Nina Simone
performing Gene Taylor's
Why? (The King of Love is Dead)
Les McCann & Eddie Harris
performing Gene McDaniels'
"Compared to What?"
"All we say to America is be true to what you said on paper."
Dr. King, April 3, 1968, in his final public speech, "I've Been to the Mountaintop," the night before he was assassinated.
This week, we mark fifty-five years since the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King with a panel discussion about what led up to that moment, what happened afterward, and, as always, where do we go from here.
Where were you when? What did it mean in your life, what was its effect on American society, and what does it mean for us now – 50 years later? With us on the show today are three guests who experienced that time and lived to tell the tale.
This tribute first aired on the 50th anniversary of Dr. King's assassination.
Amid unrelenting criticism and death threats, Dr. Martin Luther King delivered his landmark antiwar speech, Beyond Vietnam at the Riverside Church in New York City (pictured here) on April 4, 1967. One year to the day later he was assassinated.
Also heard on the show: a clip from his I've Been to the Mountaintop speech delivered on April 3, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee where he had gone in support of striking garbage workers, He was murdered the following day.
For more information about these speeches, visit The Martin Luther King, Jr.. Research and Education Instituteat Stanford University which houses the King Papers Project.
For students, teachers, and homeschoolers: The King Institute's Liberation Curriculum provides document-based lessons, online educational resources, and historical materials on the modern African American Freedom Struggle and King's vision of a just and peaceful world.
© Janus Adams LLC 2023
Music on this week's show:
On April 5, 1976, Ted Landsmark -- then, attorney for Black construction firms seeking their fair share of city contracts -- was crossing Boston City Hall plaza en route to a meeting with the mayor and unaware of a demonstration brewing on the steps. Supporters of antibusing proponent Louise Day Hicks yelled, "Get the nigger! Kill him!" and lunged after him. He was grabbed from behind, his arms were pinned, and he was speared with the American flag to which the crowd had just pledged its allegiance. The candid photo, "The Soiling of Old Glory," later won a Pulitzer Prize for its photographer, Stanley Forman of the Boston Herald American.
source: Janus Adams, Glory Days: 365 Inspired Moments in African-American History [HarperCollins, 1995]
Hear the full show:
Heard on the show:
Dr. Irma McClaurin, PhD in Raleigh, NC
Past president of Shaw University, award-winning author, activist anthropologist, and diversity strategist. IrmaMcClaurin.com
Dr. Ted Landsmark, PhD in Boston
Director, The Kitty and Michael Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy at Northeastern University. President Emeritus of the Boston Architectural College. Northeastern.edu/DukakisCenter
W. Mark Colvson, in New Paltz
Dean, Sojourner Truth Library at the State University of New York at New Paltz. Library.NewPaltz.edu