The shot rang here
On 50th anniversary, RJ recalls response to King’s assassination
Expressions of sorrow and pleas for calm filled the April 5, 1968, edition of the Las Vegas Review-journal.
By then, most valley residents already knew about the murder of Martin Luther King Jr., so the evening paper’s banner headline focused on the hunt for his assassin.
Page 1 also included reactions from local civic leaders and a story about a wealthy Connecticut businessman who posted a $5,000 reward at a Las Vegas bank for information on King’s killer.
MLK
The front of that morning’s Las Vegas Sun screamed: “Martin Luther King assassinated; Death sparks bloody riots.”
Cranfordcrawforddoesn’tremembertheheadlinesfrom50years ago, but he certainly remembers the mood in the community.
He helped organize the second of two peaceful downtown processions that paid tribute to King in the days following his murder in Memphis.
“There was a lot of tension. People were fearful, anxious and confused,” said Crawford, then the youth adviser for the NAACP in Las Vegas. “I think the marches helped quell some of that.”
Peaceful and ‘all positive’
While the Review-journal carried wire service accounts of violent clashesinothercities,therewereno reports of local rioting.
About a thousand people joined the first march on Sunday, April 7, which began at the Second Baptist Church in west Las Vegas and capped the city’s participation in the national day of mourning for King.
Crawford said the youth march two days later was assembled by two local high school boys who borrowed his car to recruit other students from around the valley. The event was planned and the participantscarefullyselectedtoensure a gathering in keeping with King’s vision: “peaceful and respectful and all positive,” said Crawford, now 78 and living in North Las Vegas.
The downtown youth march beganandendedatwhatusedtobe Squires Park at the southwest corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Bonanza Road. According to the April 10 edition of the Review-journal, casino dealers and their customers came outside to watch the procession as it moved down Fremont Street.
“Uniformed and plainclothes officers lined the route. Motorcycle patrolmen cleared traffic for the paraders. The crowd was friendly, the hecklers were few,” the newspaper said.
At the end of the event, organizers urged the young marchers to disperse as quickly as possible, “before they came up with ideas about what they should do next,” Crawford said. “We didn’t want any of that.”
Newsprint time capsule
King’s murder and its fallout would dominate the headlines for days to come.
The news filled Lewis Hutchinson with so much “shock and shame,” he decided to deposit $5,000 at the First National Bank in Las Vegas as a reward for King’s killer.
“There ought to be a million
dollars on his head,” the Greenwich, Connecticut, management consultant told the Review-journal in an April 5, 1968, report. “I’m just putting my money where my mouth is. We all are, to a certain extent, to blame for not having solved the problem before it comes to these extreme ends.”
On the page next to Hutchinson’s