Admirers mourn King, pledge to carry on work

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Fifty years after a shot rang out in Memphis, killing the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., freedom rang from the balcony of the Lorraine Motel as a bell tolled 39 times to mark a life cut short by racism.

King died among the most hated men in America, but Wednesday, admirers grateful for his life and legacy mourned his loss and pledged to carry on his unfinished work to end racial injustice and economic inequality

“Nothing would be more tragic than for us to stop at this point,” said the Rev. William Barber, who will renew King’s Poor People Campaign this spring. “We must go up together or go down together. What he said then is what we must do now.”

A host of tributes to the slain civil rights leader were held across the country. At the epicenter was Memphis, where King

People gather for events commemorating the 50th anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Tenn. King was assassinated April 4, 1968, while in Memphis supporting striking sanitation workers.

was assassinated on April 4, 1968, while in town for a sanitation workers’ strike. The dignity of the workers paralleled this year’s anniversary, with teachers in Oklahoma and Kentucky walking out of schools to push for more funding.

The triple evils of racism, poverty and war that King hammered at Mark Humphrey / AP

the end of his life linger — from economic, educational, housing and health disparities to the looming threat of nuclear war. Both the speakers and marchers of the day pledged their commitment to picking up King’s mantle.

The Rev. James Lawson, who invited King to Memphis 50 years ago to assist with the sanitation workers’ strike, said more progress is needed toward King’s goal of equality for all.

“I’m still anxious and frustrated,” said Lawson, his black hair turned gray. “The task is unfinished.”

Speaking in King’s hometown of Atlanta, the Rev. Bernice King recalled her father as a great orator whose message of peaceful protest was still vital decades later.

“We decided to start this day remembering the apostle of nonviolence,” she said during a ceremony to award a prize named for her father.

As painful as losing her father was, she said she wouldn’t change history.

“Actually, I’m glad that everything happened the way that it happened because I can’t imagine the world that we live in without the contributions of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King and the sacrifice that they made,” she said.