Ten O'Clock News; Ralph Abernathy

[Sounds from a Civil Rights march] [Jan von Mehren] 'Ralph David Abernathy walked beside Martin Luther King, Jr. for the better part of 20 years. They were best friends and comrades for the bold and dangerous days of the Civil Rights movement. Abernathy is the man who cradled Dr. King's head in the moments after he was shot. Now 21 years after the assassination, Ralph Abernathy is selling his story. It's called, And the Walls Came Tumbling Down, and people lined up to buy it at a book signing event in Cambridge. Abernathy's is a close up look at King, some say too close up. He doesn't hide from view an all too human side of the civil rights hero. He writes that on the night before the assassination, King rendevoused with two women and fought with a third.' [Interviewee 1] 'I think that when,people were happier in general when we didn't know all these things that we now know about

our heroes. But when heroes turn out to be human beings, it sort of leaves us bankrupt.' [Ralph D. Abernathy] 'He would understand because he told me so before his assassination. He told me that feel free, and he didn't care. He was doing what he was doing and living his own life.' [Jan von Mehren] 'This past Sunday in Montgomery, Alabama, the controversy over the book intensified. Abernathy attended the dedication of the Civil Rights Memorial at the Southern Poverty Law Center. When he approached the stage during the ceremony he was told to leave by the head of the Center, a white attorney named Morris Dees. Dees has since released a statement accusing Abernathy of selling out the civil rights movement's most honored hero.' [Ralph D. Abernathy] 'For a white man to shove you and push you I don't know how long it will take me to get over it.

You don't push Ralph David Abernathy, who has given so much. I have given my all.' [Jan von Mehren] 'Abernathy is by trade a Baptist preacher. In the old days church halls were filled to the rafters by people anxious to hear Dr. Abernathy, and then Dr. King speak. Last night it was a quiet, small crowd which turned out for Abernathy. He spoke at the old Cambridge Baptist Church. In a long and rambling speech the beautiful cadences of the Baptist preacher emerged every now and then.' [Ralph D. Abernathy] 'But God has a way of turning bad things into good things.' [Jan von Mehren] 'And there was evidence he can still make the best of something bad.' [Ralph D. Abernathy] 'This must be an Episcopal pulpit.' [Laughter from congregation] [Footage of Dr. King] [Jan von Mehren] 'Abernathy was a willing foot

soldier for Dr. King.' [Footage of Dr. King] [Jan von Mehren] 'But when the hero dies too young, a man like Abernathy is left behind to get along as best he can. His book is not the first time he's run into trouble. He lost a lot of friends when in 1980, he backed Ronald Reagan for president. It's a choice he regrets today.' [Ralph D. Abernathy] 'He let me down. He tricked me and fooled me. He promised to see me and he didn't see me.' [Footage from Dr. King's funeral] [Jan von Mehren] 'When Martin Luther King died in 1968, it was Ralph Abernathy who delivered the eulogy.' [Ralph D. Abernathy] 'We gather here this morning in one of the darkest hours in the history of the Black people of this nation.' [Jan von Mehren] 'And today he's left defending himself and his story against the charge of

betrayal.' [Ralph D. Abernathy] 'It is nothing but a tribute to the life and to the work of Martin Luther King, Junior, my buddy.' [Jan von Mehren] 'For the 10 O'Clock News, I'm Jan von Mehron.' [Traffic sounds] [Church congregation sounds]

[Reverend Martin Luther King] 'That was the day that we started a bus protest which literally electrified the nation. And that was the day when we decided that we were not going to take segregated buses any longer. And you know, when we planned the bus boycott, we said if we could just get about 50 or 60 percent of the negroes of Montgomery not to ride buses this would be an effective boycott. I think that whole day we found eight negroes on the buses and from that day on, that boycott was more than 99.9 tenths percent effective.' [Reverend Martin Luther King] 'For several weeks now, we the negro citizens of Montgomery have been involved in a non violent protest against the injustices we have experienced on

the buses for a number of years. We feel that we are right, we have a legitimate right for legitimate protest and we feel also that one of the great glories in American democracy is that we have the right to protest for rights.' [Ralph D. Abernathy] 'It is true that 115 of us have been indicted by the grand jury, yet our actions as of this date have not yet been found to be illegal. The carpool and all we have done in this struggle continues.' [Applause from audience] [Reverend Martin Luther King] 'So don't go out there thinking that all of the forces in the leadership of the South will eventually work out this

the same for negroes. It's going to work out that's it's going to roll in on the wheels of inevitability. If we wait for it to work itself out it will never be worked out. Freedom only comes through persisent reform, through persistent agitation, to persistently rising up against the system of evil. Passion for it is greater than Montgomery, but that is...' [Choir sings a spiritual] [Choir sings a spiritual] [Choir sings a spiritual] [Choir sings a spiritual] [Choir sings a spiritual] [Choir sings a spiritual]

[Choir sings a spiritual] [Choir sings a spiritual] [Choir sings a spiritual] [Choir sings a spiritual] [Reverend Martin Luther King] 'I want to try to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms for the extension of why we find it difficult to wait. You assert that our

actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because...' [Reverend Martin Luther King] 'Victory's regarded... And I figure... [Man] 'All right, y'all go right on down the line. You're all under arrest.' [Marcher prays] 'Thank thee for this marvelouse weakness. And we do pray thou will give us strength to do that which is right and that which is pleasing in thy sight.' [Man] 'You and everyone in this line is under arrest for being without a permit.' [Reverend Martin Luther King] 'We have the right to walk the highway. We have the right to walk

to Montgomery if our feet can get us there. We must let the Nation know and we must let the world know that it is necessary to protest this three fold evil. The problem of the denial of the right to vote to police brutality, that we continue to face and faced in its must vicious form last Sunday.'