On this day in 1968, the civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated by a rifleman while standing on the second-story balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He had come to Tennessee to support a strike by the city's sanitation workers. The night before he died, he gave a speech at the Memphis Temple Church in which he said, "I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the promised land."
From this morning's "The Writer's Almanac".
"Good Night, Willie Lee, I'll See You In The Morning"
Alice Walker
Looking down into my fathers
dead face
for the last time
my mother said without
tears, without smiles
but with civility
"Good night, Willie Lee, I'll see you
in the morning."
And it was then I knew that the healing
of all our wounds
is forgiveness
that permits a promise
of our return
at the end.
From this morning's "The Writer's Almanac".
"Good Night, Willie Lee, I'll See You In The Morning"
Alice Walker
Looking down into my fathers
dead face
for the last time
my mother said without
tears, without smiles
but with civility
"Good night, Willie Lee, I'll see you
in the morning."
And it was then I knew that the healing
of all our wounds
is forgiveness
that permits a promise
of our return
at the end.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-04 10:40 am (UTC)A shot rings out in the Memphis sky
'Free at last', they took your life
But they could not take your pride."
-- U2, "Pride (In the name of Love)"