April 4, 1968
The above film is of the speech Dr. King gave the night before he was murdered. This is something that I meditate on each year. I think it is especially important at this time in our nation's history.
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When I think back to this time in my life, I remember being in Catholic School, and we were getting ready to go home @ 3:30 pm. Our principal, Sister Mary of Lourdes came on the intercom crying. We couldn't understand why. We heard some of the Nuns wailing in the hall. Anyway, Sister stop crying then said we were to assemble onto the yard. K-8th grade. Our Janitor Javier was sitting by his trash can sobbing. He couldn't speak english well, so he shook his head and hugged us kids. One of the kids in our group translated for us, and he told us Javier said "A great man of God has died. Our hope is gone." I'll never forget that. We loved Javier. He used to give us candies daily, and made sure to not litter because "Javier just cleaned up." Some nuns had torn the knees of their stockings, some of them had their cornette's slipped off their heads as they were holding each other. One Lay teachers from Poland was kneeling, sobbing/praying with her Rosary. We all stood there about 10 minutes. One of the kids said something bad's happened--we were going home. She said "Children, Dr. Martin Luther King has been shot and killed in Memphis Tennessee." The older kids started crying, the Kindergartners didn't really understand, and even though I was in 2nd grade I understood. I took off my sweater, put it on the ground, sitting in shock crying. The Nuns didn't even pray, that's how shell shocked they were. We'd just drawn pictures of Dr. King in art class 2 weeks before. About 2 months later, I asked how sister knew Dr. King was killed since the time was different that day. She told me to not tell anyone (Yeah me as a 7 year old, telling), and that her male cousin's, wife's sister was a nurse @ St. Joseph's Hospital where Dr. King passed, and she sneeked away to phone the family, and Sister's cousin called Sister Mary of Lourdes).
Dad was working in South Gate California (GM), Mom was a nurse at work. A friend of my late Mom's (whose 96 and still alive) lived near the school came & took custody of us 3 kids (2 were her sons), walked us to her house sobbing. Walking through the streets 2 blocks away, we saw people starting to gather huddled on the corners in silence sobbing. You could hear a pin drop, even though outdoors. Mom's friend turned her large Curtis Mathis color tv when we got home and we saw the happenings on television. My Dad was not a very emotive person as far as death was concerned, as he was Native American, and he came to pick me up after his shift. He was crying in silence, and he hugged me, and cried in silence until we got home. Mom was too nervous to drive and was sitting on the couch sobbing and shaking at home. Dad hugged us both as we all sat on the couch, listening to the news crying. Our neighbors knocked on everybody's doors crying. Months later, I can remember Mom waking me up out of a dead sleep crying again telling me that night "Bobby Kennedy was shot."
Dad was helping fix a friends car late that night, but I remember him coming through the door. Mom requested a day off and got it, Dad went to work at GM. Me/Mom sat together the whole day, me asking Mom "Did Mr. Kennedy get murdered for the same reasons Dr. King was murdered?" She cried of course.
I'm happy I wasn't an adult having to endure what my late parents endured during their lifetimes: Jim Crow, lynchings, World War 2 where my late Mom was a Rosie the Riveter from Sept. of 1943 until fall 1944 in Detroit, Michigan, and although working for our country, she was of course a victim of racism, as were many other young black young ladies at the plant 
There was very little to NO civil rights/justice, both suffering through racism DAILY, both knowing actual slaves as young teens, and those slaves telling them about their inhumane treatment AS slaves. One of those slaves had to stand outside--being held back by other slaves hearing his wife's bone-chilling screams as she was raped by their owner many a time. This slave's wife & children (One child came from a rape) was sold at some point. This slave never saw them again. One other slave never saw his wife after 1 week of marriage. He pleaded on his knees, crying to the slave master to keep her, but no the inhumane son of a bitch sold her and laughed about it he told my Dad. I still have nightmares occasionally at 60 about what my parents told me the slaves told them about their existence--they didn't live a life. They just existed.
Or about the things both fought through just to live. Growing up during the Depression, WWll, and all of the other things I spoke of in my post. As we know, there were I still have 3 skirts of my late Mom's that were made out of the Flour sacks they got each month when they got their monthly rations. My late grandmother made Mom what they called 'stick' or 'broom' skirts out those flour sacks. Grandmother cut the cloth sacks (no pattern), then she hand-sewed those skirts since she had no sewing machine or access to one. These skirts have faded in color a bit (The patterns/colors of those bags was so pretty), but have withstood the test of times I must say.
Thanks for the Thank you. Have a great rest of the week and a super weekend 
Your parents had to endure the extra privations of the racism of those times, along with everything else.
(and then [and along w you if they were still alive] Trump turning over rocks and letting the more virulent forms emerge more again)
So your mom worked in a factory during WWII? Did she tell you what she did?
Back then first my mom was a young dress designer and seamstres. She either won third place, ot honorable mention in a - "design nice, but sturdy clothes for women working in the factories, or on the farm" Contest held by the 3 big newspapers back then in NYC.
I think my sis saved the clippings which we think we never knew about until my sis found them going through our mom's things.
Then also bc of drawing skills learbed at the dressmaking school she ended up being head draftsman (woman) at Hughes Aircraft in California, and checked off on all the draftsmen's work! We didn't know she was the head of that division untill our cousin told us (learned from his dad one of her brothers).
And back to Dr King (I have a "Poor People's March" button bought for fundraising) - he must be smiling some where for today's historic confirmation of
Judge Kentaji Brown Jackson's SC nomination!
(We need ALL the good news we can get! 👍
Enjoy your upcoming weekend. 👋
I was a younger, but I knew who Dr. King was, as my late parents bought several books and had a few magazines that they read to me about who Dr. King was. The Archdiocese closed down our school K-8, and the all girls Catholic School grades 9-12 across the street until the following Monday, and then we had mass on Tuesday. Everybody in attendance was crying and still in shock. In many ways even at 60 I'm still in 'shock.' Shock in that I wonder what our lives would have been like as a world community throughout the last 60 years if Dr. King & Bobby were allowed to live. When I say allowed, I think you know what I mean. My older siblings who are all deceased now met John and Bobby Kennedy at their Jr. and High schools. They ALL shook hands with both Kennedy brothers and Bobby hugged my late sister. She told me that she still could feel the warmth of his soul and body up until she passed away a few months ago.
I look around at today's events seeing just how dark and dire things are. We're having our rights literally taken from us, where Jim Crow is packaged differently but still very much with us and worsening, and even though we're living through some harsh times (war) as a world community, I can't imagine what on earth it must have been like for my late parents growing living in their world, a world where they had very few to NO rights --struggling to live basic, decent lives as human beings in their own country, and hearing from them both accounts of the lives from real life slaves that each knew. By the way, my Aunt--Mom's younger sister--knew the same slave my late Mom knew when they lived in Louisiana when young. She's in her late 80's, sharp as a tack and I plan to start recording her memories of the slave she/Mom knew. I spoke with my cousin who my Aunt/her Mom lives with, and she said her Mom was really crying knowing that Judge Jackson would be taking her place on the High Court. My cousin said my Aunt's been pretty quiet today, no doubt thinking back 80 years to what she'd been through all those years ago even as a child growng up when we were still barely treated like human beings.
Hey, you have a great rest of your week and weekend
I just watched President Biden standing between Justice Kejani Brown Jackson and Vice President Kamala Harris and I cried tears of joy. It was too long a time coming but it finally did. If there is an afterlife where our ancestors can keep tabs on us, I hope those former slaves your family members knew, and your late family too, were looking down and smiling too.
It's amazing that your siblings met JFK and RFK! The closest I ever came was standing with my family along Constitution Ave. when Bobby's funeral procession drove past on the way to Arlington National Cemetery across the river... and we tried to pay our respects to JFK lying in state in the Rotunda, but the crowd got too large and the part we were in got cut off so we weren't able to go in.
You have a great weekend too!
I was in high school in 1968 and I remember this very well. It was a horrible night. I believe it was a Thursday night, and school was cancelled the next day. It's one of those things we can never forget.
The deaths of JFK and RFK also are in that category: I'll never forget those days either.
It is something that I'll never forget. And, exactly as you note, that era included the murders of JFK and RFK. I'd add Malcolm X to that list. As beautiful as that era was, it was tragic.
If I remember correctly, the Beatles' single "Hey Jude" (backed with "Revolution" was released in the US two days before the Democratic National Convention. What a strange year that was.
