Remembering my brother, Martin...
40 years ago in the evening around 6, I was at my home in Atlanta and I was in my den with my children who were younger, actually, I was sewing, I was making my daughter’s Easter dress and watching the evening news with Chet Huntley. It was the Huntley –Brinkley report. Suddenly, there came an announcement, saying that we interrupt this news cast and Chet Huntly said that we just received word that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had been shot in Memphis. My bother was there to work with the garbage workers who were on strike protesting low wages.
Shortly after the announcement, Chet Huntley came back and said we confirm this report that Dr. King has been shot in Memphis and that it is critical. When I heard the word critical, I knew that it was serious and immediately I went to the phone to call my sister-in-law, Coretta. The line was busy, I called my parents, the line was busy and I repeated that several times, and I could get no one.
My husband came in and he had heard the news, “we will have to go to Coretta,” he said. I said give me a few minutes to change clothes, he said we don’t have time, we have to go and I got the baby sitter for my children and we proceeded to Coretta’s home. When I arrived at the home, Coretta was coming down the stairs with then Mayor Ivan Allen. She said “I am on the way to airport, I got word that I should come to Memphis” and she asked that my husband and I go with her. Mayor Allen got into the car, too. My husband said “you will have to go to Memphis,” and I said “I was not dressed,” and my husband said “you have to go with Coretta.” I was careful of my appearance; I just had on a house dress.
When we arrived at the airport, my brother’s secretary, Dora McDonald met us and someone had already purchased airline tickets. I immediately went to the telephone, trying to speak to my parents. The line was still busy. So Dora summoned Coretta and took her down the hall to the ladies room. I followed and as soon as we got into the ladies room, someone came and knocked on the door and entered. It was Mayor Allen. It was then that he informed my sister-in-law that Dr. King had died in Memphis. What a striking blow. After a few moments, Coretta said, I had to go back home to my children, so we didn’t go to Memphis that evening. And they carried us back to the house. When we got there, the children came to the door, the first was Yolanda, and Coretta was trying to explain things to them and everyone was moving to where the TV was because Lyndon Johnson was about to make an announcement. And I recall him saying that this is a ‘sad time for all people, we have learned that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has been killed in Memphis.’ And the rest is history.
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81% Say Nation Is Headed on the Wrong Track
If you read the New York Times this morning that's what you woke up to. The results a new poll that found Americans are more dissatisfied with the country’s direction than at any time since the Times/CBS News poll began asking nearly two decades ago.
Surprised?
The paper reports 81% of those questioned said they believe “things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track,” up from 69% a year ago and 35% in early 2002.
Only 4% of the 1,368 surveyed said the U.S. is better off than five years ago.
What's everybody so unhappy about?
What are you unhappy about? Jobs? Iraq? Immigration? Global warming? Tax season? I'd love to know.
And what do you think this attitude might mean for the election come November? Will the Democrats benefit?
President Bush has acknowledged economic troubles, but a recent article suggested he is in denial about the seriousness of what's happening in the economy. (Remember, he "hadn't heard that" gas was approaching $4 a gallon?)
And how will the state of the economy play for presumptive Republican nominee John McCain, who has said when it comes to the economy, he "doesn't know much about it."
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Morning Buzz
Morning folks...It is Friday....Thank GOD!!! Grab your coffee and take a look at today's headlines, but first today is the 4oth Anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King, Jr...
Remembering King
The other side of the mountaintop...
Near the end of his life, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. felt cornered and under siege. His opposition to the Vietnam War was widely criticized, even by friends. He was being pressured both to repudiate the black power movement and to embrace it. Some of his lieutenants were urging him to jettison his urgent new campaign to uplift the poor, believing that King had taken on too much and was compromising support for the civil rights struggle.
Top Stories
Tornado hits Arkansas...
At least one tornado ripped through central Arkansas Thursday evening, savaging a mobile home park and sending National Weather Service forecasters into a bunker as the storm roared overhead.
Iraq PM warns of more offensives...
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki vowed Thursday after last week's battle in the southern port of Basra to carry out more offensives around Iraq, mentioning as targets neighborhoods in Baghdad associated with Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr's Mahdi Army militia.
1000 Iraqi soldiers refused to fight...
More than 1,000 Iraqi soldiers and policemen either refused to fight or simply abandoned their posts during the inconclusive assault against Shiite militias in Basra last week, a senior Iraqi government official said Thursday. Iraqi military officials said the group included dozens of officers, including at least two senior field commanders in the battle.
U.S. on the wrong track?
More than 80 percent of Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction, the highest such number since the early 1990s, according to a new survey.
Australian PM comes under fire...
Australia's prime minister came under fire at home Friday over a playful salute he gave President Bush at a NATO summit, which critics said seemed to suggest Australian subservience to Washington.
Border complicates Afghan fight...
As a cold darkness enveloped the tiny US Military camp just inside Afghanistan's border with Pakistan, word spread that Taliban fighters were on the move nearby, planning an attack.
Raw Politics
Is the country ready for a Black or a woman President?
The number of Americans who believe that the country is ready for a black president is rising, a poll released Thursday suggested.
Super delegate trouble for Clinton...
Nearly three weeks remain before the next Democratic primary, but the results are rolling in from another part of the presidential contest - and they signify trouble for Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Obama out raises Clinton...
Democratic presidential contender Sen. Barack Obama continued to display his unrivaled prowess for fundraising by collecting more than $40 million in March, about double the amount raised by Sen. Hillary Clinton, to bring the overall take for his White House bid to more than $200 million, aides said Thursday
Cindy McCain beer fortune...
On a spring day at a speedway in North Carolina, John McCain posed with his wife, Cindy, and racing star Dale Earnhardt Jr., highlighting the couple's political and business interests in a single snapshot.
Program NOTE: Erica Hill profiles John McCain tonight on AC360
John Edwards says NO to VP...
Former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards said on Thursday he would not accept the nomination for U.S. vice president as he did four years ago.
Crime & Punishment
Man threatens "tech" like killings...
A 20-year-old with a weapons cache that included four AK-47s was arrested after threatening over the Internet to undertake a Virginia Tech-style massacre, authorities said Thursday.
4 indicted in Tenn football player murder...
Four men accused of killing a University of Memphis football player during a botched robbery have been indicted on first-degree murder charges.
Stripper-turned-soccer mom convicted...
A former stripper-turned-soccer mom convicted of plotting to kill her former fiance 12 years ago was sentenced Wednesday to 99 years in prison.
Keeping Them Honest
Inspectors say FAA ignored violations...
The Federal Aviation Administration may know considerably less about the state of airline safety than it claims, a parade of witnesses and lawmakers said at a Congressional hearing on Thursday.
What YOU will be talking about TODAY
1864 Lincoln letter...
A rare Lincoln manuscript sold for $3.4 million on Thursday at Sotheby's auction house. The 1864 letter in which Abraham Lincoln replies to the abolitionist pleas of 195 young boys and girls was bought by a private American collector over the phone.
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