Happy MLK Assassination Day!
As Bono taught us, wrongly, Martin Luther King was assassinated in the "early morning, April 4" of 1968 -- 39 years ago today. (It was actually 6: 01 p.m. There was no Wikipedia back then, so at least he got the date right.) Today is thereal Martin Luther King Day.
Both famous and hated for his very public work in race rights, labor rights, anti-poverty crusades and the anti-war movement, King was murdered, presumably by elements of the American government. Some two months later -- literally hours after Robert Kennedy died following his assassination -- a dimwit petty crook was captured in London with a fraudulent Canadian passport. Obviously, MLK's killer had been found.
And then racism ended, the end. Well, not really. But 120 American inner cities were conveniently burned down, over the entire country, in five days and nights -- working-class and poor and prosperous black neighborhoods from coast to coast, simultaneously destroyed. Half of Washington is still in near ruins from those riots 39 years ago.
Oh, and years later all those abandoned commercial streets in the burnt-out ghettos were renamed for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
The Martin Luther King you don't see on TV [SF Bay Guardian]
James Earl Ray [Crime Library]