The King Assassination: Forty Years Later…and This Country Still Hasn’t Gotten Over It – Between the Lines

Forty years ago last week, one of America’s saddest and most shameful episodes concluded with the assassination of the single most significant leader in America’s history. Save Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, no individual had a greater impact on the race question in America. Certainly in the 20th Century, no individual sought to challenge the racial equality resistance in the way King did. In a moment when America could have stood for justice, it stood for supremacy.

Much of the reason America can’t have a civil conversation about race is because it rehashes memories of the King years and why the assassination had to happen. Radical thought mixed with radical action was too much for America to bear. Much of the reason the nation is so enamored of Barack Obama is that he is reflective of a certain radical idealism that is not threatening to Whites but engaging to their stigmatized perceptions of race. America hasn’t seen this type of radical idealism since King.

Change was in the air and it was King at the front of the change line, framing how the world was viewing America. They tried to say a lot about King’s methods, ethics; J. Edgar Hoover even challenged his morals. But they could never say he wasn’t right, and his reasoning wasn’t just. King put America to the justice test, and America has failed. After forty years, America still cannot tell you who killed King, or why. It still hurts…