EDITORIAL
Covering up for King's killers
After four weeks of testimony, a jury in Memphis, Tenn.,
found on Dec. 8 that the assassination of the most prominent
African American leader of this century was the result of a
broad conspiracy. But you wouldn't know a thing had
happened.
This momentous item appeared for one day in the media and
then was gone. The only comments from newscasters and pundits
were to disparage the jury members.
When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was gunned down on the
balcony of a Memphis motel in 1968, he was leading several
important struggles. He had come to that race-divided
Mississippi River city to support a strike of sanitation
workers--all Black--who were demanding not just wage increases
but the right to be treated as human beings. "I am a man," read
their signs.
To the racist establishment in this country--found not only
in small Southern courthouses but in the national centers of
political and economic power--King was summoning up repressed
forces that might grow into a social hurricane. They wanted him
stopped.
King had also arrived at a position against the Vietnam War
that put him in direct conflict with the state, from the FBI to
the Pentagon. It was common knowledge that FBI Director J.
Edgar Hoover was personally on King's case, trying to discredit
him and keeping him under constant surveillance.
When King's death was announced, rebellions swept the
country. People in the oppressed communities knew beyond a
shadow of a doubt that this was a political murder--that
whoever pulled the trigger, it was engineered by the same
racist ruling class that made their lives a living hell.
The recent jury verdict in Memphis came after the King
family filed a civil lawsuit against local business owner Loyd
Jowers and "others, including government agencies," charging
them with conspiracy. The jury agreed, and awarded the family
the symbolic amount of $100, which is all King's heirs had
sought--not wanting to give anyone the idea that this case was
about money.
One juror said afterward that the King family's lawyer had
convinced the panel that "there were a lot of people involved,
everyone from the CIA, military involvement, and Jowers."
Much scorn is cast on "conspiracy buffs" by those well-paid
people who mold public opinion. But governments do harbor
conspiracies. Col. Oliver North had one going in the basement
of the White House. France's celebrated Dreyfus case was a
conspiracy by the anti-Semitic military brass and their close
associates in the government.
Now a jury has voted that Dr. King's assassination was a
broad conspiracy. But don't hold your breath--there will be no
official investigation of the FBI, the CIA or the other
suspects. The murderers and their heirs in the political police
of this country are still at large.
Remember the martyrdom of Dr. King the next time the
secretary of state or the president tell some other country how
it should follow the U.S. example of political and social
freedom.
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
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