This is an extra edition, as I am thinking a lot of those days 40 years ago when Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot and all hell broke loose. He was and is a true giant, and it is still sobering to discuss race and and inequality and how much further we need to go. I warmly recommend visiting Washington Post: 40 Years after King. What moved me most is Pulitzer Prize photographer Matthew Lewis talking about documenting both King and the shockwave that his assassination caused. I was a little girl living in Washington, just a mile or so from where the streets were burning as the old “corridors” that were lined by black and white and jewish small businesses or “discount stores” were wiped out by the rioting black community. But it was like a world away. Those empty, burnt out, hopeless, scary streets I remember from my childhood have only been rebuilt in the last ten years. And it’s clearly work in progress.
Videos:
- Matthew Lewis: Documenting the Riots (5:07)
- MLK: End of “I’ve been to the mountain top” 3 April ’68 (1:16)
- MLK: “I have a dream” 28 August ’63 (11:50)