King's Last March

in honor of tomorrow's martin luther king jr day to days kate pierre presents features king's last march a radio documentary from american radioworks american public media's is an american radioworks documentary for decades after martin luther king jr was assassinated he remains of vivid symbol of hope for racial unity in america but that's not the way he was viewed in the last year of his life and stephen smith over the coming hour king's last march produced in cooperation with the martin luther king jr research and education institute at stanford university this is riverside church in new york city it's a classic gothic cathedral with light spilling down from stained glass windows and waited arches reaching up into a vaulted ceiling it's a

formal elegant place it was here at riverside church for decades ago that the reverend martin luther king jr gave one of the most radical and controversial speeches of his life he called for an end to the vietnam war it these words plays king well to the left of the american mainstream of the time the anti war movement was just gathering steam most americans still supported fighting on to victory king spoke here at riverside church on april fourth nineteen sixty seven exactly one year later he was assassinated you're listening to king's last march an american

radioworks documentary from american public media and stephen smith now if the somber sounding martin luther king spoke at riverside church isn't the towering order you're used to hearing stay with me in the last year of his life he was in many ways not the figure that both his followers and his opponents have come to know he could still thunder from the pulpit for sure but his message through more challenging and more pessimistic back in nineteen sixty three things stirred the nation with his i have a dream speech from the steps of the lincoln memorial in nineteen sixty seven he lamented what had become of that tree and then in nineteen sixty three about migraine problem and i think that's going to seem promising when i was in

vietnam one percent of the population here we are going into an indian all over the coming hours we'll trace the final year of king's life it was a time when a hostile us government spied on carrying a neglected to warn him about death threats being made against at a time when cain followed his moral compass to an increasingly isolated and lonely place in a time when his deep convictions about nonviolence and the need to help poor people led him to say things that many americans how threatening the king said being morally wise sometimes meant being politically unwise and that was the

point there were a lot of hard questions facing america nineteen sixty seven the country was beginning to feel the rumblings of a cultural earthquake anti war movement's social justice movements counterculture movement they were all converging to assault the status quo or power that flower you were playing with the enemy all right it's been said the past few months the health show

in the spring of nineteen sixty seven more than four hundred thousand us troops were stationed in vietnam at least a hundred american soldiers were dying each week income i wish i could report to you that the conflict is almost all that i cannot do we face more caution more often and more president lyndon johnson had been escalating us involvement in vietnam since nineteen sixty five martin luther king had always opposed the war but he'd been careful not to criticize it too sharply because johnson had been a crucial ally on civil rights and on efforts to fight poverty because johnson poured more troops into vietnam king felt compelled to speak out in claims

martin luther king's speeches against the vietnam war truce with public reaction much of a daily newspaper editorials chastised him for stepping outside his field of expertise civil rights remember nineteen sixty seven public opinion had not yet turned against the vietnam war historian michael honey wrote a book about kings last year of life called going down jericho road the new york times for instance for tree called him a traitor saying he had undercut his usefulness to his people in his country by making that speech so he was roundly condemned and within the black community to by many black leaders were the things that people are concerned about was that my visiting was taken away from the domestic issues that take a stand against the at mammon getting involved in the quote peace movement bernard lafayette worked closely with king at the civil rights organization king led the southern christian leadership conference the

sclc but mrs king came to low the conclusion that you can that rarely get our country to focus on domestic issues as long as the imam was captioned headlamps and that's why we're resources the land and people caught up in the war we spend approximately five hundred thousand dollars to kill every intimate soldier in vietnam we spend only fifty three dollars per person and that so called war against poverty in spring of sixty seven king spoke on a radio chat show in new york if we can spend an approximately thirty five billion dollars to fight back in seven and just to consider the war in vietnam and about twenty billion dollars to put a man on the moon then our nation has the resources to spend billions of dollars to put god's children on their own two feet right here in america king came to another crucial conclusion as one who urged non

violence at home he could not remain silent about american aggression abroad some of king's staffers at the sclc doubted his decision to speak against the government in the war dorothy cotton directed educational programs for the organization she says king was pained by the criticism he got less than this plus sam on into a kind of reflective mode to really think about his own commitment not a way doubting it but is he if you doubted it he came out of it say and this is a direct quote if i am the last long life speaking for nonviolence and then i will do those who say you're also blithely

spaniel theater with four hours of creature that last fall out of the bus oh my when king spoke that fire of truth about vietnam he drew criticism but also admiration especially from people in the blossoming peace movement in may nineteen sixty seven king spoke to a crowd of seven thousand people on the campus of the university of california berkeley in nineteen sixty eight civil rights

whether or not it actually win the nineteen sixty eight election such speculation was deeply threatening to the incumbent democratic president lyndon johnson lbj was furious that king had broken ranks with him over the war king's longtime nemesis fbi director j edgar hoover encouraged the president's anger hoover's fbi began spying on king and the sclc back in nineteen sixty two journalist nick cots wrote a book about lbj and king called judgment days he says the bureau suspected that king and his organization were influenced by communists j edgar hoover was sending johnson virtually a message of the day telling him that

king was a communist that king's personal life was a massey at all kinds of extramarital affairs and up until the riverside speech in april of sixty seven johnson never did anything to a strikeout that came with that speech johnson began to lash out at game but privately never ever do it publicly and he was listening to hoover's poison you're right in this telephone call between hoover and johnson which the president secretly recorded the fbi director passed along intelligence from the agency's wired tapping operation against king hoover said king was expecting racial violence to break out in chicago king's massive fbi file

contains no credible evidence that he was influenced by communists but hoover was a racist and he viewed king's growing activism on both vietnam and poverty as a threat to the government so the fbi continue tapping king's phones putting his house and in many other ways trailing in reporting on caring andrew young said king in his colleagues in the movement knew they were being followed well we checked into hotel we always solo car was with the guys and they were always riding you know two three year old parents' it was not hard to find them quite often we found loads in the hotel rooms and when that will motivate young says they even found microphones hidden in church pulpits working was scheduled to speak i can remember ralph abernathy pulling one out and salute a kid i don't know whether you play and then lyndon johnson's all as a jeer who was all goes well i want a whole warren know that we're going to get the right to vote when you know before a and then he put it on top of the pulpit rather than under the bottom kelly said i

want you to get this blame for years hoover's fbi had been running a smear campaign against king the bureau's circulated reports about communists and cain's campaign and rumors about kings ex wife by nineteen sixty seven about talking to do was try to ignore the threatening cloud of hoover's skullduggery king had much more difficult things on his mind this was in july of sixty seven violence toward black neighborhoods of several american cities including new york new jersey you're writing when you're writing twenty three people were dead more than a thousand were in jail and even bigger ride engulfed detroit weeks later black people in america's inner cities were fed up with poverty and police repression young militant activist seemed to dismiss martin luther king's message of

desperation a warning our community against black people we was that the right to self defense and that no retaliation the tv you all are going to lead to the community law over the summer of sixty seven king's mood darkened as his pessimism about the nation's racial and economic problems grew deeper king had come to a depressing realization the victories of the

few years earlier passage of the civil rights and voting rights act had not done much to make economic conditions better for most african americans in private conversations king despair that he lacked the ideas and the energy to lift america from its dark because he was so tired dorothy cotton spent years working with king of the southern christian leadership conference he was so tired and i mean spirited attack emotionally tired physically tired he had talked about the possibility of taking a sabbatical andrew young says king had been offered a one year pastor at riverside church in new york city i think that was the greatest temptation of his life his conscience would let him he's he saw that as a scapegoat instead of escaping king took on a daunting challenge in the last year of his life he called for a new face to the civil rights movement a campaign to finally wipe out poverty i'm a series of

speeches he said the fight against poverty would be a much harder battle than the movement for racial justice the struggle for economic justice would require far greater sacrifice from white america was a nation he writes about mean that the nation will spend billions of dollars and a lot of those obvious from the problem of economic and political power it's into some people that pain was becoming more radical certainly the fbi thought so it cranked up its smear campaign against king by circulating bogus stories to news organizations about the civil rights leader but historian clayborn carson says king was a more radical he was returning to his ideological roots

person directs the king papers project at stanford university he says king saw himself first and foremost as a minister of the social gospel which meant one has a duty to do justice to the poor to the less fortunate that but that's the consistent message going from the old testament prophets through jesus and into the modern world and what christians hope to bring to that world so nothing could've been more central to his mission as a minister then to launch the poor people's campaign the poor people's campaign was king's audacious plan to lead waves of poor people to washington to set up a shantytown on the national mall to show people in power the faces of the poor this will be no mere one day march in washington or a trip to the nation's capital about suffering and our regular citizens who overstay onto some definite than positive

action is taken to provide jobs and income from the pool was one of these crazy members of the christian community who really took jesus seamlessly historian and activist vincent harding and believed that the way you get close to the device is by getting closer and closer to the most outcast members of the society and that's a hard path but once you've chosen to you know that there's no easy alternative dr king said no demonstrations would initially envoy

educational methods among them the election of numerous tent cities in washington to be occupied by thousands of poor americans you know in the winter of nineteen sixty eight king traveled the country gathering support for the poor peoples campaign he tried to inspire hope and a sense of power in the people who attended his rallies but privately king was

still battling despair because king did suffer king suffered tremendously historian david garrow wrote a book about him called bearing the cross and he suffered almost entirely in private but in some of those sermons pickle his sermons it at his home church seventies or baptist church in atlanta from that last year one can hear one can really hear the degree of of emotional pain and privation that martin luther king is undergoing and because of the political courage and political choices he was willing to make king delivered this sermon at ebenezer one month before he was killed the sermon is called and so still dreams you're

going to be you're welcome and so you have novy it would seem the king was speaking about his own inner battles with certain including his history of adultery but historian clayborn carson says king was also trying to come to terms with the larger struggle between good and evil that he'd been fighting in society

carson says with death threats in the year king was trying to accept that he might not live to see that struggle through once he gets to this this period in nineteen sixty seven nineteen sixty eight he knows what's at stake and he knows it's going to be a very difficult struggle and he knows he may fail ms burke he's been on it are you going to try you're

right i know you're welcome good morning they create in that sermon from

spring of sixty eight martin luther king told his congregation in lebanese are that life is a series of shattered dreams even so he pushed on towards the poor people's campaign in washington but his commitment to society's outcasts led him to make a detour to memphis tennessee you're listening to king's last march a documentary from american radio works in cooperation with the martin luther king jr research and education institute at stanford university right right you can hear extended excerpts from many of the speeches and sermons king gave in the last year of his life at our web site of american radioworks dot org you'll also find slideshows essays and secret documents from king's fbi file all at american radioworks dot org major funding for american radioworks comes from the corporation for public broadcasting king's last march will continue in just a moment from american public media

you're listening to the team's last march on public radio chris thank you this is king's last march an american radioworks documentary from american public media and stephen smith in

spring nineteen sixty eight martin luther king jr got diverted from his work on the poor people's campaign by a garbage strike dave black sanitation workers were protesting against miserable working conditions for years they carried garbage from backyard trash cans in around steel tubs on their heads many tubs leaked the men drank water from a cooler on the truck because they were going to stop for refreshment sometimes they found maggots in there drinking cups they were persistent been mistreated the reverend james lawson let a local civil rights movement that supported the striking trash collectors they were just a cynical racist names by their white supervisors they were often called boy they have no way to work for a promotion and they were treated as a disposable laborers that no pensions no vacations they had nothing and

if they got hurt them they were just out of a job historian michael honey says the garbage workers put up with the wretched conditions until nineteen sixty eight when two of their own suffered a gruesome accident in memphis black trash haulers were not allowed to ride in the truck's cab with white workers so when it rained they often climbed in the back where the garbage cans got empty in back was also where the trash got crushed by a powerful blade on february first apple coal and robert walker thirty six and thirty years old we're riding in the back and the mechanism went off and went into action driver stopped the truck but by the time he got out of the truck the packing mechanism had grabbed them and mashed them just like garbage and they were killed instantly black workers decided to strike but city officials refused to bargain with and when peaceful demonstrators marched to city hall police attacked them with

tear gas and billy clubs a month into the strike james lawson ask cain to come to memphis to boost morale can i arrived on march eighteenth nineteen sixty eight and spoke to a massive crowd at the mason temple a pentecostal church law they have been told the workers to hold on even though the white residents of memphis seem to be ignoring their struggle thing said it was like a bible story bodies went to hell for ignoring a better name life be at

first things didn't plan to do more in memphis than give this speech in fact the staff at the sclc didn't want to go at all andrew young randy organizations daily operations young feared that meant this would be a troublesome detour on the road to the sclc is poor people's march on washington we were stretched awful thin and we would do an awful lot and yet people wanted him to be everywhere and do everything but we had very little money and very little train staff to help us king understood from the beginning that it was it was kind of like the story of the good samaritan historian clayborn carson if he failed to stop and help this campaign of sanitation workers in memphis and he would be like the priest who walk by the person on the roadside who needed help instead he wanted to be the good samaritan who went to memphis and helped those who are desperately in need of outside yes

babe king's visit to memphis lifted morale among the strikers and their supporters but it was also a tonic for came at the time king was struggling to recruit people for the washington march but his popularity seemed to be adding but the mason temple was one of the largest gathering places for black people in the south and as many as fourteen thousand packed the place to hear and city historian michael honey at the end of the speech king is trying to find an ending to his speech he hesitates for a minute and then he says now our

data how you're here then just people shouting and yelling and goes on for several minutes like it hit a homerun and the reason for this is that like people in memphis have always done most to labor the maids to people on the waterfront the railroads and they knew that if they all stopped work on a given day they can close the city at a time and there haven't been very many general strikes in american labor history and then in the civil rights movement you're so this would have been a tremendous high watermark for the movement king promised the strikers and memphis he would come back soon and help reach that high watermark instead when he returned king wouldn't

do or one of the lowest days of his civil rights career several thousand euros march twenty eight nineteen sixty eight king is back in memphis this time he's accompanied by just two of his staffers from the sclc many of the demonstrators are going to sign i am a management job for several more than six hundred officers a lot of anti abortion candidate iowa any cocaine steps up to lead a protest march and he's counting on local organizers to keep the demonstrations orderly michael honey says he is obviously an easy as he's pushed along by the crowd you can see in the photography of the march that dr king is visibly exhausted his head is falling from side to side

looks dazed he looks apprehensive he's not feeling like he's really in control of the situation it's been benson the crowd behind king as he in the march leaders turn the corner into memphis is mainstream local organizer james lawson was with that i see here on main street a phalanx of police in riot clear across as an attempt to relieve demonstration watson says he saw a dozen or so young people breaking storefront windows but the riot police weren't interested in them in the street and say they're going to break lisa james lawson's response was

martin they're coming for you the police secondly you can't be in the position of leading a march that turns into violence so lawson got him out of the march and king protested because he knew that people would say he ran and so forth which the line the violence continued for hours as peaceful marchers got caught up in the same police counterattack as looters one teenager was shot to death dozens of protesters were injured and nearly three hundred black people arrested stores in the black section of town got looted and burned martin luther king was despondent he crawled into bed in his memphis hotel with his clothes on trying to sort out what had gone wrong and what to do next he spent the evening with sclc staff who agreed to memphis never seen him

so upset and just do it ralph abernathy was king's second in command of the sclc abernathy was interviewed in the late nineteen eighties broken because he didn't want to lead a violent march he wanted his record to be clear and he said to me i don't need to step aside and not let the violent forces on their course because they will soon run out and i said to him well now we will remain non violent and we will be actively engaged in non violent activity is because violence is not the way that we can not ever be free with violence king talked on friday and late into the night the next morning he held a press conference open to control the damage to his reputation and to his plans for the poor peoples campaign reporters challenged hearing on whether he could keep the washington demonstration peaceful

well you must remember that most negroes have never accepted philosophical kriegel nonviolent abbott most negroes a living to fall a tactical land the size of his in chicago we were in there now we have black stone rangers margin with this was a gang in chicago they never violent not only believed involves what they at least accepted path particular demonstrations they said that it the memphis march local organizers had failed to make sure that young black militants except a tactical nonviolence but king's critics leapt on the disastrous march as a sign of his fading authority the worst part of that was that thing had never led demonstration in which violence broke out among his followers michael honey and he knew also that the

fbi and the news media now would go on the attack against him as a leader and as the poor people's campaign called the national news media fed releases by the fbi began to say cain ran like a rabbit and i was scared and he set up the situation everyplace egos violence happens then the crimes to be a nonviolent leader his ability to lead a march on washington is clearly threatened when he got home to atlanta king told his staff that the sclc that there was no choice he would have to return to memphis king said he had to prove he could lead a nonviolent demonstration in memphis before moving on to washington again summon the staff objective but king was adamant and six days later he was back in memphis this time with a full team of sclc organizers it was april four nineteen sixty eight dr martin luther king jr a federal court order will not prevent

a map larger month a record that really brown issued a temporary restraining order or in repairing them up with a plan for a huge map mark next monday and the word we're not going to be the primary or intelligence or any other method the company planned to use it turned out they think the mile for them and the problem a mass meeting was planned that night at the mason temple a heavy storm rumbled into memphis and threaten to keep people home king didn't feel well but was talked into speaking the storm rattled windows and rain beats down on the church's metal roof without notes king talked about the history of civil rights about the power of the poor to rise up and how grateful he was to have lived in the freedom struggle now that matter now atlanta this morning and

as we got started on my analysis the pilot said over the public address system where saleh wanted bin laden but we have been on the plane and delusional all of the bad switch it and to be sure that nothing would be wrong on the plane we had set out everything happened and we have a play in protected and got it all night and then i got into fights and song well talk about that one would have believed it he's a hip

hop a long live longer have a kid has a place but i'm not concerned about that now others want to do god's will and odyssey in

yesterday april fourth nineteen sixty eight in memphis at the lorraine motel andrew young was down at the federal courthouse fighting the injunction mccain huddled with other sclc officials to plan strategy he shared a plate of fried catfish with ralph abernathy he talked with his brother and parents on the phone in the late afternoon young returned from court the march could go forward king pretended to be sore that young had failed to call more than any big double kill off the only through that and i just threw back playfully and also they're about a pickup to lose and it didn't take long before with two double beds in this photo they put me down between the two birds and power goes on top of it and here we were a middle aged man almost i have a pillow fight like children when the rumpus subsided king and the others got ready to go to dinner king stood on the

motel balcony and call down to a young musician who would be playing saxophone at a mass meeting that night king asked him to play his favorite gospel song precious lord take my hand ralph abernathy was in the hotel room putting on cologne andrew young urged him to go back in and get a taco he was so suddenly assailed the loathing out i'm actually the code after it which sounded like a firecracker my first reaction was really been so playful and he was is cloudy and that he had staggered back in the wrong and that this was a firecracker or car backfiring i saw only his feet laying on the balcony at the moment it hit him and knock the mother who says and i kneel down and tv as he had opened my hand another term we climbed up the steps to where he was and i've started painting his cheek and he

was laying there and is all alone singing martin martin my baby don't be afraid don't be afraid it was obvious that this live he will be alright art of the deal over the show and at that time it is the table was to uncover spiral ct as he became very very calm and the bullet probably got there before the south of them and that was a devise software holes and he hated me and he believed me lee are these urquhart of america agreed today president lyndon johnson spoke to the nation a leader that people in a teacher are people have all the martin luther king jr

we were all in retrospect some of king's closest friends believe that in the last year of his life he knew that an assassin of some kind that was creeping closer but historically borne carson says king was more worried by violence in the nation's ghettos them the threat was a real sense the end might be near it was beyond he truly believed that it was necessary to take whatever risks to see it through to try to best you can to head off what he felt would be a bloodbath the united states nationwide more than one hundred american cities exploded in violence when king was assassinated

in a way can never would've wanted his death forced american to see the fury of its poor people however briefly and however from a distance nobody can in the end most of the bullets and firebombs fell in urban black neighborhoods two months later an escaped convict a white man named james earl ray was arrested gray was a small time robbers who confessed to shooting king but then recanted his motives and guilt remain controversial we have been trying not to worry about who killed martin luther king we knew that that was irrelevant andrew young the question was what do by our society that makes it necessary to take the life of a man of

peace a man of honor and integrity a man who's only trying to make america a better place king's colleagues pressed on with a poor people's march on washington in may of nineteen sixty eight but the event was a disaster relentless rains turned their shanty town on the national mall into a muddy sinkhole the protest was largely ignored by congress in the news media and the american civil rights movement was already in deep disarray before king was killed vincent harding king's friend and adviser says king knew the movement was faltering so in the last year of his wife kim chose the path of deeper difficulty and greater rates jane chose to be one with the poor and you cannot in a materialistic society be won with the poor unless you were turning your face against the mainstream of the

society that's what we mean by becoming more radical that you become someone who mr j edgar hoover can call the most dangerous negro america martin luther king jr was buried in his atlanta neighborhood near ebenezer baptist church to symbolize king's dedication to the lives and rights of poor people a wooden farm wagon pulled by mules carry his casket king's last march was produced by kate alice in may stephen smith the editor was catherine winter according to producer alan cutler web producer ocean kayla the radio works team includes family torgrimson suzanne pico and nancy rosen but american public media

kathryn steinle had a nice quiet block there's a lot more to hear see and learn about the last year of martin luther king jr is life at our website american radioworks dot org we've collected extended excerpts from some of his most compelling speeches and posted a large selection of documents from king's fbi file you can hear this program again and find all of our other documentaries american radioworks dot org king's last march was produced in cooperation with the martin luther king jr research and education institute at stanford university major funding for american radioworks comes from the corporation for public broadcasting says american public media i want to say while obama do solemnly swear that i will execute the office of president to the united states faithfully execute the office faithfully the press office of president of the united states and will to the best of my

ability preserve and the constitution of the united states constitution i was this sort of regulation is going to hang it was one year ago obama was sworn in as the forty fourth president of the united states if you could summarize his campaign message in one word it would be changed and many political analysts and voters expected his presidency to be a transformational one so a year later how's he doing join us eight o'clock sunday evening for presidential leadership in transformational times a presentation of the truman library in independence missouri featuring political commentator arianna huffington can become a target as a massive blaze them by seducing them off he's a pied piper he sees himself as a pied piper and she's a very seductive as a communicator but sometimes

that's not enough kbr present presidential leadership in transformational times with commentator arianna huffington eight o'clock sunday evening on campus public radio he says be careful it's b it is

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