April 4, 1968: Civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis at age thirty-nine, sending many Americans into deep grief and mourning. This event also launched a wave of powerful social uprisings across the United States. As part of a 2008 oral history project in Baltimore, people who lived through these events recalled what they were like. Black Baltimorean Terry A. White was “about sixteen” in 1968. He described his reaction to Dr. King’s assassination as “You shot Martin Luther King, you shot us all.” Another Black interviewee named Rashida Foreman-Bey was eight years old at the time. She recalled that “Everybody was so angry that here was a man that represented peace and the struggle in terms of the civil rights movement and this man was assassinated.” A third Black interviewee named Nia Redmon who was sixteen years old at the time said that when she arrived at school the day after the assassination, a cross was burning on the front lawn. It was placed there and ignited by local members of the Ku Klux Klan.
Recommended reading to learn more:
Citations: Terry A. White, Baltimore '68: Riots & Rebirth Collection, University of Baltimore, July 23, 2007, 4, 12, https://archives.ubalt.edu/bsr/oral-histories/transcripts/white.pdf; Rashida Foreman-Bey, Baltimore '68: Riots & Rebirth Collection, University of Baltimore, December 10, 2006, 4, http://archives.ubalt.edu/bsr/oral-histories/transcripts/foreman_bey.pdf; Nia Redmon, Baltimore '68: Riots & Rebirth Collection, University of Baltimore, May 12, 2007, 2, http://archives.ubalt.edu/bsr/oral-histories/transcripts/redmon.pdf; Betsy Graves Reyneau and the Harmon Foundation, “Martin Luther King, Jr.,” painting (location unknown, c. 1943-1963), https://catalog.archives.gov/id/559202?objectPage=3.
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