General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsApril 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.
50 Shades Of Blue
(10,713 posts)H2O Man
(74,937 posts)I had been checking DU frequently today, hoping that someone would post something honoring Dr. King. More than any time since 1968, people in this country need to open their minds to his powerful message.
LenaBaby61
(6,991 posts)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.
llmart
(16,206 posts)It's very well written; so well that I was just sitting here imagining you having that seared into your memory. I was 18 and I'll never forget how empty I felt inside.
LenaBaby61
(6,991 posts)electric_blue68
(17,046 posts)To feel in this case the horrific wafts of History that your parents as young teens knew people who had been actual slaves. Almost surreal!
LenaBaby61
(6,991 posts)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
electric_blue68
(17,046 posts)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. 👋
50 Shades Of Blue
(10,713 posts)Hearing about such traumatic experiences from the actual victims of slavery must be unutterably intense... especially while being forced to endure the racism and bigotry that existed and still exist in this ever hypocritical society of ours. I am so sorry for your nightmares. Slavery is a stain that will forever tarnish the U.S.
I was at home when I heard the news about Martin Luther King, Jr., that night. Talk about shocked and horrified. I went to a small Catholic high school in DC where the study body was probably 50% African-American and 50% white (which I am). Martin Luther King, Jr., was a hero to the whole school. Students from all over DC and its suburbs attended, and agitation was already growing, so school was shut down until after Easter, which was the next Sunday.
LenaBaby61
(6,991 posts)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
50 Shades Of Blue
(10,713 posts)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!
FakeNoose
(35,048 posts)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.
electric_blue68
(17,046 posts)Ballroom back then.
I was almost 12, and took my cues from my mom who
was upset it had happened.
And those other days: 10 for JFK, and 15 for MLK & RFK.
Hekate
(93,817 posts)I appreciate that!
And I have doubts about a public that forgets this tragic anniversary in our nation's history. Democrats need to study Dr. King.
Docreed2003
(17,538 posts)Glad to se you posting btw!
H2O Man
(74,937 posts)rateyes
(17,451 posts)Yes, Im 62 today. I will never forget hearing this news. I lived in TN. My Uncle was in the TN National Guard, and was sent to Memphis to help keep the peace that day, and in the days to follow. Just a few months later, Bobby Kennedy was assassinated. Horrible year that changed the world in the worst way.
I'll never forget it.
rateyes
(17,451 posts)Danmel
(5,144 posts)H2O Man
(74,937 posts)I remember 1968 as the year than the generation gap widened. I had relatives who were convinced that King was a tool of the communists who might invade the US if we didn't hold the line in Vietnam. A gentle, non-violent man scared them.
electric_blue68
(17,046 posts)PlanetBev
(4,165 posts)Hard to believe 54 years have passed. 1968 was a memorable year, but not for happy outcomes.
H2O Man
(74,937 posts)It was perhaps the single strangest year in this country's history.
The only positive I remember in '68 was the release of a great single, then double-album, by the Beatles.
electric_blue68
(17,046 posts)The reason I remember this was because near the (or at) the end of the ep of ?The Smothers Brothers Show at the end of Dec they ran a Montage of 1968 images
ending with first - the image of the Whole Earth (from that mission), changing to the Peace Sign, and then fade to black.
From NASA history:
"21-27 Dec. 1968 On 21 Dec. 1968, Apollo 8 took off atop a Saturn V booster from the Kennedy Space Center with three astronauts aboard-Frank Borman, James A. Lovell, Jr., and William A. Anders-for a historic mission to orbit the Moon. At first it was planned as a mission to test Apollo hardware in the relatively safe confines of low Earth orbit, but senior engineer George M. Low of the Manned Spacecraft Center at Houston, Texas (renamed the Johnson Space Center in 1973), and Samuel C. Phillips, Apollo Program Manager at NASA headquarters, pressed for approval to make it a circumlunar flight. The advantages of this could be important, both in technical and scientific knowledge gained as well as in a public demonstration of what the U.S. could achieve. In the summer of 1968 Low broached the idea to Phillips, who then carried it to the administrator, and in Nov. the agency reconfigured the mission for a lunar trip. After Apollo 8 made one and a half Earth orbits its third stage began a burn to put the spacecraft on a lunar trajectory. As it traveled outward the crew focused a portable television camera on Earth and for the first time humanity saw its home from afar, a tiny, lovely, and fragile "blue marble" hanging in the blackness of space. When it arrived at the Moon on Christmas Eve this image of Earth was even more strongly reinforced when the crew sent images of the planet back while reading the first part of the Bible-"God created the heavens and the Earth, and the Earth was without form and void"-before sending Christmas greetings to humanity. The next day they fired the boosters for a return flight and "splashed down" in the Pacific Ocean on 27 Dec. It was an enormously significant accomplishment coming at a time when American society was in crisis over Vietnam, race relations, urban problems, and a host of other difficulties. And if only for a few moments the nation united as one to focus on this epochal event. Two more Apollo missions occurred before the climax of the program, but they did little more than confirm that the time had come for a lunar landing."
Norbert
(6,377 posts)H2O Man
(74,937 posts)Thank you for posting it.
electric_blue68
(17,046 posts)At first I just noted the date.
Then it was like' Ohhh, Aprll 4th(!), and the song lyrics popped up.
RickHworth
(129 posts)I was only 6 years old and living in Washington D.C.
I remember this night very well as I still vividly remember the fires and rioting. Later, seeing a deuce and a half roll down our street carrying GI Joes, posting in the parking lot of the now looted Safeway and burned-out Peoples Drug store, that at the bottom of the hill.
Everything changed that night, my mixed neighborhood, the corner store that had fresh produce that was burnt out and never came back, and the overall sense of grief, that never went away.
Because of a man standing up for workers that wanted equal treatment and a safer work environment.
H2O Man
(74,937 posts)I had four older siblings, and remember listening to them, then repeating their words the next day in school. My oldest brother was a professional boxer who my friends looked up to, so they were interested in what he was saying.