![]() Coretta Scott King at the funeral of Martin Luther King Jr., comforting their 5-year-old daughter, Bernice King. | |
Date | April 9, 1968 |
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Location | Private funeral service: Ebenezer Baptist Church Atlanta, Georgia Public funeral service: Morehouse College Atlanta, Georgia |
The first memorial service following the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968, took place the following day at the R.S. Lewis Funeral Home in Memphis, Tennessee. This was followed by two funeral services on April 9, 1968, in Atlanta, Georgia, the first held for family and close friends at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where King and his father had both served as senior pastors, followed by a three-mile procession to Morehouse College, King's alma mater, for a public service.
President Lyndon B. Johnson declared a national day of mourning for King on April 7.
Martin Luther King Jr., a civil rights activist, Baptist preacher, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was assassinated on April 4, 1968, by a gunshot wound to the right side of his jaw, neck and shoulder in Memphis, Tennessee, where he had been leading a strike of waste management workers. The news of the murder sent shockwaves of emotion in many African American communities in a number of cities, resulting in deadly riots between the day of the murder and the day of the funeral.
A state funeral or lying in state was refused to King by then-governor of Georgia Lester Maddox, who had considered King an "enemy of the country" and had stationed 64 riot-helmeted state troopers at the steps of the state capitol in Atlanta to protect state property. He also initially refused to allow the state flag to be lowered at half staff, but was compelled to do so when told that the lowering was a federal mandate.
There were concerns that U.S. president Lyndon Johnson might be the subject of protests, over the conduct of the war in Vietnam, which would disrupt the funeral. Vice President Hubert Humphrey attended on his behalf.
After the shooting, King was taken by ambulance to the emergency room at St. Joseph's Hospital and was pronounced dead at 7:05 p.m. King's closest aides contacted Robert Lewis Jr.—a local funeral director who had first met King two days prior—to retrieve the body and prepare it for viewing.
Coretta Scott King arrived in Memphis the following morning on a plane personally arranged by Robert F. Kennedy. Hundreds began arriving at the funeral home, where a viewing and memorial service took place. Ralph Abernathy offered a prayer, while tears streamed down Andrew Young's face. Time magazine wrote:
In Memphis, before it was carried south toward home, King's body lay in state at the R.S. Lewis & Sons Funeral Home in an open bronze casket, the black suit tidily pressed, the wound in the throat now all but invisible. Many of those who filed past could not control their tears. Some kissed King's lips; others reverently touched his face. A few people threw their hands in the air and cried aloud in ululating agony. Mrs. King was a dry-eyed frieze of heartbreak. [1]
Later that day, police and National Guardsmen escorted the long procession of cars which carried King's body to the airport for the flight to Atlanta. [1] [2] [3]
The first, private service began at 10:30 a.m. EST at Ebenezer Baptist Church, and was filled with some 1,300 people; among the dignitaries present were labor leaders, foreign dignitaries, entertainment and sports figures and leaders from numerous religious faiths. The service began with Reverend Ralph Abernathy delivering a sermon which called the event "one of the darkest hours of mankind".
At his widow's request, King eulogized himself: His last sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church, a recording of his famous "Drum Major Instinct" sermon, given on February 4, 1968, was played at the funeral. In that sermon he makes a request that at his funeral no mention of his awards and honors be made, but that it be said that he tried to "feed the hungry", "clothe the naked", "be right on the [Vietnam] war question", and "love and serve humanity".
Per King's request, his good friend Mahalia Jackson sang his favorite hymn, "Take My Hand, Precious Lord" (the hymn that King requested to musician Ben Branch to play at a meeting moments before his assassination), though not as part of the morning funeral service but later that day at a second open-air service at Morehouse College. [4]
The private funeral was followed by the loading of King's casket onto a simple wooden farm wagon pulled by two mules named Belle and Ada from Gee's Bend. The procession down the three-and-a-half miles from Ebenezer Baptist Church to Morehouse College was observed by over 100,000 people; the Southern Christian Leadership Conference commissioned a security detail to manage the crowd, while the Atlanta Police Department limited their participation to management of automobile traffic and to accompany dignitaries attending the events. The procession was silent, although it was accompanied on occasion by the singing of freedom songs which were frequently sung during the marches in which King had participated.
Among the persons leading the procession, besides the immediate family of the civil rights leader, were Jesse Jackson, who held the flag of the United Nations, John Lewis, and Andrew Young the future mayor of Atlanta and ambassador to the United Nations. Labor leader and civil rights activist Walter Reuther also participated in King's funeral procession. [5]
The procession passed by the Georgia State Capitol building.
At the conclusion of the ceremony, the group sang "We Shall Overcome". [6]
The public and final service was held at Morehouse College, where King was eulogized by college president Benjamin Mays, who had given the benediction after King's "I Have a Dream" speech.
Following the funeral, King's casket was loaded into a hearse for his final trip to the South-View Cemetery, a burial place predominantly reserved for African Americans. His remains were exhumed in 1970 and reburied at their current location at the plaza between the King Center and Ebenezer, [7] and his widow Coretta was buried next to him in 2006.
Martin Luther King Jr. was an American Baptist minister, activist, and political philosopher who was one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. A black church leader and a son of early civil rights activist and minister Martin Luther King Sr., King advanced civil rights for people of color in the United States through the use of nonviolent resistance and nonviolent civil disobedience against Jim Crow laws and other forms of legalized discrimination.
Ralph David Abernathy Sr. was an American civil rights activist and Baptist minister. He was ordained in the Baptist tradition in 1948. As a leader of the civil rights movement, he was a close friend and mentor of Martin Luther King Jr. He collaborated with King and E. D. Nixon to create the Montgomery Improvement Association, which led to the Montgomery bus boycott and co-created and was an executive board member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). He became president of the SCLC following the assassination of King in 1968; he led the Poor People's Campaign in Washington, D.C., as well as other marches and demonstrations for disenfranchised Americans. He also served as an advisory committee member of the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE).
Coretta Scott King was an American author, activist, and civil rights leader who was the wife of Martin Luther King Jr. from 1953 until his death. As an advocate for African-American equality, she was a leader for the civil rights movement in the 1960s. King was also a singer who often incorporated music into her civil rights work. King met her husband while attending graduate school in Boston. They both became increasingly active in the American civil rights movement.
Dexter Scott King was an American civil and animal rights activist, attorney, and author. The second son of civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, he was also the brother of Martin Luther King III, Bernice King, and Yolanda King; and also grandson of Alberta Williams King and Martin Luther King Sr. He is the author of Growing Up King: An Intimate Memoir.
Martin Luther King Sr. was an African-American Baptist pastor, missionary, and an early figure in the civil rights movement. He was the father and namesake of the civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. He was the senior pastor of Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church from 1931 to 1975.
Alberta Christine Williams King was an American civil rights organizer best known as the wife of Martin Luther King Sr., and as the mother of Martin Luther King Jr. She was the choir director of the Ebenezer Baptist Church. She was shot and killed in the church by 23-year-old Marcus Wayne Chenault six years after the assassination of her eldest son Martin Luther King Jr.
The Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park covers about 35 acres (0.14 km2) and includes several sites in Atlanta, Georgia related to the life and work of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. Within the park is his boyhood home, and Ebenezer Baptist Church — the church where King was baptized and both he and his father, Martin Luther King Sr., were pastors — as well as, the grave site of King, Jr., and his wife, civil rights activist Coretta Scott King.
Bernice Albertine King is an American inactive lawyer, minister, and the youngest child of civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King. She was five years old when her father died in 1968. In her adolescence, King chose to work towards becoming a minister after having a breakdown from watching a documentary about her father. King was 17 when she was invited to speak at the United Nations. Twenty years after her father was assassinated, she preached her trial sermon, inspired by her parents' activism.
Alfred Daniel Williams King was an American Baptist minister and civil rights activist. He was the younger brother of Martin Luther King Jr. and the younger son of Martin Luther King Sr.
The Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, commonly known as The King Center, is a nongovernmental, not-for-profit organization in Atlanta, United States.
The Memphis sanitation strike began on February 12, 1968, in response to the deaths of sanitation workers Echol Cole and Robert Walker. The deaths served as a breaking point for more than 1,300 African American men from the Memphis Department of Public Works as they demanded higher wages, time and a half overtime, dues check-off, safety measures, and pay for the rainy days when they were told to go home.
Willie Christine King Farris was an American teacher and civil rights activist. King was the sister of Martin Luther King Jr. She taught at Spelman College and was the author of several books and was a public speaker on various topics, including the King family, multicultural education, and teaching.
The sermons and speeches of Martin Luther King Jr., comprise an extensive catalog of American writing and oratory – some of which are internationally well-known, while others remain unheralded and await rediscovery.
Martin Luther King Jr., an African-American clergyman and civil rights movement leader, was fatally shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, at 6:01 p.m. CST. He was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital, where he died at 7:05 p.m. He was a prominent leader of the civil rights movement and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who was known for his use of nonviolence and civil disobedience. James Earl Ray, a fugitive from the Missouri State Penitentiary, was arrested on June 8, 1968, at London's Heathrow Airport, extradited to the United States and charged with the crime. On March 10, 1969, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 99 years in the Tennessee State Penitentiary. He later made many attempts to withdraw his guilty plea and to be tried by a jury, but was unsuccessful. Ray died in prison in 1998.
The state funeral of U.S. President John F. Kennedy took place in Washington, D.C., during the three days that followed his assassination on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas.
Ebenezer Baptist Church is a Baptist megachurch located in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, affiliated with the Progressive National Baptist Convention and American Baptist Churches USA. It was the church where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was co-pastor from 1960 until his assassination in 1968, the location of the funerals of both Dr. King and, in its later expanded sanctuary, congressman John Lewis, and the church for which United States Senator Raphael Warnock has been pastor since 2005. Its historic church building and expanded sanctuary building are located in the historic area designated as the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park.
R.S. Lewis & Sons Funeral Home has operated continuously in downtown Memphis, Tennessee since 1914.
Coretta Scott King, the widow of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., died on January 30, 2006, after arriving at a rehabilitation center in Rosarito, Baja California, Mexico. Her public funeral followed eight days later at the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in her resident state of Georgia. In keeping with her personal wishes, King was buried next to her husband in a crypt on the grounds of the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change.
The history of the 1954 to 1968 American civil rights movement has been depicted and documented in film, song, theater, television, and the visual arts. These presentations add to and maintain cultural awareness and understanding of the goals, tactics, and accomplishments of the people who organized and participated in this nonviolent movement.
Behold is a statue designed by sculptor Patrick Morelli. Dedicated in 1990 by Coretta Scott King, the statue is located in front of Ebenezer Baptist Church, in the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park.
Mrs. Martin Luther King Jr. and her four children were present during the predawn hours Tuesday as King's body in its crypt was transferred from South View Cemetery to a site near the Ebenezer Baptist Church.