![]() At the best of times, “official” Washington and its appendages throughout the country are highly insular and protective. It has become clear to me that by 1967 a siege mentality had descended on the nation’s establishment forces, including its federal law enforcement, intelligence, and military branches. So caught up were we in the fight for social change that we didn’t appreciate the strength and determination of the opposition. We now know the shock this prospect caused at the highest levels of government. The gathering of five thousand delegates from all around the country and from every walk of life was expected to support a third-party presidential ticket of Dr. Six weeks after the Detroit riots, the National Conference for New Politics (NCNP), which I served as its executive director, scheduled a national convention over Labor Day weekend in Chicago. When army intelligence officers interviewed rioters in Detroit after the July 23, 1967, riot that left nineteen dead, eight hundred injured, and $150 million of property damaged, they were amazed to learn that the leader most respected by those violent teenagers was not Stokely Carmichael, nor H. King was going to be allowed to lead this army of alienated poor to Washington to take up residence in the shadow of the Washington Memorial. In retrospect, I believe that there was no way Dr. His unswerving opposition to the war and his commitment to bring hundreds of thousands of poor people to a Washington, DC, encampment in the spring of 1968 to focus Congress’s attention on the plight of the nation’s poor turned the government’s anxiety into utter panic. In August, an additional thirty-three riots occurred in thirty-two cities in twenty-two states.ĭr. In the year running up to July 1967, the number of riots and other serious disruptions against public order had reached ninety-three in nineteen states. However, one cannot consider these explosions without taking into account the pervasive presence of the war, its legitimization of violence, and its overall impact on the neighborhoods of the country. Much of the civil unrest took the form of nationwide urban riots and was clearly the result of racial tensions, frustrations, and anger at oppressive living conditions and the endemic hopelessness of inner-city life. King’s life was during one of the most turbulent times in the history of the nation. FBI Director Hoover, in particular, took the position that Dr. ![]() They perceived his active opposition to the war and his organizing of the poor as grave disruptions to the stability of a society already rife with unrest. ![]() Those in charge of the United States intelligence, military, and law enforcement machinery understood Dr. A nonviolent revolutionary, he personified the most powerful force for the long-overdue social, political, and economic reconstruction of the nation. To understand his death, it is essential to realize that although he is popularly depicted and perceived as a civil rights leader, he was much more than that. King’s assassination constituted the greatest loss suffered by the Republic in the twentieth century. The intervening years have only strengthened my belief that Dr. ![]() That stand was a major factor contributing to his death. ![]() In no small measure, I suppose, this is because of the responsibility I feel for having initially prompted him to oppose the Vietnam War. King’s assassination has dominated much of my life. Then in 1977 to 1978, following a conversation with the Reverend Ralph Abernathy, and at his suggestion, I prepared for and conducted a five-hour interview with James Earl Ray. In the following years, I heard about inconsistencies in the state’s case and rumors of a conspiracy in which James Earl Ray was framed for Dr. Benjamin Spock, the pediatrician and antiwar activist, and I traveled to Memphis for the memorial march on April 8, 1968, four days after the assassination, as far as I was concerned it was in the hands of the police. I believe this was the result of my naiveté or perhaps the desire to put the loss of a friend behind me. Like most people, I accepted the official story about how Dr. Available for purchase on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and IndieBound. Copyright 2016, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc. Excerpted with permission from " The Plot to Kill King" by Dr. ![]()
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