On 04 April 1968, at 6:05 p.m., Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., 39, was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.
He was in Memphis for the second time in less than a month to support a strike by sanitation workers. The city “had sought an injunction to prevent him from leading another march.”
In 1968, three networks dominated television news: ABC, CBS and NBC. Most people received television signals via an antenna, so the network you watched depended how close you were to a local TV station. PBS would not be incorporated until 1969.
News traveled more slowly then, but breaking news… well, it “broke” into regularly scheduled programming. President Johnson made a nationwide public statement. Walter Cronkite was finalizing the national evening broadcast when he added the news about Dr. King.
Using old-fashioned communication technology, the landline telephone, plus face-to-face conversations, organizers led protests across the nation; riots took place in more than 100 cities. They resulted in more than 40 deaths.
The following day, President Johnson declared a national day of mourning on Sunday 07 April 1968. He would deploy more than 50,000 National Guard troops, “the largest domestic military deployment since the Civil War.”
More than 150,000 travelled to Atlanta for Dr. King’s funeral on 09 April 1968. And Atlanta avoided the “unrest” that happened elsewhere.
Image: CC Kathy Gill (2019), share-and-share alike, no commercial
Known for gnawing at complex questions like a terrier with a bone. Digital evangelist, writer, teacher. Transplanted Southerner; teach newbies to ride motorcycles. @kegill (Twitter and Mastodon.social); wiredpen.com