March on Washington, but I think the speech at Riverside Church was his best.

John Lewis Martin Luther King Jr. Riverside Church March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

01:03:42

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

If America’s soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read “Vietnam.”

01:03:51

Speaker: RICHARD FERNANDEZ:

:  When the speech ended, the place exploded and I knew it was electric. I knew he had hit it out of the park. But, the next morning he was blasted in virtually every editorial column in America.

Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence the media Martin Luther King Jr.

01:04:24

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  Some of us didn’t want him to be that hard in the speech, but he said, “I’m trapped by my own, you know, beliefs,” and I think that that was one of the things that J. Edgar Hoover used to try to turn the government completely against him.

Andrew Young Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence Martin Luther King Jr. J. Edgar Hoover

01:04:46

Speaker: JESSE JACKSON:

:  Dr. King took on our government in a war time. He was taking on angry people and misguided people in a war time.

Jesse Jackson Martin Luther King Jr. Federal Government of the United States Vietnam War

01:04:53

Speaker: PRO-WAR COUNTER PROTESTORS:

: 

(singing) Of the land of the free, and the home of the brave—Commie!

01:05:04

Speaker: PRO-WAR COUNTER PROTESTORS:

: 

Commie! Commie Jew! Stick with civil rights! Leave the war to the generals! Go back to Hanoi!

01:05:18

Speaker: JESSE JACKSON:

:  He said, “Many of my friends are turning on me: many of my Morehouse friends, my classmates. Preachers have said I can’t come in their pulpits ‘cause we shouldn’t be engaged in the war.”

Jesse Jackson Martin Luther King Jr. friend minister Morehouse College Vietnam War

01:05:28

Speaker: XERNONA CLAYTON:

:  He said, “You expect your enemies to disagree with you. What I didn’t understand is how our friends would leave me.” They stopped giving, they stopped calling, they stopped caring, and he was devastated.

Martin Luther King Jr. friend emotion

01:05:51

Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN:

:  Change is painful. The loneliness and what it must have felt like when he was so abandoned by so many and told to stay in your place.

Marian Wright Edelman Martin Luther King Jr. loneliness emotion

01:06:06

Speaker: CLARENCE JONES:

:  He really felt betrayed. And he said over and over, “They don’t know me.”

Clarence Benjamin Jones emotion Martin Luther King Jr.

01:06:13

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

They applauded me and I told Negros to be nonviolent. These same people are damning me when I say, “You ought to be nonviolent toward little brown children in Vietnam.”

01:06:28

Speaker: HARRY BELAFONTE:

:  The way all of America turned on him when he stepped into the Vietnam drama was perhaps the single most challenging moment for Martin.

Harry Belafonte Martin Luther King Jr. Americans Vietnam War

01:06:46

Speaker: CLARENCE JONES:

:  Martin went through very difficult, emotional times in 1967. He had a doctor in New York, and I remember sitting with Dr. Logan, and he generally felt that the state of Martin’s emotional health was such that, that he maybe should seek some kind of third-party independent psychiatric counselling.

Clarence Benjamin Jones Martin Luther King Jr. emotion physician New York City psychiatry

01:07:15

Speaker: CLARENCE JONES:

:  I looked at Dr. Logan, and I said, “That’s not gonna happen.” I was very blunt, and I said, “If not within 24 hours, within 24 days, the FBI would find out, and everything that Martin King said to that psychiatrist would be immediately in FBI files. Can’t take that chance.”

Clarence Benjamin Jones Martin Luther King Jr. physician psychiatry Federal Bureau of Investigation

01:08:00

Speaker: REPORTER:

: 

This year, major Negro riots have broken out in Detroit and Newark, and about eighty cities and towns all over the country. Already it’s become the worst crisis in the country since the Civil War.

01:08:12

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

The despair is deep, the bitterness is wide in the ghettos of our nation. And I will continue to raise my voice with all of my might against riots because I know that black rioting can mean black suicide.

01:08:36

Speaker: RIOTER:

: 

Don’t point that gun at me! Wait a minute, wait a minute, don’t point that gun at me!

01:08:42

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

What must be said it that our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay.

01:08:52

Speaker: LYNDON B. JOHNSON:

: 

Pillage, looting, murder, and arson have nothing to do with civil rights. We will not tolerate lawlessness.

01:09:02

Speaker: STOKELY CARMICHAEL:

:  You gon’ sit in front of your television set and listen to LBJ tell you that, “Violence never accomplishes anything, my fellow Americans.” (crowd cheers) But, you see, the real problem with violence is that we have never been violent. We have been too nonviolent. Too nonviolent. (crowd cheers)

01:09:25

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

I’ve decided to stick with love. And so, I’m not gonna give you a motto or preach a philosophy, “Burn baby burn,” I’m gonna say, “Build, baby, build, organize baby organize!” (applause)

01:09:54

Speaker: BERNARD LAFAYETTE:

:  Martin Luther King called me from Atlanta, and he said to me very directly, “I need you to come on down here now because this may be my last campaign, and we’re going for broke.

Bernard Lafayette Martin Luther King Jr. telephone call Atlanta direct action

01:10:11

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference will lead waves of the nation’s poor and disinherited to Washington, D.C. next spring.

01:10:23

Speaker: JESSE JACKSON:

:  He said, “Let’s go to Washington. We’re going to Washington, if necessary, going to jail, civil disobedience, and convince this Congress to shift from war in Vietnam to war on poverty.”

Jesse Jackson Martin Luther King Jr. direct action Washington, D.C. civil disobedience Vietnam War poverty

01:10:40

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  It was Marian Edelman who came to Martin with the concept of the Poor People’s Campaign.

Andrew Young Marian Wright Edelman Martin Luther King Jr. Poor People's Campaign

01:10:48

Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN:

:  I got called to Washington to testify about poverty and what was happening in Mississippi.

Marian Wright Edelman Washington, D.C. testimony poverty Mississippi

01:10:53

Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN (Archival):

: 

This is an urgent situation, which must be looked into and which must be met.

Marian Wright Edelman

01:10:58

Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN:

:  In the middle of it all, I asked them to come and see for themselves. And Bobby Kennedy came with them.

Marian Wright Edelman testimony Robert F. Kennedy

01:11:06

Speaker: BOBBY KENNEDY:

: 

There is a starvation and men and women who can’t find jobs. And, this – there’s a reflection on all of us, the fact that you have young children in the United States at the present time with the wealthiest nation in the world who are hungry, and their parents are hungry. It’s completely unsatisfactory.

01:11:21

Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN:

:  Robert Kennedy went back to Washington, and I told him I was going to stop through Atlanta and see Martin and he said, “Well tell him to bring the poor to Washington.”

Marian Wright Edelman Robert F. Kennedy the poor Washington, D.C. Martin Luther King Jr. Atlanta

01:11:31

Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN:

:  I went down to Atlanta and went to SCLC, and he was depressed. I mean, he was sitting in his office by himself. And I told him what Robert Kennedy said – he ought to bring the poor to Washington – and he lit up, he just lit up.

Marian Wright Edelman Martin Luther King Jr. Atlanta Southern Christian Leadership Conference mental depression Robert F. Kennedy Washington, D.C.

01:11:49

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  I think he was realizing that he was running out of gas. And the attacks and the criticisms on him were getting more and more vicious. But he was really aware of the fact that we had not hardly raised the issue of poverty.

Andrew Young Martin Luther King Jr. mood poverty

01:12:16

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

We have to do it for our own sense of dignity, our own self-respect, our own determination. But we can’t do it if we don’t give our all to it.

01:12:28

Speaker: BERNARD LAFAYETTE:

:  Martin Luther King embraced the idea of the Poor People’s campaign, and he wanted to move ahead with it. But initially, he did not have the support of his executive staff. People felt already committed to what they were working on at that time.

Bernard Lafayette Martin Luther King Jr. Poor People's Campaign employee

01:12:47

Speaker: JESSE JACKSON (Archival):

: 

From our perspective as organizers –

Jesse Jackson

01:12:50

Speaker: JESSE JACKSON:

:  He used to say that he was the pilot of the plane, but we were the ground crew. And that the ground crew of the plane cannot leave the ground.

Jesse Jackson Martin Luther King Jr. employee aircraft pilot groundcrew

01:12:57

Speaker: JESSE JACKSON (Archival):

: 

Given the realities of –

Jesse Jackson

01:12:59

Speaker: BERNARD LAFAYETTE:

:  Martin Luther King went on a fast to reunite people and get them to think collectively how they could participate.

Bernard Lafayette Martin Luther King Jr. fasting

01:13:06

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

As we go into these communities –

01:13:08

Speaker: BERNARD LAFAYETTE:

:  And, they finally thought coming aboard.

Bernard Lafayette

01:13:10

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

We must remember that we are the custodians of a philosophy.

01:13:15

Speaker: BERNARD LAFAYETTE:

: 

But he talked about his frustration.

Bernard Lafayette frustration

01:13:18

Speaker: XERNONA CLAYTON:

:  His staff was all concerned. They said, “you know, we haven’t seen him laugh in a long time.

Xernona Clayton Martin Luther King Jr. laughter

01:13:25

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG (Archival):

: 

Now, I don’t know whether we gon’ win or lose or draw or what we gon’ bring back tonight, but I’m not gon’ sit by and –

Andrew Young

01:13:31

Speaker: XERNONA CLAYTON:

:  So, they called me, and told me, “think of something to do to make him laugh.” And this was January 15th, his birthday, which ended up being his last birthday. Q8043788 Q8027 Q47223 [MLK staff] Q170579

01:13:44

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG (Archival):

: 

Now, some folks celebrate Abraham Lincoln, but we’re gonna celebrate Martin Luther King’s day today. Don’t let him outta here! (sings, crowd joins) Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday Dr. King, happy birthday to you!

Andrew Young

01:14:05

Speaker: XERNONA CLAYTON (Archival):

: 

We know that you, you really don’t need much, but we thought of some things you ought to have. So, we searched around, and knowing what’s coming up for you, we thought you’d be strung out of shoe string, so when you go to jail, here’s some shoestring potatoes we want you to – (King and crowd laugh).

Xernona Clayton

01:14:25

Speaker: XERNONA CLAYTON (Archival):

: 

Then, we know how fond you are of our president, Lyndon Johnson (laughter), and we know how you supporting everything, and I got this little cup for you, and I want this back, because this is mine.

Xernona Clayton

01:14:37

Speaker: XERNONA CLAYTON (Archival):

: 

And it says, let me read it, it says, “We are cooperating with Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty. Drop coins and bills in the cup.” (laughter) And this is a special gift from me, a real one. (laughter and applauds)

Xernona Clayton

01:14:53

Speaker: HARRY BELAFONTE:

:  I don’t think anyone possessed the capacity for humor, both in receiving it and responding joyously, as Dr. King.

Harry Belafonte Martin Luther King Jr. humour

01:15:08

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  Much of the time I was the victim. I mean, if he felt somebody was sensitive, he wouldn’t pick on ‘em, but he would take something that somebody else said or did and blame it on me.

Andrew Young Martin Luther King Jr. humour

01:15:22

Speaker: CLARENCE JONES:

:  He had a good way of imitating people. He would imitate Andy, or he would say, “Now, Andy, if you do something foolish and you go out there and get assassinated,” he said, “I promise, I’m gonna preach the best funeral for you.”

Clarence Benjamin Jones Martin Luther King Jr. impressionist humour

01:15:38

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  And then he would start preaching your funeral. And, he would do a very sadistic caricature (laughs) of all of your faults and foibles, and things that you would never want said about you in public. And he’d weave it into a sermon, and quite often he’d have a similar demon from the bible who had the same problems. And, by the time he got through, he had everybody laughing at what was a life and death situation. Mostly his life.

Andrew Young Martin Luther King Jr. humour sermon funeral

01:16:14

Speaker: CLARENCE JONES:

:  That was the way of externalizing the fact that he had somehow talk about the elephant in the room that we all had to live with.

Clarence Benjamin Jones Martin Luther King Jr. humour

01:16:27

Speaker: C. T. VIVIAN:

:  Martin joked about it because there wasn’t any other way to be.

C. T. Vivian Martin Luther King Jr. humour

01:16:36

Speaker: HARRY BELAFONTE (Archival):

: 

Dr. King, do you, do you fear for your life?

Harry Belafonte

01:16:42

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

Not really. I face the fact that something can happen to my life. Ultimately, it isn’t so important how long you live; the important thing is how well you live. (audience applauds)

01:17:07

Speaker: HARRY BELAFONTE:

:  Dr. King’s expression of his anxiety about this whole world in which he found himself, was not unfounded. His fears were very real because the conditions were very real.

Harry Belafonte Martin Luther King Jr. anxiety fear

01:17:21

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

And what is it that America has failed to hear?

01:17:24

Speaker: HARRY BELAFONTE:

:  I had noticed that he had a tic. He had occasion to get caught.

Harry Belafonte Martin Luther King Jr. tic

01:17:31

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.:

: 

It has failed to hear that the plight of the negro poor has worsened over the past few years.

01:17:39

Speaker: HARRY BELAFONTE:

:  It wasn’t consistent, but it was apparent in enough situations for us to know that there was a psychological problem there. And then one day, that tick was no longer evident. I said to him, I said, “Now what happened to the tick?” He said, “No, that’s gone.” And I said, “Well, how’d you get rid of it,” and he said, “I made my peace with death.”

Harry Belafonte Martin Luther King Jr. tic peace death

01:18:09

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

I know all of you are studying hard and you’re just doing fine in school and I’m glad to see you.

01:18:18

Speaker: CHILDREN:

: 

We are glad to see you!

01:18:20

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

Thank you very much.

01:18:21

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  I think he always knew that each and every thing he did could be the last thing that he did. And he used to say that if you’re really gonna be free that you have to overcome the love of wealth and the fear of death.

Andrew Young Martin Luther King Jr. death

01:18:39

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

You all just took off from school, huh?

01:18:41

Speaker: CHILDREN:

: 

Yes. (laughing)

01:18:42

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  He was prepared to die, but he was also determined that his death and his life would have meaning, and I think that’s what he was wrestling with—with Vietnam and Chicago… (Martin Luther King: Tell Hosea and Ralph to rush off) …and the Poor People’s Campaign.

Andrew Young Martin Luther King Jr. death Vietnam War Chicago Poor People's Campaign

01:19:07

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.:

: 

Hello, give me some sugar.

01:19:08

Speaker: WOMAN:

: 

Where we stopping? Where we stopping? Where we stopping? Where we stopping?

01:19:27

Speaker: BERNARD LAFAYETTE (Archival):

: 

It seemed to me we can begin to build up every Sunday a big march to-- you know, march around the Capitol someplace.

Bernard Lafayette

01:19:35

Speaker: BERNARD LAFAYETTE:

:  Dr. King appointed me as program administrator.

Bernard Lafayette Martin Luther King Jr. Southern Christian Leadership Conference

01:19:39

Speaker: BERNARD LAFAYETTE (Archival):

: 

Grow and develop and by the time we get to seventh march it could really be massive for those people..

Bernard Lafayette

01:19:42

Speaker: BERNARD LAFAYETTE:

:  And usually our campaign was related to discrimination and racism, so we were talking about, you know, black people for the most part.

Bernard Lafayette Southern Christian Leadership Conference discrimination racism

01:19:50

Speaker: BERNARD LAFAYETTE (Archival):

: 

Andy was suggesting an idea this morning, which sounds…

Bernard Lafayette

01:19:52

Speaker: BERNARD LAFAYETTE:

:  But, I said, “Well, there are Chicanos who are poor, you want them to be in--?” He said, “Yes, we want them to be involved.” I said, “Okay,” and so I said, “What about the Native Americans?” He said, “Well yeah, Native Americans.” So, by this time he turned around and looked up at me ‘cause he’d anticipated the next question. I said, “Well, Dr. King, what about the poor whites?” And he said to me, a little disgusted, he said, "Are they poor?" I said, “Well, yes.” “Well we want them involved!”

Bernard Lafayette Southern Christian Leadership Conference poverty the poor

01:20:35

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.:

: 

We assemble here together today with common problems—bringing together ethnic groups that maybe have not been together in this type of meeting in the past. I know I haven’t been in a meeting like this and it’s been one of my dreams that we would come together and realize our common problems. Black people, Mexican Americans, American Indians, Puerto Ricans, Appalachian Whites, all working together to solve the problem of poverty.

01:21:13

Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN:

:  That was a very big thing that happened. Of getting – finding common ground among the poor. That didn’t make things easy, but it was a big benchmark into the next stage of the civil rights movement, which had to do with economic rights.

Marian Wright Edelman Civil Rights Movement the poor

01:21:22

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.:

: 

Ultimately, we are concerned about a guaranteed annual income, and the other thing I think is very necessary to say is that everybody’s on welfare in this country. When it’s for white people and rich, we call it subsidies. Suburbia was built by federally subsidized credits, and the highways and expressways that take people out there. So, I think we’ve gotta see that is when it comes to poor people, we call it welfare, handouts dolled, but when it comes to rich people, we call it subsidies. And it’s the same thing—it’s all welfare.

01:22:13

Speaker: BERNARD LAFAYETTE:

:  We were in a staff meeting, and Martin Luther King got this call from Memphis.

Bernard Lafayette Southern Christian Leadership Conference Martin Luther King Jr. telephone call Memphis

01:22:22

Speaker: REPORTER:

: 

On February 12th, thirteen hundred workers in the city’s sanitation department went on strike and what began as a union matter soon became a civil rights cause.

01:22:33

Speaker: BERNARD LAFAYETTE:

:  The sanitation workers were strikin’ because the wage was so low, and they were concerned about safety, so they were trying to get some support and protection.

Bernard Lafayette Memphis Memphis Sanitation Strike

01:22:51

Speaker: CLARENCE JONES:

:  One of the most powerful things that you see during that time is all of the garbage workers had these sandwich board signs that said “I AM A MAN.” That was saying, we want to be treated with dignity. Q5126400 [protest sign] Q15631336 Q30515 Q6815871

01:23:05

Speaker: REPORTER:

: 

With the strike deadlocked, behind the leadership of negro ministers, the marches grew larger and the ministers reveled in the new unity.

01:23:12

Speaker: REPORTER:

:  BERNARD LAFAYETTE When Martin Luther King got the call, he said he had to go. He said, you guys stay and continue working on the poor people’s campaign.

Bernard Lafayette Martin Luther King Jr. Poor People's Campaign Southern Christian Leadership Conference

01:23:22

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  We did not want him to go to Memphis at all. But he got up at six o’clock in the morning, and he said, “Imma catch the flight to Memphis.”

Andrew Young Martin Luther King Jr. Memphis Helophyte

01:23:35

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  Martin went to a march that we had nothing to do with, no pre-planning, and, and it got disrupted.

Andrew Young Martin Luther King Jr. protest march Memphis Sanitation Strike

01:23:54

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  CLARENCE JONES There were some young men outside of the garbage workers who took the wooden sticks that held some of the I AM A MAN signs together and used them to smash windows. Q5126400 Q6815871 [protest sign] Q25473

01:24:06

Speaker: MAYOR HENRY LOEB:

: 

When the march degenerated into a riot, abandoned by its leaders, the police, with my full sanction, took the necessary action to protect the lives and property of the citizens of Memphis.

01:24:20

Speaker: POLICE OFFICER:

: 

We urge you to return to your homes immediately for your own safety.

01:24:27

Speaker: REPORTER:

: 

Why didn’t you check out the situation in Memphis with your staff before you came here, especially since it’s in the midst of a very touchy sanitation strike.

01:24:36

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

Well, I would be honest enough to say that I was completely caught with a miscalculation.

01:24:47

Speaker: REPORTER:

: 

What steps have you taken to avert new violence in Memphis?

01:24:51

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

Well, we’re gonna take those steps, and we’re not gonna stop here. We are gonna have in Memphis a massive nonviolent demonstration, and we’re gonna do it in the next few days. And we are gonna take the steps that we’ve taken in every other situation. We are gonna take the steps of uniting this community. Nonviolence can be as contagious as violence.

01:25:20

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  In between the first march and our going back to Memphis, Martin gave us a good cussin’ out in his office about not being supportive of him. And, it was the only time I saw him angry at the whole staff.

Andrew Young Martin Luther King Jr. Southern Christian Leadership Conference employee anger

01:25:40

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  He cussed us out, got up, and walked out. And we went behind him, trying to reassure him, but he just – he just went on off.

Andrew Young Martin Luther King Jr. anger

01:25:52

Speaker: JESSE JACKSON:

:  Dr. King said, “I feel so alone.” He was frustrated, he was full of pain. And, I understand that pain now. He said, “I, I’ve pondered – maybe I should quit now. Maybe I’ve done as much as I can do.”

Jesse Jackson Martin Luther King Jr. emotion Memphis

01:26:12

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  I thought it was wrong to take on another movement in the state we were in. We were tired, and we knew he was tired.

Andrew Young Martin Luther King Jr. fatigue

01:26:30

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  The thing I think he had dreamed about from childhood was to be able to pastor a church like Riverside Church. And, they actually offered him the job as interim pastor. All of us said, “Look. You’re entitled to a sabbatical. You’ve been at this for twelve years nonstop.” He wouldn’t even consider it. He used to say, “some of us are not gonna live to be fifty, so you better live good right now.

Andrew Young Martin Luther King Jr. philosophical viewpoint sabbatical

01:27:06

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  It was almost as though he saw death as an escape, and that he could not escape the way we wanted him to escape.

Andrew Young Martin Luther King Jr. death

01:27:29

Speaker: XERNONA CLAYTON:

:  Before Dr. King left to go to Memphis, we all had dinner together at their home.

Martin Luther King Jr. dinner family Memphis

01:27:43

Speaker: XERNONA CLAYTON:

:  His mother was there and we all had a wonderful, wonderful afternoon. Playin’ the piano, singin’ church songs, tellin’ jokes. He said to me, “You know what, I bet you don’t really know that I can – I’m a good singer. Did you know that?”

Martin Luther King Jr. Alberta Williams King singer piano

01:28:04

Speaker: XERNONA CLAYTON:

:  He said, “I’ma prove it to you. So, give me a B flat.” I gave him a B flat and he starts singin’, and, man, we got the rhythm of a gospel song. And, we just had such fun. Now, I was to drive him the next morning to the airport to go to Memphis. His mother called me and said, “I know you’re takin’ ML to the airport tomorrow. While you have his ear, will you tell him I wish we could have more family moments like that.

Martin Luther King Jr. singing airport Memphis Alberta Williams King

01:28:44

Speaker: XERNONA CLAYTON:

:  Can you tell him to plan it in his schedule sometime after he comes back.

Martin Luther King Jr. Memphis family

01:28:57

Speaker: BERNARD LAFAYETTE:

:  After the march broke out in violence, we all went to Memphis, for two reasons: to support the Sanitation Workers’ march, so it would be nonviolent, but also to continue our discussion of the Poor People’s Campaign.

Bernard Lafayette Memphis violence Memphis Sanitation Strike nonviolence Poor People's Campaign Southern Christian Leadership Conference

01:29:16

Speaker: BERNARD LAFAYETTE:

:  That night, there was a mass meeting at Mason Temple Church, and Martin Luther King was scheduled to go and speak, but it was pouring down raining.

Bernard Lafayette Mason Temple Martin Luther King Jr. rain

01:29:30

Speaker: JESSE JACKSON:

:  Dr. King had sat in the room most of the day. He said, “I have a headache, I don’t feel like going, but Jesse, will you go?” So, we went over there and we walked in the door, church was about three-quarters full and people cheering. You could sense they were expecting him.

Jesse Jackson Martin Luther King Jr. migraine Mason Temple

01:29:52

Speaker: BERNARD LAFAYETTE:

:  Martin Luther King is already in his pajamas in bed and we were working on a press statement for Washington D.C.

Bernard Lafayette Martin Luther King Jr. pajamas the media press release

01:30:04

Speaker: JESSE JACKSON:

:  We went out the side of the church and called him on the pay telephone and said, “Martin, come just for a few minutes. You don’t have to stay long. They’re so ready for you.”

Jesse Jackson Mason Temple payphone telephone call Martin Luther King Jr.

01:30:16

Speaker: BERNARD LAFAYETTE:

:  I could only hear one side of the call, but Martin Luther King said, “Now, are you telling me that you want me to get up out of my bed and take off my pajamas and get dressed and come out in the pouring down rain,” okay, “to speak at this meeting?” So, obviously, the answer on the other side said yes.

Bernard Lafayette telephone call Martin Luther King Jr. pajamas rain orator

01:30:40

Speaker: RALPH ABERNATHY:

: 

The Moses of nineteen hundred and sixty-eight, Martin Luther King.

01:30:56

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  Martin came to that church thinking that he was just gonna make remarks and not to give the major speech, but he got up and he gave that speech as though he knew that the end was near.

Martin Luther King Jr. Mason Temple speech I've Been to the Mountaintop

01:31:11

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

And so, I’m happy tonight. I’m not worried about anything! I’m not fearing any man! Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!

01:31:30

Speaker: BERNARD LAFAYETTE:

:  The next morning, we were workin’ on the press statement for the Poor People’s Campaign.

Bernard Lafayette morning Martin Luther King Jr. press release Poor People's Campaign

01:31:35

Speaker: BERNARD LAFAYETTE:

:  Martin Luther King said to me, “Now, Bernard, the next project we’re gonna work on is to institutionalize and internationalize nonviolence.”

Bernard Lafayette Martin Luther King Jr. future nonviolence

01:31:47

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  I was on the witness stand most of that day. We got permission to march and I came back to the Lorraine Motel. He was childish and giddy and cussed me out, you know, “Where you been?” He threw a pillow at me. I threw it back. But, everybody else picked up pillows and they were -- it was like a bunch of ten-year olds.

Andrew Young court protest march pillow fight

01:32:14

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  And just about that time, Billy Kyles knocked on the door and said, “you all are my house by 6 o’clock. My wife’s got dinner waitin’.” And so, he jumped up and went upstairs to put on a shirt and tie.

Andrew Young Martin Luther King Jr. dinner

01:32:30

Speaker: JESSE JACKSON:

:  I was coming across the courtyard, and from the balcony, Dr. King said, “Jesse, you don’t even have on a tie!” So, I said, “Dr. King, a prerequisite for eating is an appetite.” He said, “You crazy.” We laughed.

Jesse Jackson Martin Luther King Jr. Memphis dinner necktie

01:32:43

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  He was just extremely relaxed and comfortable and playful. It was the happiest I had seen him in a long time.

Andrew Young Martin Luther King Jr. Memphis happiness

01:32:53

Speaker: JESSE JACKSON:

:  We’d been laughing and playing, and—POW. And he raised up, bullet hit him right here. It severed his tie.

Jesse Jackson Martin Luther King Jr. laughter assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

01:33:06

Speaker: JESSE JACKSON:

:  I got up and went running toward him, but, he was nonresponsive. So, I got up and went and called Mrs. King. It was a long ten steps to take from where he was to that phone. I said, “Mrs. King,” I said, “Dr. King been shot, I think he’s been shot in the shoulder, but I think you should come.” I really couldn’t say what I saw. It was like too much to say. Like I just couldn’t say that. I couldn’t say that.

Jesse Jackson assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Coretta Scott King telephone call

01:33:53

Speaker: REPORTER:

: 

What Dr. Martin Luther King called his beautiful dream, expressed so dramatically during the 1963 March on Washington, was shattered tonight in Memphis Tennessee by an assassin’s bullet. In Memphis and in New York, in Boston, Raleigh, North Carolina, there are reports of looting and other angry reactions to the killing of Dr. King.

01:34:17

Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN:

:  It was awful. My first thought was to go out and tell children not to loot and not to riot and ruin their lives. And this little boy about 12, looked me straight in the eye and said, “Lady what future, I ain’t got no future, I ain’t got nothing to lose.”

Marian Wright Edelman assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. emotion

01:34:41

Speaker: RICHARD FERNANDEZ:

:  I was in Sarasota, Florida, with my parents, and we see this happening on the television, and the first thing out of my mother’s mouth was, “He deserved it. He was a rabble-rouser.”

assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

01:34:53

Speaker: STOKELY CARMICHAEL:

: 

When white America killed Dr. King last night, she opened the eyes for every black man in this country. He was the one man in our race who was trying to teach our people to have love, compassion, and mercy for what white people had done. When white America killed Dr. King last night, she declared war on us.

01:35:17

Speaker: REPORTER:

: 

A Day after the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, there is a countrywide reaction. Turmoil in at least a dozen more cities today: Washington, Chicago, Detroit, Boston, New York. These are just a few of the cities in which the negro anguish over Dr. King’s murder, presumably by a white man, expressed itself in violent destruction.

01:35:38

Speaker: REPORTER:

: 

The assassination and its aftermath temporarily pushed aside the President’s plans to pursue his new Vietnam peace effort, as he put in a busy day at the White House.

01:35:49

Speaker: JOSEPH CALIFANO:

:  I think of all the ups and downs, and all the turmoil, and the tragedies that occurred in those years, I never saw Johnson sadder, sadder about an event than he was at the assassination of King. And he said to me, “Give me a draft letter to the Speaker. You know, we’re gonna get one thing out of this awful event. We’re gonna get our Fair Housing bill.”

Joseph A. Califano, Jr. assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Lyndon B. Johnson sadness Fair Housing Act

01:36:25

Speaker: REPORTER:

: 

As part of the national day of mourning tomorrow, hundreds of communities across the nation have planned memorial services and peaceful marches in tribute to Dr. King. It is, in this way, despite the ugly rioting and looting in many cities, that thousands of Americans have planned to express their grief quietly, and with dignity. Nowhere was this more evident than in Atlanta, Georgia.

01:36:50

Speaker: XERNONA CLAYTON:

:  Before the funeral, Dr. King’s body was to lie in state at Spelman College. A security officer at Spelman called Mrs. King and said, “There must be thousands here. What must we do?” Then I said, “Mrs. King, the public will wait, you need to see him first.” So, we dashed over to the campus.

funeral Funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr. Coretta Scott King Spelman College

01:37:18

Speaker: XERNONA CLAYTON:

:  I didn’t see the body ‘til I got up close. I nearly died. He looked awful. He had a big blob of clay on his face. Mrs. King was standing there in such pain. The embalmer loudly said, “His jaw was blown off! This is the best I can do.” And, oh, she nearly fainted. So I took out some loose powder, and I dabbed a little on his face, toning it down, and Coretta smiled. It was working. And, she said, “open the door and let ‘em in.”

Funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr. funeral director Coretta Scott King emotion

01:38:18

Speaker: XERNONA CLAYTON:

:  Martin Luther King chose the best person possible as a wife, and her stamina gave the country and the world relief, because everybody were just crashing over this man’s untimely death. A man who lived for and died for goodness now ends up like this.

Martin Luther King Jr. spouse wife Coretta Scott King assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

01:38:44

Speaker: CORETTA SCOTT KING:

: 

I would have preferred to be alone at this time with my children. We were always willing to share Martin Luther King with the world because he was a symbol of the finest man is capable of being.

01:39:04

Speaker: CORETTA SCOTT KING:

: 

Yet to us he was a father and a husband. I am surprised and pleased at the success of his teaching, for our children say calmly, “Daddy is not dead. He may be physically dead, but his spirit will never die.”

01:40:01

Speaker: XERNONA CLAYTON:

:  Through their tears, Mama King said to me, “I want you to know that when the tension of the moment, you know, tapers a little bit, I can tell you fully how much I appreciate what you did.” And I said, “What did I do?”

Alberta Williams King assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. emotion

01:40:20

Speaker: XERNONA CLAYTON:

:  She said, “Well, you told Martin what I said, that I wanted him to spend more time with me.” She said, “He called me.” And she thinks that she was one of the last persons he talked to, and she said, “I know I’m gonna feel good about that one of these days.”

Alberta Williams King Martin Luther King Jr. telephone call

01:40:43

Speaker: CLARENCE JONES:

:  I got a call that Mrs. Kennedy would like very much to pay her respects to Mrs. King. It was the date of the funeral, and Mrs. Kennedy walks over to Mrs. King. The now two widows embrace and they hold one another.

Clarence Benjamin Jones telephone call Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Coretta Scott King Funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr. widow

01:41:35

Speaker: BERNARD LAFAYETTE:

:  I was on my way to the funeral, and I had to pass the office, and the office door was open, our SCLC office, and people were bringing things outta there.

Bernard Lafayette Funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr. Southern Christian Leadership Conference looting

01:41:49

Speaker: RALPH ABERNATHY:

: 

We gather here this morning in one of the darkest hours for Martin Luther King, sent forth as a Moses in the wilderness of this sick nation of ours.

01:42:03

Speaker: BERNARD LAFAYETTE:

:  I went across the street over there, and sure enough, it was a test of our nonviolence. These people were taking things off the wall, and off the desk, and everything else. And I had to calm them down, ‘cause they were frantic, and they were wailing, and moanin’ and groanin’.

Bernard Lafayette Funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr. looting nonviolence

01:42:20

Speaker: BERNARD LAFAYETTE:

:  So, they were not like thieves, they were people who had felt they had lost Martin Luther King, and they were just trying to find something they could hold on to that Martin Luther King, perhaps, had touched.

Bernard Lafayette loss emotion

01:42:31

Speaker: BERNARD LAFAYETTE:

:  But I missed the funeral. I got there in time to see Robert Kennedy and some others come out of the church, but the wagon had, okay, gone off.

Bernard Lafayette Funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr. Robert F. Kennedy

01:42:50

Speaker: MAN (Off-screen):

: 

Back off, all the way to the sidewalk, all the way, all the way to the sidewalk, move back.

01:43:07

Speaker: HARRY BELAFONTE:

:  There has been a lot of historical tragedies that give us time to reflect on much that has been lost to us and the cruelty of the issues of race.

Harry Belafonte history tragedy race

01:43:24

Speaker: HARRY BELAFONTE:

:  None more profoundly robbed me of an important part of what I thought my life would be than when Martin was murdered. His death was not just a great loss historically, but in a deep personal sense, I lost a friend.

Harry Belafonte assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. loss history friend

01:43:47

Speaker: RALPH ABERNATHY:

: 

The cemetery is too small for his spirit. The grave is too narrow for his soul. We commend his legacy of courage and love to ourselves, our children, and our children’s children. We commend his life to the universe.

01:44:16

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  My first reaction was to be mad with him. You got us in all this hell, now you’re going to heaven and leaving us in hell. (chuckles) Why don’t you take us with you? But I, I was panicked to know how we followed, and it, well, we were not able to stay together without him, and the movement began to fragment.

Andrew Young assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. emotion Civil Rights Movement

01:45:09

Speaker: BERNARD LAFAYETTE:

:  What has happened in the past has been our lives. As older people, we’ve gone through those different periods, and we have suffered, and we have also made some progress. But this is what our lives were about.

Bernard Lafayette aging emotion

01:45:29

Speaker: BERNARD LAFAYETTE:

:  The question is the next generation, cause it’s not what you’ve gained, it’s what you can maintain. Martin Luther King went to the blackboard and taught us nonviolence, but nonviolence is not confined to any historical period.

Bernard Lafayette generation Martin Luther King Jr. nonviolence

01:45:51

Speaker: JESSE JACKSON:

:  He speaks to this generation clearly, as if he’s in yesterday’s morning paper. His strategies, his philosophy, his worldview remain real today.

Jesse Jackson Martin Luther King Jr. generation message strategy philosophical viewpoint

01:46:06

Speaker: C. T. VIVIAN:

:  He wanted a future world that was changed because of our nonviolent struggles. He wanted his life to be remembered by making the nation realize that nonviolence is what we must in the end have.

C. T. Vivian Martin Luther King Jr. future nonviolence

01:46:27

Speaker: CLIFFORD ALEXANDER:

:  I think people discovered only after his death that he was more radical than they actually knew. I don’t think he wanted us to take anything other than all that we deserve, and that’s what radicalism in the best sense is about. Using the power that you have to help transform the society for the better.

Clifford Alexander, Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. political radicalism society

01:46:51

Speaker: DIANE NASH:

:  With Martin Luther King, we have the holiday, and we talk about how wonderful he was, but we really should develop his work. It’s our responsibility, everybody’s responsibility. There are three hundred million of us and social change is the job of each of us.

Diane Nash Martin Luther King Jr. Carl Robert social change

01:47:15

Speaker: JOHN LEWIS:

:  When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have a moral obligation and a mandate to do something, to say something, to speak up, to speak out.

John Lewis social change

01:47:28

Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN:

:  He is issuing as much of a call to us today as he was calling to us in 1968, and I hope we will hear that call and finish the next face phase of his movement. He talked about the importance of keep going forward. He said, “If you can’t fly, you drive. If you can’t drive, you run. If you can’t run, you walk. If you can’t walk, you crawl—but keep moving forward.”

Marian Wright Edelman Martin Luther King Jr. philosophical viewpoint

01:47:56

Speaker: CLARENCE JONES:

:  From 1956 until April 4th, 1968 Martin Luther King Jr. may have done more to achieve political, social, economic justice than any other person in the journey of American history.

Clarence Benjamin Jones Martin Luther King Jr. history United States of America justice social justice

01:48:16

Speaker: ANDREW YOUNG:

:  The problems we have that Martin lived for are still with us, and the complexity of good and evil in this world is gonna always be with us. I don’t know that anybody struggled with it any more or did any better than Martin King in my lifetime. He always said, we’ve come a long, long way, but we still got a long way to go. And somewhere, wherever Martin is, he’s struggling beyond this place in time and space.

Andrew Young Martin Luther King Jr.

01:48:51

Speaker: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:

: 

Well, I never like to discuss Martin Luther King’s influence. I’m just trying to do a job and I think it’s a job that has to be done, and I’m not trying to do it merely for myself, or merely for my children, or merely for the negro, but for America, because I think it’s true that if this problem isn’t solved, the soul of our nation will be lost. And the only way to redeem the soul of America is to remove or to eradicate racism in all of its dimensions.

01:49:34

Speaker: DOROTHY COTTON (Singing):

:  I’m, I’m gonna do what the spirit says do. I’m gonna do what the spirit says do, what the spirit says do, I’m gonna do, oh Lord, do what the spirit says do. We used to sing, I’ll go to jail if the spirit says jail, I’ll go to jail if the spirit says jail, if the spirit says jail, I’ll go to jail, oh Lord, I’ll go to jail if the spirit says jail.

Dorothy Cotton

01:51:25

Speaker: None

: