Martin Luther King Jr. Assassinated
http://history1900s.about.com/cs/martinlutherking/a/mlkassass.htm
At 6:01 p.m. on April 4, 1968, King was fatally shot at the
Lorraine Motel
Martin Luther King's Last Speech: "I Have Been To The
Mountaintop"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oehry1JC9Rk
An excerpt from the last speech given by Rev. Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr. He was assassinated in Memphis,
Tennessee the next day on April
4, 1968.
April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King Jr. Assassinated
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pi6NeuFr5Us
Statement on the Death of Martin Luther King, Jr., April 4,
1968
http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/H0SE-5I0kUyRrXmWyQRsIw.aspx
Senator Robert F. Kennedy announces the news of the
assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. to listeners during a Presidential
campaign speech in Indianapolis,
Indiana, April 4, 1968.
Senator Robert F. Kennedy
Indianapolis,
Indiana
April 4, 1968
Listen to this speech.
I have bad news for you, for all of our fellow citizens, and
people who love peace all over the world, and that is that Martin Luther King
was shot and killed tonight.
Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice
for his fellow human beings, and he died because of that effort.
In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States,
it is perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we
want to move in. For those of you who are black--considering the evidence there
evidently is that there were white people who were responsible--you can be
filled with bitterness, with hatred, and a desire for revenge. We can move in that
direction as a country, in great polarization--black people amongst black,
white people amongst white, filled with hatred toward one another.
Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to
understand and to comprehend, and to replace that violence, that stain of
bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand with
compassion and love.
For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled
with hatred and distrust at the injustice of such an act, against all white
people, I can only say that I feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I
had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man. But we have
to make an effort in the United
States, we have to make an effort to
understand, to go beyond these rather difficult times.
My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He wrote: "In our
sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our
own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of
God."
What we need in the United States is not division; what we
need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is
not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one
another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our
country, whether they be white or they be black.
So I shall ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer
for the family of Martin Luther King, that's true, but more importantly to say
a prayer for our own country, which all of us love--a prayer for understanding
and that compassion of which I spoke.
We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times;
we've had difficult times in the past; we will have difficult times in the
future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; it is
not the end of disorder.
But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority
of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the
quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings who abide in our
land.
Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many
years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this
world.
Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our
country and for our people.
Robert Kennedy's Speech on April 4th 1968
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPIj3LrNKss
5 April 1968 Robert Kennedy day after Martin L King, Jr died
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hO7m2P3gW4
Dr. King's Funeral Service
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQbLW9mDdbI
Funeral & Memorial Services
http://www.cpl.org/BooksMoviesMore/OnlineExhibitHall/RememberingDrMartinLutherKingJr/FuneralMemorialServices.aspx