UIIC. Library
Box D70
tibmWktnfyc 27514
There will k . .
- a marcn 01
concerned students and faculty
on Saturday, beginning in Y
Court, tentatively scheduled
or noon, to honor the late
ur. King and to protest his
slaying. Further details will
be given later.
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76 Years of Editorial Freedom
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King Serrices
Student Body President Bob
Travis announced that plans
are being prepared to hold
a memorial service ia con
junction with the funeral of
Dr. King. Details will be given
later.
Volume 75. Number 143
CHAPEL HILL, NORTH CAROLINA FRIDAY, APRIL 5, 1968
Founded February 23, 1893
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Mis Stand
Not Dictated
By Safety
Civil Rights Leader Slain In Memphis By
niper
By BILL AMLONG
of The Daily Tar Heel Staff
"There comes a time -when
one must take a stand that
is neither safe, political nor
popular, but which his con
science tells him is right."
The Rev. DrAMartin Luther
King was standing on a wlnd
buffetted balcony of a Fire
Island, N.Y.y ' summer home,
giving a Sermon 'of sorts to
the 1,000 'persons who sat
shivering in the sand-dunes
below.
That was Saturday night,
Sept. 2, 1967.
Now, eight months later, Dr.
King is dead.
Dr. King was speaking from
the balcony, his deep, mellow
voice rolling over the crowd.
He was speaking to rich white
people.
BUT IT WAS the same kind
of statement that Dr. King
had made in Montgomery and
Selma, Ala. , to Black people,
telling them that they were
going to get that freedom.
And ' everybody would start
singing, "We Shall Overcome,"
and the churches would swell
with their voices, and even
the state troopers with their
billy clubs, cattle prods and
police dogs couldn't stop what
Dr. King had started.
By CHARLES ROND
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (UPI)-
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,
the Nobel Peace Prize winner
who repeatedly walked in the
shadow of death in his fight
to bring integration to
America, was slain by a white
sniper Thursday night when
he stepped onto the balcony
of his hotel.
Police issued a bulletin for
a young white man in dark
clothes who dashed out of a
building across the street from
the hotel. They said he dropped
a . Browning automatic rifle,
fitted with a scope, onto the
sidewalk and fled in a car.
President Johnson appeared
on nationwide television two
hours after the shot was fired
to "ask every citizen to stay
away from the violence that
struck Dr. King."
"I know every American of
good will joins me in mourning
the death of his leader and
in praying for understanding
throughout the land," the
President said. He said he was
postponing his trip to Honolulu
because of the assassination.
The 39-year-old Nobel Peace
prize winner died at 8 p.m.
EST in the emergency room
of St. Joseph's Hospital, shot
through the neck.
Mayor Henry Loeb im
mediately clamped a curfew
on the city and Sheriff William
Morris said "an emergency
situation does exist at this
time."
Unrest immediately broke
out in the Negro district where
King's march last Thursday
erupted into violence. Window
smashing was reported and
there was a report of a
shooting.
President Johnson said the
shooting death of Dr. King
"shocked' and saddened" the
nation.
"America Is shocked and
saddened by the brutal slaying
tonight of Dr. Martin Luther
King."
"We can achieve nothing by
violence it is only by joining leaders and union men was
together and working together planned for Monday. King had
He is dead because he
. devoted his life , to taking Dr. King won that time
stands which', were neither
safe, political or popular, but
which his conscience told him
were right.
He died taking one of those
stands.
I MET DR. KING that
Saturday and I knew then
that I was meeting one of
the greatest men of this cen
tury. Sitting beside him during the
. ferry ride from Long Island
to Fire Island, I could not
help but become aware that
I was in the presence of so
meone who was great.
His strength his immense
strength, fortified by love of
mankind shone through his
humility.
And Dr. King was a humble
man.
Humble, but determined. He
knew where his people had
to go, and he knew that he
must lead them. And he had
faith that he and his people
would win.
"If the irreparable cruelties
of slavery couldn't stop us,
the difficulties we now face
won't make us fail," he said.
"We are going to get our
freedom."
L.ater, during tne summers
of 1966 and 1967, lie was griev
ed by the riots that broke
out in major cities across the
nationr much like the riots
that broke out across the coun
try Thursday night as the
Negroes got word of his
murder.
. Even so, he kept faith in
his nonviolent methods, and
faith that extremists from
neither, side could 'keep the
Negro from getting his due
from society.
"I CAN STILL sing 'We
Shall Overcome,' even though
some of you don't remember
the words," he said. "I still
believe in it."
Dr. King was very deeply
hurt by those persons who call
ed him an Uncle Tom.
"I don't see how one can
call another an Uncle Tom
who has devoted so much of
his life to militant and un
popular stands to confront the
power structure," he said.
"Such a statement would on
ly be made by someone who
didn't know what he was talk
ing about, or who was trying
to be left over everything."
Travis Withdraws
Drug Act Support
By RICK GRAY
of The Dally Tar Heel Staff
Student participation in the
new drug policy was
withdrawn Thursday night at
Student Legislature by Student
Body President Robert M.
Travis.
Following Travis' address,
the body attached an amend
ment to an appointment bill
which supported the action
taken by Travis.
Until the policy is adhered
to by the administration,
Travis said, "I have directed
the attorney general that all
cases involving the sale,
transfer or administration of
drugs by students will be in
vestigated and tried before
student courts under the drug
law of 1966."
The 1966 act specifically ex
empts possession and use from
consideration by the student
judiciary.
Representative Dick Levy
proposed, and got- with
unanimous consent, an amend
ment supporting Travis'
stand.
The amendment read:
"The Student Legislature en
dorses the action of Student
Body President Bob TraVis in
suspending student participa
tion in the enforcement of BJ
44-26 (the drug act) until such
time as procedures guaran
teeing student rights are
agreed to by the ad
ministration." Travis asked that the ad
ministration's policy on drugs
"be, in reality, one of medical
rehabilitation and not one of
automatic punitive action
toward the offender."
He also condemned the ac
tions of the office of the Dean
of Men in "turning the residen
ce advisors into an arm of
any law enforcement agen
cy.
'
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that we can continue to move
toward full equality for all
of our people."
In a nationwide television
and radio broadcast, the Presi
dent said that the United
States "can achieve nothing
by lawlessness and violen
ce." Johnson expressed hope that
the nation might learn from
the tragic death of King that
"only by working together and
joining together can we find
equality."
"I and all citizens of Mem
phis deeply regret the murder
today of Dr. Martin Luthur
King," said Police Chief Frank
Holloman.
King was rushed to the
hospital emergency room with
a bullet wound in the neck.
The Rev. Andrew. Young,
King's top lieutenant, said the
Nobel Peace Prize winner- was
vowed to defy a federal court,
injunction banning the march
if he could not get the judge
to lift it.
King died in the same
emergency room where James
Meredith was rushed in June,
1965, after he was shot down
in ambush a few miles south
of here at Hernando, Miss.
Meredith, however, was not
seriously injured.
King was" the first major
civil rights leader to be slain
since the ambush killing of
Medgor Evers outside his
home in Jackson, Miss., in
1962.
Outside the emergency room
a Negro woman clasped her
hands to her face, sobbed, and
ran away.
Mayor Henry Loeb, who had
clapped on (the curfew after
. last week's' riots and then
lifted it earlier this week, said
standing on the balcony outside "After the tragedy which has
happened in Memphis tonight,
for the protection of all our
citiens, we are putting the
curfew back in effect. All
movement is restricted except
ior health or emergency
reasons."
Chief Holloman said every
resource of the Memphis
Police Department, the Shelby
County Sheriffs Department
and the Tennessee Highway
Patrol is commhtted and
dedicated to identify and ap
prehend the person or persons
King's responsible."
Solomon Jones Jr., King's
driver, said he was standing
on the street when King stroll
ed out onto the second-floor
balcony, moments before he
was to leave for dinner at
the home of the Rev. Billy
Kyles, a Negro minister.
Jones said King 'Told me
to start the car, he was ready
to go to dinner. I said 'It's
cold outside, Dr. King. Put
your topcoat on,' and he said
'Okay, I will' and smiled.
Those were his last words.
"I heard the gun. Dr. King
fell on his back. He had been
. looking directly at the man."
King, a broad-shouldered
man with skin the color of
burnished mahogany, won his
first major battle In the war
on segregation in Montgomery,
Ala., the cradle of the Con
federacy. The point of no return for
the stocky young Negro came
in Montgomery, in 1956.
King organized and led the
famed Montgomery bus
boycott, a campaign that led
to integrated seating on city
buses in the deep south
his room when he fell with
a wound in the neck. Young
said he and other aides were
in the room at the time.
Police threw a cordon
around .a . five-block, area, of
the Negro district that con
tained the Lorraine Hotel,
where .King was slain. Two
white men wearing dark
clothing were hustled into the
Memphis Police Station.
Chauncey Eskridge, King's
legal adviser, sobbed outside
the emergency room when
word came out of
death.
He said it "ought to have
a shocking effect on tne whole
world. A man full of life,full
of love, and he was shot.
"He had always lived with
that evpectation (of assassina
tion) but nobody ever expected
it to happen."
King's driver said he. was
standing In the stret when the
civil rights leader strolled onto
the balcony and ordered him
to start the car and take him
to dinner.
"He had been looking
directly at the man," the
driver, Solomon Jones Jr.,
said. He said a police squad
car with four officers in It
had driven down the street
only moments before.
After, the shot, Jones said,
he saw a man "with something
white on his face" creep away
from a thicket across the
street.
Half an hour after the
shooting, police reported they
were pursuing a white, late
model car and that a civilian
car carrying a radio on which
he could communicate with
police had closed on the white Alabama capital.
automobile and opened fire.
Police issued no further
reports on the car but
Arkansas State police, across
the Mississippi River from
Memphis, were alerted for a
white car driven by a white
man, dark-haired and dressed
in a dark suit.
In Atlanta, Mayor Ivan Allen
rushed to King's home and
drove his wife to the airport.
She was in the terminal
It was a victory that many
Southerners found difficult to
believe and launched King on
an integrationist campaign
that made him the best-known
civil rights leader in the
world.
Montgomery's Negroes walk
ed and used car pools for
a full year before segregation
signs were removed from the
buses.
King, then pastor at the Dex-
awaiting a flight to Memphis ter Avenue Baptist Church one
The Late Dr. Martin Luther King. Jr.
... in an interview with DTH Editor Bill Amlong in the summer of 1967
King Death Elicits
"National
Reaction
Calling the recent arrest and
trial of several students for
drug use and possession a
violation of the drug policy,
Travis said, "The time has
come when we can no longer
talk ... we have to stand
up for what we believe in."
By United Press International
Reactions to the assassina
tion of Dr. Martin Luther King
varied from shock to outrage
to spontaneous violence
throughout the country.
In Raleigh, a group of 35
Negroes from Shaw University
clashed with police in
downtown Fayette ville Street.
Several store windows were
smashed and at least three
persons were arrested.
Raleigh police also used an
aerosol
person.
gas on at least one
In Memphis, a telephone
operator said that phone
circuits were "burning up."
There were reports of rock
throwing and minor looting in
other southern cities, among
them Birmingham, Ala., where
King first became known to
the world, and Miami, Fla.
Adam Clayton Powell, con
fined in a Durham hospital,
was not told of the assassina
tion and his doctor said that
he had "no Intention" of telling
Powell of the shooting until
morning.
v -v -
Former Alabama Gov.
George Wallace, perhaps
King's greatest single enemy,
called the assassination a
"senseless, regrettable
tragic act"
and
Trouble was also reported
"brewing" in Durham and
there were undisclosed reports
of disturbances in Winston
Salem. Police were also put
on alert in Charlotte.
m
Dr. Reginald Hawkins said
Charlotte that the shooting
(Continued on Page .6)
when she was told her husband
was dead.
King returned to Memphis
Wednesday to try to prove
he could lead a massive march
peacefully. He was at the head
of the march last Thursday
which erupted into violence
and that left one dead and
62 injured.
His critics immediately step
ped up attacks on his planned
"Poor People's Campaign" on
Washington this month, claim
ing he could not keep the
massive demonstration from
turning to violence.
King's aides said he felt he
had to lead another demonstra
tion here and keep it non
violentto prove them wrong.
The march with 6,000
persons, many of them labor
block from the Alabama State
Capitol, was unquestionably
the driving dorce behind the
bus boycott that led to one
of the most significant vic
tories in the surging civil
rights movement of the fif
ties. He kept up the hopes of
the Negroes with weekly mass
meetings in Negro churches
for the entire year of the
boycott
With the winning of the bus
boycott King left Montgomery,
came to Atlanta as Associate
Pastor of his father's Ebenee
zer Baptist Church and organ
ized the Southern Christian
Leadership Confedence
(SCLC), the movement that
began spearheading militant
racial programs In the South.