Editorial excerpt
The following is an excerpt from a Review-journal editorial published April 30,
1964, following Martin Luther King Jr.’s only speaking engagement in Las Vegas. The newspaper reprinted the editorial April 7, 1968, following King’s death:
“If a man hasn’t discovered something he will die for, he is not fit to live.”
Dr. Martin Luther King said that, in Las Vegas. He said it calmly and without hate. And he spoke from the kind of experience which testifies that he was neither bragging nor taking lightly the possibility that he might die for his cause.
As a leader of one of America’s most explosive social revolutions, Dr. King has faced death many times. He has been beaten and jailed and more recently called a “Communist.”
Still he is able to speak without hate. He speaks calmly like a man who is not himself involved. But he is not detached. Dr. King appears to be devoid of hate for his oppressors, but he is not dispassionate.
The amazingly articulate minister spoke of love as a creative thing, as a thing which involved understanding and good will. He spoke of the weakness of men … not just white men or black men … but weak men.
“Destructive means cannot bring about constructive ends,” King said. story, the newspaper printed a lengthy piece from the New York Times News Service headlined “Martin Luther King, Apostle of Peace.”
Much of the rest of the Review-journal read like it might have on any other day in 1968. There were advertisements for $4.88 Easter dresses at Montgomery Ward and $2,433 Fleetside pickup trucks at Fletcher Jones Chevrolet.
The Silver Slipper downtown was promoting its burlesque show and its 59-cent breakfast. A small ad from the law firm of R. Ian Ross, Jerome F. Snyder and Oscar B. Goodman announced the addition of a new partner: a former Clark County public defender by the name of Richard Bryan.
The movie listings featured such new releases as “Bonnie and Clyde” at the Skyway Drive-in on Boulder Highway, “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” at the Red Rock Theatre on Charleston Boulevard and “The Graduate” at the Guild downtown. The top showroom acts slated to perform that weekend included Tom Jones at the Flamingo, Little Richard at the Aladdin, Buddy Hackett at the Sahara and Jim Nabors at the Frontier.
Words to live by
But King’s death did find its way into other sections of the paper that day. The business section carried a short wire story about how the stock market weathered the assassination, while the sports pages led with news of several Major League Baseball teams postponing their season openers in deference to King.
The Review-journal opinion page made no mention of the slain Nobel Peace Prize recipient on April 5. That would come two days later, with the publication of an unusual editorial in the Sunday paper.
It’s actually a reprint of an opinion piece the newspaper published April 30, 1964, a few days after King spoke in Las Vegas for the first and last time. It opens with a single line from King’s speech, 16 words rendered suddenly and shockingly prophetic: “If a man hasn’t discovered something he will die for, he is not fit to live.”
Contact Henry Brean at hbrean @ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0350. Follow @Refriedbrean on Twitter.