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HAPPENING NOW

On the Anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Assassination


"THE SAVING OF OUR WORLD from pending doom will come, not through the complacent adjustment of the conforming majority, but through the creative maladjustment of a nonconforming minority.” Martin Luther King, Jr - Presente! (January 15, 1929 - Assassinated April 4, 1968) Minister | Orator | Political Prisoner | Direct-Action Activist






NOW LET US BEGIN


April 4 is not only the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., but it was also the day, one year earlier, when he gave his pivotal speech denouncing the war in Vietnam. The speech was an act intolerable to the ruling class - and may have sealed his fate.


From "Beyond Vietnam:" “When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered… …If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight. Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world.” April 4, 1967 Beyond Vietnam: https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/beyond-vietnam Audio of the speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC1Ru2p8OfU

 

Image: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR Panel: WE FOLLOW THE PATH LESS TRAVELED Mural: THE CITY AT THE CROSSROADS OF HISTORY By Mike Alewitz/2014 Mural commissioned for the Puffin Gallery of Social Activism, Museum of the City of New York. Censored by Museum Director Susan Henshaw Jones and the Puffin Foundation. (Jones used the occasion of Martin Luther King’s birthday to break her silence and justify the censorship of the artwork. One of her objections to the mural was the inclusion of Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King as central figures in the image) See: https://www.change.org/p/the-museum-of-the-city-of-new-york-let-the-people-of-new-york-see-labor-s-story-stop-the-censorship-of-the-city-at-the-crossroads-of-history

Dylan Releases Assassination Song to World in Crisis

Bob Dylan has chosen this moment, of all moments, to release his masterful epic (full lyrics below) on the assassination of President Kennedy, "Murder most Foul."  Why now?

Could it be that his artist’s heart feels a world under assault, once again, by the powers that be?  For whatever the actual lethality of the virus, there is no doubt that we are all suffering from the same sort of “shock and awe” we did when our collective hopes for a New Frontier were blown away in 1963.

You don’t have to have a religious streak for it all to feel something like the fulfillment of the prophesy spoken to Dylan’s narrator:

The day that they killed him, someone said to me, "Son, The Age of the Antichrist has just only begun"

When Kennedy died, so died the efforts he had been making to end the Cold War, to withdraw from Vietnam, to create a rising economic tide that would “lift all boats.”

And while much has been made of Lyndon Johnson’s carrying-on of Kennedy-era social and civil rights initiatives, the reality was as Martin Luther King described it: “The promises of the Great Society have been shot down on the battlefields of Vietnam, making the poor, white and Negro, bear the heaviest burden, both at the front and at home.”

Well, as Mark Twain once allegedly said: "History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes."  

Dylan describes the Kennedy assassination as “the greatest magic trick ever under the sun/ Perfectly executed, skillfully done.” 

It happened so quickly, so quick by surprise

Right there in front of everyone’s eyes

It would seem Dylan, courageously, has sent us a message when we needed it most, with little in the way of encryption. It is up to us to break the simple code, take in its meaning, and act.

Act as we didn’t then.


“This is an unreleased song we recorded a while back that you might find interesting.

Stay safe, stay observant and may God be with you.”

And also with you, Bob.  


John Kirby is the director of Four Died Trying, an upcoming feature documentary about the extraordinary lives and calamitous deaths of John Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and Robert Kennedy.  



MURDER MOST FOUL

Lyrics by Bob Dylan


[Verse 1]

He said, "Wait a minute, boys, you know who I am?"

"Of course we do, we know who you are!"

Then they blew off his head while he was still in the car

Shot down like a dog in broad daylight

Was a matter of timing and the timing was right

You got unpaid debts, we've come to collect

We'll mock you and shock you and we'll put it in your face

It happened so quickly, so quick, by surprise

Right there in front of everyone's eyes

Rub-a-dub-dub, it's a murder most foul


[Verse 2]

Pick up the pieces and lower the flags

Put your head out the window, let the good times roll

Put your foot in the tank and then step on the gas

Blackface singer, whiteface clown

Up in the red light district, they've got cop on the beat

Cash on the barrelhead, money to burn

Dealey Plaza, make a left-hand turn


[Verse 3]

Hold on, I've been led into some kind of a trap

What more could they do? They piled on the pain

But his soul was not there where it was supposed to be at

I hate to tell you, mister, but only dead men are free

Throw the gun in the gutter and walk on by

Turn the radio on, don't touch the dials

That magic bullet of yours has gone to my head

Never shot anyone from in front or behind

They killed him once and they killed him twice

Killed him like a human sacrifice

The day that they killed him, someone said to me, "Son

Air Force One comin' in through the gate

Let me know when you decide to throw in the towel

It is what it is, and it's murder most foul [Verse 4]

What's new, pussycat? What'd I say?

I said the soul of a nation been torn away

And it's beginning to go into a slow decay

And that it's thirty-six hours past Judgment Day

Play "St. James Infirmary" and the Court of King James

If you want to remember, you better write down the names

Play it for the man with the telepathic mind

Play John Lee Hooker, play "Scratch My Back"

Guitar Slim going down slow


[Verse 5]

Play "Please Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood"

Play it for the First Lady, she ain't feeling any good

Play tragedy, play "Twilight Time"

Ride the pink horse down that long, lonesome road

Stand there and wait for his head to explode

The man who fell down dead like a rootless tree

Play it for the reverend, play it for the pastor

Play "Cry Me a River" for the Lord of the gods

Play Number nine, play Number six

There's twelve million souls that are listening in

Don't worry, Mr. President, help's on the way

Was a hard act to follow, second to none

Play darkness and death will come when it comes




FEBRUARY 21, 2020

By the time Malcolm X was killed, he was a man reborn.



In the words of Malcolm associate Peter Bailey, if Malcom were successful in bringing human rights charges in the World Court, “it would have been a devastating propaganda blow to the United States.”  Meetings were planned with Dr. King to enlist him in the effort.

The prospect of Malcolm and Martin joining forces was FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover’s “worst nightmare.”


As he traveled the world, Malcolm survived assassination attempts and sharpened his analysis of the world situation.  His words at the Oxford Union just weeks before his murder resonate more painfully today than when he first spoke them:


We’re living at a time of extremism, a time of revolution. People in power have misused it, and now there has to be a change and a better world has to be built. And I for one will join in with anyone, I don’t care what color you are, as long as you want to change this miserable condition that exists on this earth.


On this, the 55th anniversary of his death, it is worth it to consider whether Hoover’s nightmare might have been one of the country’s last, best hopes.

​

John Kirby is the director of FOUR DIED TRYING, an upcoming feature documentary on the major assassinations of the 1960’s and their calamitous impact on the country. To join the struggle for justice for Dr. King, Malcolm X, and John and Robert Kennedy, sign the petition.



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