NINA SIMONE: No freak tragedy.
...I drove to Westbury, Long Island, to prepare for a show. I arrived at the rehearsal room and found guys standing around stunned or huddled over the TV in the corner. It was 4 April 1968, and Dr. Martin Luther King Junior had been murdered in Memphis.
Fresh rioting started almost immediately and the next day thirty-eight protestors died or were murdered. Twenty thousand people were arrested.
It was like the early days in the south all over again—full jails and no one with any idea what to do about it. For a while people walked around in a kind of daze and I wept along with them, but I couldn't understand why they were surprised by Martin's assassination: we'd already lost Malcolm [X], Medgar Evers, Emmett Till and hundreds, thousands of others down through history. What happened on 4 April was no freak tragedy, it was the traditional white American tactic for getting rid of the black leaders it couldn't suppress in any other way. A desperate act by a country with nowhere to hide any more.
---from I Put A Spell On You: The Autobiography, by Nina Simone with Stephen Cleary (Ebury Press, 1991)
DAVID SUZUKI: Not a time for Canadian smugness.
On April 4, 1968, American civil-rights leader Martin Luther King was assassinated, and students at ubc [University of British Columbia] organized a rally on the steps of the library to express our sorrow. I was an associate professor and spoke out, telling British Columbians that this was a time for us not to smugly reaffirm our sense of superiority over Americans but to reexamine our own society. I reminded them of the incarceration of Japanese Canadians during Word War II, the treatment of Native people, and the fact that Asians and blacks were not allowed to vote in B.C. until the 1960s. The Vancouver Sun wrote a scathing editorial that chastised me for opening old wounds, for raising issues that were not relevant on the occasion of a King memorial.
---from David Suzuki: The Autobiography (Douglas & McIntyre, 2006)
MARY WILSON: Channeling grief and anger
We [the Supremes] were playing the Copa on April 4 when we learned that Dr. Martin Luther King had been assassinated in Memphis. Like so many Americans, we were stunned. We canceled our show, and the next night appeared on The Tonight Show, where we talked about Dr. King. Many performers were going on radio and television to pay tribute to Dr. King and to do whatever they could to inspire people to channel their grief and anger into something positive. This evening we performed "Somewhere," which had long been in our repertoire, substituting for the "love" monologue a short, dramatic speech about unity…Unfortunately, of this type couldn't quell the violent riots that broke out in several major cities, including Detroit. Dr. King was a man of peace, and it saddened us to see his death used as an excuse for rioting and looting. (New York)
ANDREW YOUNG: In the motel parking lot.
…Martin had told us we were all invited to a soul food dinner at the home of Rev. Billy Kyles, an old friend and a long-time supporter of the movement in Memphis. Within a few minutes, Kyles would be there [at the Lorraine Motel] to pick us up.
It was then almost six o'clock…James Orange and I got into a shadowboxing match in the lot. It was something we did all the time, like pillow fighting…I realized it had suddenly become cooler, the wind had picked up. Someone told Martin he should go back and get a coat. I wasn't paying much attention to Martin, but from the sound of his voice, he seemed to be in an exuberant mood.
Suddenly we heard what sounded like a car backfiring or a firecracker. I looked across from then motel to see what might have caused the noise, then I glanced quickly up to the balcony where Martin had been standing at the railing. He was no longer standing. I could see from where I was that he had fallen down, fallen back. I remember that for a moment I thought he was still clowning; he had been in such a playful mood. But he wasn't moving. I leaped up the balcony stairs. …
As soon as I reached Martin I could see he had been shot. A bullet had literally exploded into the right side of his chin. His chin bone had been ripped away as though severed by a knife. He was bleeding profusely; there was a huge pool of blood underneath his head. All this took place within the space of no more than half a minute.
…….
I knew when I first reached Martin and saw the severity of the wound and the amount of bleeding and looked into his eyes that he would not survive.
---from An Easy Burden: The Civil Rights Movement and the Transformation of America, by Andrew Young (HarperCollins, 1996)
Compiled byToronto editor Dana Cook.
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OTHER NOTABLES REMEMBER APRIL 4, 1968:
Angela Davis, Hillary Clinton, Barbara Bush, Dizzy Gillespie, Rosemary Clooney
Anita Hill, Larry Hagman, Billy Graham, Michael Jackson and Roy Jenkins.
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
Hank Aaron, Ralph Abernathy, Joan Baez, Ben Bradlee and James Brown
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