MLK's Mother Was Assassinated, Too: The Forgotten Women Of Black History Month

[DonViejo]

By AURIN SQUIRE Published FEBRUARY 4, 2015, 6:00 AM EST

On June 30th, 1973, Alberta Williams King was gunned down while she played the organ for the “Lord’s Prayer” at Ebenezer Baptist Church. As a Christian civil rights activist, she was assassinated...just like her son, Martin Luther King, Jr. But most people remember only one. Until a month ago, I was one of those people.

When a friend told me about Alberta Williams King, my first reaction was “who?” This question was followed by a wave of shame. It was the same feeling I had a few years ago when I first heard about Fannie Lou Hamer. Then later came Ida B. Wells and other leaders who seemed to appear in the discussion of American history to my confused, uninformed silence. I started to suspect that I had half an education and that I had been leaving out the role of women and feminism in Black History.

I thought I was fairly well-versed in African-American history. My parents filled our shelves with the core curriculum: Up From Slavery, Letters from a Birmingham Jail, Native Son, Black Boy, Go Tell it On the Mountain, Soul on Ice, The Miseducation of the Negro, Before Columbus, and many more pieces of literature and non-fiction. I immersed myself in books, hagiography, essays, videos, encyclopedias. My extracurricular studies came from an authentic curiosity (instead of dutiful obligation) to know more about my family. Black females held the role of poetry and song: Phillis Wheatley, Maya Angelou, Gwendolyn Brooks, Nikki Giovanni, Sapphire. But as far as activism and leadership, the ranks were all-male.

“Well, we don’t study it that much because there’s no such thing.” As South Florida child attending privileged white schools, I heard this answer a lot in response to request for getting more out of February. Usually I was the only black face in the honors classes and would be the lone petitioner. By the time I was in middle school, the atmospheric ignorance didn’t invoke anger in me. Instead I became curious as to who else did not “have a history.”

more
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/mlk-mother-was-assassinated-forgotten-women-black-history-month

[hlthe2b]

1. I had no idea either... and while I appreciate the point of the article and quite agree...

I STILL don't know much about her or anything about what happened. It is like the author dropped a bombshell--only to immediately move on with an "oh, well".

I find that kind of writing/journalism simply infuriating.

Still, I will go and seek more information...

[samsingh]

2. i never knew that.

wonderful lady.

[Scuba]

3. I'm not surprised that I did not know this. The so-called "liberal media" disappoints again.

[kiva]

4. More info:

From the archive, 1 July 1974: Martin Luther King's mother slain in church

The 70-year-old mother of the late Rev Martin Luther King, the civil rights leader who was assassinated six years ago, was herself shot and killed today as she played the organ for morning service in the Ebenezer Baptist Church in the centre of Atlanta, Georgia.

Her assailant, a young black man, who eye-witnesses said "went berserk," and who was later reported to have said that "all Christians" were his enemies, was held by members of the church choir after he had wounded two other members of the congregation, one of them fatally.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/01/martin-luther-kings-mother-slain-in-church-1974

[MADem]

7. She was not the original target--her husband was.

The perpetrator was sentenced to death, the sentence was converted to life, but he died following a stroke. From NYT:


http://www.nytimes.com/1995/08/22/obituaries/m-w-chenault-44-gunman-who-killed-mother-of-dr-king.html

Marcus Wayne Chenault Jr., who killed the mother of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at a Sunday service in Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta in 1974, died on Saturday at a hospital in the Atlanta suburb of Riverdale. He was 44.

Mr. Chenault was serving a life sentence at the state prison in Jackson, Ga., when he suffered a stroke on Aug. 3. He never regained consciousness, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Within weeks of the slaying of Mrs. King and a 69-year-old church deacon, Edward Boykin, on June 30, 1974, Mr. Chenault was tried, convicted and sentenced to die in the electric chair. He said he had acted out of hatred for Christianity and because his god had told him to. His lawyers said he was insane. ... At his arraignment, Mr. Chenault told a magistrate that he had come to Atlanta "on a mission," and said he decided months earlier that black ministers were a menace to black people and must be killed.

He also told the police that his mission was to kill the Rev. Martin Luther King Sr., but he shot Mrs. King instead because she was close to him. Their son Dr. King, the civil rights leader, was assassinated by an escaped convict, James Earl Ray, in Memphis on April 4, 1968.

[jwirr]

5. I did not know this either. I did know about the attack on the church but never the names. I knew

about the attack because I was watching the news in that era. I do not remember one news cast that named the names of the dead.

[demmiblue]

6. K&R

[MadDAsHell]

8. It doesn't have anything to do with ignoring "black history." It has to do with the fact that...

she was killed by a young black man, and same-race crime isn't nearly sensational enough for the vultures in the media. Thus, forgotten to history by many.

Also, this was 1974, not 1973.

[stevenleser]

9. The Fannie Lou Hamer story always gets me particularly upset.

As wikipedia notes: " Without her knowledge or consent, she was sterilized in 1961 by a white doctor as a part of the state of Mississippi's plan to reduce the number of poor blacks in the state"