Last Word O


n the morning I sat down to write this column, I


learned from the local television news that it was April 4, the date in 1968 that Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis. King had gone to Memphis to lend his voice to the city’s sani- tation workers, who were on strike for better pay and work- ing conditions. I am usually


aware of the date of his death, but this year I have been work- ing on so many writing projects that weeks and months fly by without me realizing it. But forgetting the day Dr. King died is something I don’t ever want to do. He was, and he remains, one of the most important people in my life. I knew him well, that is in the sense that a newspaper reporter


knows the subjects he covers. I was no intimate friend, you understand, but I covered Dr. King for several years in the ‘60s when I was a reporter for the Atlanta Journal. I also covered Julian Bond, Stokely Carmichael, Hosea Williams, John Lewis, Ralph Abernathy, Septima Clark and many other civil rights leaders of the time. They were all special in their own way. Covering Dr. King was different, however. Tere was something about him that instantly instilled


respect in even the most jaundiced reporter. Not that he regarded himself as anyone special. Just the opposite. Even though he was one of the most important men in the world at that time, the spiritual leader of the American civil rights movement and of a much larger, world-wide peace move- ment, he was almost always accessible and friendly to us lowly newspaper reporters. And late. I don’t recall a single meeting or press conference where he was on time. I grew to like and respect him enormously, however. Without a doubt he was the bravest man I have ever known, and he had profound impact on my life. Te day he was shot I was in the newsroom at the Journal,


seated at my desk. I think the news came over the Associated Press teletype. Col. John Crown, our city editor, came back to my desk and told me to get ready to go to Memphis. I was so poor at the time that I had to borrow the money to go from the colonel, who gave me $54, all the money he had on him. I flew to Memphis that evening with a crowd of reporters


and photographers. We shared a cab from the airport to the old Peabody Hotel, the one with the ducks in the lobby foun- tain. On the way we passed through strangely silent streets. Te mood was so depressed that I actually recall the scene in black and white. When we got to the Peabody, I didn’t pay much attention to the ducks because I was preoccupied by the ring of half-tracks and machine guns around the outside of the hotel. As soon as I could, I went for a walk around the


JUNE 2013


by Billy Winn


downtown, which was bristling with heavily armed police and national guardsmen. Later, I went to the Lorraine Motel, where Dr. King was shot and killed by James Earl Ray. To my surprise and the surprise of other reporters, there didn’t seem to be anyone around. Somehow I got word of an important meeting of civil rights


leaders in a second floor room at the Peabody. I slipped into the room just as the door was being closed and the meeting began. I didn’t see any other reporters there, and I expected to be asked to leave. For some reason I wasn’t, so I stayed, leaning back against the wall near the door. I had apparently stumbled into a meeting of the board of the


Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the organization Dr. King had made famous. I recall that Bayard Rustin was there, as were Andrew Young, the Rev. James Bevel, and sev- eral older women I recognized but did not know. Te meeting was apparently called to decide on an appropriate response to Dr. King’s assassination. I will never forget that meeting. The Rev. Bevel, if my memory has it right, actually called for let- ting King’s killer go if he were arrested. At the time, the outside world was expecting for Dr. King’s supporters to call for riots and burning, but exactly the opposite message was voiced by the participants that day. They called for peace, for no violence or demonstrations and for reconciliation. I have never been prouder to be an American. The next day there was a march in Memphis in King’s honor


and to continue the sanitation workers fight. If memory serves, the Rev. Ralph Abernathy made a speech. It all seemed terribly sad and anti-climactic to me. A few days later, on April 9, I covered Dr. King’s funeral in


Atlanta, altogether the most sorrowful event I ever reported on. It’s been 45 years now, but I still remember the huge crowd, the celebrities from every walk of life, the throng of people following in the wake of the funeral cortege. A police spokes- man told me there were a million people either at the funeral or attempting to get there. Dr. King’s casket was carried along in an old farm wagon pulled by mules. People were weeping openly and unashamedly. At King’s final resting place, Mahalia Jackson sang “Precious Lord,” off key as I recall. No one much seemed to notice or care. There was perfect order everywhere. In June of that fateful year, Bobby Kennedy was shot and


killed. Seven or so months later, Ralph McGill, columnist and publisher of the Atlanta Constitution, with whom I had struck up a cherished professional friendship, died of a heart attack. I had had lunch at Gold’s Café in Atlanta with McGill and Reese Cleghorn, editorial writer for the Journal, not long before McGill’s death. To me and to anyone who felt as I did— that King, McGill and RFK represented the best hope for our nation’s future—it seemed as if the world had turned upside down. Speaking just for myself, I don’t think it has ever righted itself since.


Columbus and the Valley 81


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