Just published photos show MLK killing aftermath

[EFerrari]

Just published photos show MLK killing aftermath
By WALTER PUTNAM, Associated Press Writer
Fri Apr 3, 12:58 am ET

ATLANTA – Almost 41 years to the day after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, newly published photographs of the aftermath of his shooting at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn., are on a magazine's Web site.

About a dozen black-and-white pictures published on http://www.life.com Thursday include scenes of King's associates meeting solemnly in the civil rights leader's motel room, standing on the balcony where he stood for the last time, and workers cleaning the last of the blood.

They were taken April 4, 1968, by Life magazine photographer Henry Groskinsky, who was on assignment in Alabama with writer Mike Silva when they learned that King had been shot in Memphis and rushed to the scene.

To their surprise, they had access not just to the motel but to King's room.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090403/ap_on_re_us/mlk_photos

Link to photographs: http://www.life.com/image/51419416/in-gallery/24651

[bliss_eternal]

1. .......................

:cry:

[roguevalley]

16. me too. saw Ruby kill Kennedy's murderer. saw bobby die and this. awful decade

the sixties.

[bliss_eternal]

20. must have been so bizarre....

What I've seen in documentaries and history classes in school, you lived....you saw firsthand. :hug:

I get to relive it in photos, news clips, A&E Biography and the pain I've seen in my elders eyes.

When I was a kid they still taught (intensively) about that era (not what's in usual textbooks). At least if one had a minority teacher (as I did) who felt it was their duty to teach young progressives the history that wasn't in the books. I still recall being given the option to stay home on MLK's birthday--as it wasn't yet a holidy (but Stevie Wonder was working on it ;)).

[Brewman_Jax]

2. Kick

:kick:

[KharmaTrain]

3. The Memories...

I still remember this being on a Thursday. My grandmother and I were watching TV and the first bulliten came on. I can still feel it now like it just happened...and how both stunned and confused we were that night. Also, I recall the next day when a family friend frantically called my father to say how his appliance store had been looted and torched as Chicago's West Side exploded. Those pictures bring those moments and many others of that time like a lazer...even 41 years later.

:kick:

[EFerrari]

9. I don't remember being home from school when the first reports came in.

What I do remember is that evening my grandmother said, "Lo mataron" ("they killed him") as opposed to "he was murdered". One of those photographs is of the place where the sniper stood. You can see the balcony of the motel so clearly, it's just chilling.

On April 4, Bobby had about another 8 weeks left. What a terrible summer that was. Come to think of it, that was the summer my mom's drinking went out of control.

Sixty eight is a strange year in memory because all around it was that funny, loud, colorful pop culture. But that summer, all the color and music drained right out of everything. I don't remember the music that season or the teevee shows or anything.

[bunkerbuster1]

11. I was old enough to think the world was coming apart.

RFK's murder really disturbed me. And then Nixon's election. It was a lot for an elementary school age kid to take in.

[EFerrari]

13. Yes, it sure was. Same here. That was the summer between

6th grade and junior high for me. It wouldn't be too much of an exaggeration to say that my childhood ended that summer even if I was only 12. The world was smaller and more dangerous and the adults didn't seem to be in charge so it was time to stop playing. In a way, I'm glad my brother was too young to really know any of it. He was only 4.

[KharmaTrain]

15. It's Hard To Try To Describe '68

Things were changing quickly and events moved real fast. Remember that Johnson had called a halt to the bombing of No. Vietnam and then did his famous "I will not seek another term" bombshell about a week or so before this. Then there was the primary battle that was starting to heat up between Bobby and Gene McCarthy.

Being in Chicago, the riots are still a big memory for me. The "highlight" was Mayor Richard J. Daley issuing shoot to kill orders for any and all looters and seeing national guard troops marching down city streets. On the national news, flames from fires throughout Washington were visible from the White House. A boss of mine was trapped in a building on the West Side, trying to keep their radio station going with hell breaking loose all around them. He ended up holed up in the building for three days until it was safe to come out. Fortunately the building had a restaurant...but being in that battle zone musta been scary as all hell.

When I think of Dr. King's murder, the song "Cry Like A Baby" always plays in my head as well as "Abraham, Martin & John". The word that I always think of when I look back on '68 is "exciting". What's that say?

:hi:

[EFerrari]

22. I do remember when Johnson announced he was out because

Mom was trying to figure out where to land at the time. She always walked at least one precinct and she didn't want to walk for him so she was watching everything really closely.

There was no violence in the Silicon Valley town we lived in because it was segregated. There were no colorful people on our side of town and on "their" side of town, there were only a few black families and a few more Latino families -- I didn't even know all that at the time. San Francisco was an hour away, Oakland a little more than that and we weren't as connected then as we are now by freeways and BART, let alone by 24 hour cable or the net. So all the fires seemed as though they were happening on another planet or something. Mostly, we were just on the floor at our house but in a very quiet, isolated way.

[bliss_eternal]

19. Wow--the same in many languages....

So interesting. To this day, when discussing the incidents of that year with those I consider my elders, I almost always hear,"...they killed him..." or "...they killed them..." (i.e. John, King and Bobby).

:(

[Blue_Tires]

4. kick

powerful stuff...

[a kennedy]

5. kick

[Lerkfish]

6. the cynic in me asks why this is happening NOW

why are these photos coming to light AFTER we have an african american president, when they didn't come to light for 41 years?

things that make you go "hmmmmm"

[EFerrari]

10. Tomorrow is anniversary #41.

[Lerkfish]

12. so?

was not anniversary 25, 30, 35, 40 not a more appropriate anniversary, if that were the reason?

why now is not really addressed by the anniversary.

[EFerrari]

14. The photographer seems to think his shots were found by accident

when Life put up the new site and people when through the archives to look for content. It's remarkable that none of the ones he took were ever published before. He has to be at least in his 60s. It's good that he lived to see them published.

[bliss_eternal]

17. He's 75...

...according to this page:

http://www.life.com/image/85754977/in-gallery/24651

:hi:

[Judi Lynn]

7. Thank you. n/t

[EFerrari]

8. Kick

[bridgit]

18. ^

:kick:

[OneBlueSky]

21. I was five years out of high school and had no idea what I wanted to do with my life . . .

it was 1969 and I was living at home with the folks . . . split my time between evening classes at the local CC and full-time work as a bank teller (crappy job, no offense) . . .

that particular night I drove to school with the radio off . . . class was just about to begin as I walked in and heard the insructor say something about an optional after-class discussion about the shooting of Dr. King in Memphis . . .

Say, WHAT????" (thinking to myself) . . .

after class, I cornered him and asked if he'd really said what I thought he'd said . . . he confirmed the news, and my jaw and stomach dropped simultaneously . . .

"So what's happening in the cities?" I asked . . . (for those too young to remember, portions of large American cities were being trashed and burned regularly in 1969) . . .

"Why, they're rioting," he answered -- with a kind of sadness I've never experienced or forgotten . . .