BILLY GRAHAM: Prayer on the golf course.
I was in Australia for a series of Crusades, and one day I was just finishing a round of golf when several journalists ran up.
"Dr. Martin Luther King has been shot," they said. "We would like your comments." I was confused at first because I did not know if it was the father (who had the same name) or the son, and they did not know either. Then I realized it must be Martin Jr., and I was almost in a state of shock. Not only was I losing a friend through a vicious and senseless killing, but America was losing a social leader and a prophet, and I felt his death would be one of the greatest tragedies in our history. There on the golf course I had all the journalists and the others gathered around, and we bowed in prayer for Dr. King's family, for the United States, and for the healing of the racial divisions of our world. I immediately looked into canceling my schedule and returning for the funeral, but it was impossible because of the great distance. (Sydney)
---from Just As I Am: The Autobiography of Billy Graham, by Billy Graham (HarperCollins, 1997)
LARRY HAGMAN: More racial hatred.
The Vietnam War was going on and I was unpopularly against it...there were daily demonstrations at what was seen by many as a racist war conducted by a country that thought it was superior to the "yellow people." Then Martin Luther King was assassinated, and that tragic event brought home yet another instance of racial hatred. I was watching television in our little house on West Channel Road, when the bulletin came on saying he'd been assassinated.
I burst into tears. Maj [wife Axelsson] cried too. I thought we'd been making progress, but looking back, I was naive. ... (Santa Monica, Ca.)
---from Hello Darlin': Tall (and Absolutely True) Tales About My Life, by Larry Hagman with Todd Gold (Simon & Schuster, 2001)
ANITA HILL: Predictable.
Those of us living in rural areas of Oklahoma watched the [civil rights] movement on television and read about it in the newspapers. As a family we watched and waited in silence, though each member, I suspect, wondered how our lives would be changed by what we saw and heard about…In April 1968, as we ate our dinner on a balmy evening, reports of Dr. Martin Luther King's death came on the nightly news. My father spoke of it in knowing terms. It was "predictable," he declared, given the intense hatred King's denouncement of segregation had brought. My mother agreed.
We did not customarily talk of politics at home, and though this tragic event provided a rare opportunity, we did not speak of politics then, either. Nor did we speak of the assassination at all the following day at school. … (Lone Tree, Okla.)
---from Speaking Truth to Power, by Anita Hill (Doubleday, 1997)
MICHAEL JACKSON: Uncontrollable grief.
…I remember so well the day he died. Everyone was torn up. We [the Jackson Five] didn't rehearse that night. I went to Kingdom Hall with Mom and some of the others. People were crying like they had lost a member of their own family. Even the men who were usually pretty unemotional were unable to control their grief. I was too young [age 9] to grasp the full tragedy of the situation, but when I look back on that day now, it makes me want to cry—for Dr. King, for his family, and for all of us. (Detroit)
---from Moon Walk, by Michael Jackson (Doubleday, 1988)
ROY JENKINS: Escaping a sacked city.
The planned purpose of my American visit was to strengthen my relations with the twin heads of the official financial establishment, Secretary of the Treasury [Joseph] Fowler and Chairman of the Federal Reserve System [William McChesney] Martin, to call on the President…and a Chamber of Commerce luncheon in Boston…
…I had a successful lunch in the Treasury with Joe Fowler…and a long talk with Martin at the end of a British Embassy dinner that evening…
Late that afternoon Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis. We got the news at about 7:15 p.m., and were almost immediately aware that this was a traumatic event for a United States which was deeply divided by the Vietnam War. We were protected that night by the seclusion of the Lutyens compound [the British Embassy, designed by architect Sir Edward Lutyens] on Massachusetts Avenue from seeing the blazing pyres of more easterly parts of Washington, but when we flew out to Boston early the next morning there was a sense of escaping from a city which lay sacked and riot-bound under menacing palls of smoke.
---from A Life at the Centre, by Roy Jenkins (Macmillan, 1991)
Compiled by Toronto editor Dana Cook.
OTHER NOTABLES REMEMBER APRIL 4, 1968:
Hank Aaron, Ralph Abernathy, Joan Baez, Ben Bradlee and James Brown.
Coretta Scott King, Vernon Jordan, Miriam Makeba, Peggy Noonan, Robert Novak and Frank Rich
Philip Roth, Tim Russert, Cybill Shepherd, Al Sharpton, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
Nina Simone, David Suzuki, Mary Wilson and Andrew Young
Angela Davis, Hillary Clinton, Barbara Bush, Dizzy Gillespie, Rosemary Clooney