- 2 months ago
Disaster Transbian episode 3
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00:00Are you ready to tell him?
00:27We do come!
00:30And I want to say to everybody under the sound of my voice this afternoon that you are somebody.
00:38Don't let anybody make you feel that you are nobody.
00:42You are somebody. You have dignity.
00:45You have worth.
00:47Don't be ashamed of yourself and don't be ashamed of your heritage.
00:51Don't be ashamed of your color.
00:54Don't be ashamed of your hair.
00:56I am black and beautiful and not ashamed to say it.
01:02It is a known fact that every politician respects votes.
01:08We have enough potential voting power here to change anything that needs to be changed.
01:16And so let us set out to do it and to do it in no uncertain terms.
01:22And finally, I want to say to you that if we will organize like this, we have a power that can change this city.
01:34Once upon this planet Earth
01:40We have a power that can change this city.
01:42We have enough power that can change the city.
01:44We are the ones that can change the city.
01:45We have enough power that can change the city.
01:46love and freedom for his fellow man. He was dreaming of the day peace would come to earth
02:05to stay and he spread this message all across the land.
02:19Turned the other cheek, he'd plead. Love thy neighbor was his creed.
02:28Pain, humiliation, death, he did not dread.
02:43With his Bible at his side, from his foes he did not hide.
02:53It's hard to think that this great man is dead, oh yeah.
03:14A question in your eyes is lit, yet you know there is no answer fit. To satisfy and show you not to quit,
03:20to keep it in your mind and not forget that it is not he or she or them or it that you belong to.
03:31Although the masters make the rules for the wise men and the fools,
03:39I got nothing more to live up to.
03:55Kent State University in Ohio.
03:57Martin Luther King Jr., an African American clergyman and civil rights leader,
04:12was fatally shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4th, 1968. At 6.01pm, he was
04:20rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital, where he died at 7.05pm. He was a prominent leader of the Civil Rights Movement and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who was also known for his use of nonviolence and civil disobedience.
04:34James Earl Ray, a fugitive from the Missouri State Penitentiary, was arrested on June 8th, 1968,
04:41at London's Heathrow Airport, extradited to the United States and charged with the crime.
04:48On March 10th, 1969, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 99 years in the Tennessee State Penitentiary.
04:56He later made many attempts to withdraw his guilty plea and to be tried by a jury but was unsuccessful.
05:03Ray died in prison in 1998.
05:05The King family and others believe that the assassination was the result of a conspiracy
05:11involving the U.S. government, the Mafia and Memphis police, as alleged by Lloyd Jowers in 1993.
05:18One of the larger stains the FBI has ever had to endure on its not-so-spotless record was revealed
05:23in its entirety Thursday, a letter asking Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to kill himself, signed,
05:29sealed and delivered by J. Edgar Hoover's FBI.
05:32The letter was discovered by a Yale history professor who penned an op-ed for the New York Times.
05:37Beverly Gage notes the letter occupies a unique place in the history of American intelligence,
05:43the most notorious and embarrassing example of Hoover's FBI run-em-up.
05:47The letter, known as the suicide letter, refers to the leader of the civil rights movement as sexually
05:52psychotic, a dissolute abnormal imbecile, and a fraud. It ends with the famous warning,
05:58you have just 34 days. There is but one way out for you. You better take it before your filthy,
06:04abnormal, fraudulent self is bared to the nation. The letter, along with a purported
06:09audio tape of MLK's extramarital affairs, was sent to the King home and discovered by his wife,
06:14Coretta Scott King. Dr. King assumed the letter and tape were from the FBI and after his death,
06:20a Senate committee confirmed as much. In an age where whistleblowers like Edward Snowden have
06:24exposed just how far agencies like the NSA or FBI can reach, the newly released full version of the
06:30suicide letter is worrisome to many. The Electronic Frontier Foundation released a statement on the
06:36letter. The implications of these types of strategies in the digital age are chilling. Imagine Facebook
06:42chats, porn viewing history, emails and more made public to discredit a leader who threatens the
06:48status quo or used to blackmail. These are not far-fetched ideas. And Vox calls the letter a
06:54terrifying reminder what government surveillance agencies can be capable of. They believed that
07:00Ray was a scapegoat. In 1999, the family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Jowers for the sum of
07:0710 million dollars. During closing arguments, their attorney asked the jury to award damages of 100
07:15dollars to make the point that it was not about the money. During the trial, both sides presented
07:22evidence alleging a government conspiracy. The accused government agencies could not defend
07:27themselves or respond because they were not named as defendants. Based on the evidence, the jury
07:33concluded that Jowers and others were part of a conspiracy to kill King and awarded the family the
07:39symbolic 100 dollars they requested in damages. The allegations and the finding of the Memphis jury
07:45were later disputed by the United States Department of Justice in 2000 due to perceived lack of evidence.
07:51The assassination was one of four major assassinations in the 1960s in the United States,
07:57coming several years after the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, and the assassination of Malcolm X,
08:041965, and two months before the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in June 1968. As early as the mid-1950s,
08:12King had received death threats because of his prominence in the civil rights movement. He had
08:18confronted the risk of death including a nearly fatal stabbing in 1958 and made its recognition part of
08:24his philosophy. He taught that murder could not stop the struggle for equal rights. After the assassination of
08:32President Kennedy in 1963, King told his wife, Coretta Scott King, this is what is going to happen to me
08:39also. I keep telling you, this is a sick society. King traveled to Memphis, Tennessee in support of
08:46striking African-American city sanitation workers. The workers had staged a walkout on February 11, 1968,
08:54to protest unequal wages and working conditions imposed by Mayor Henry Loeb. At the time,
09:02Memphis paid black workers significantly lower wages than it did white workers. There were no city issued
09:08uniforms, no restrooms, no recognized union, and no grievance procedure for the numerous occasions on
09:15which they were underpaid. During Loeb's tenure as mayor, conditions did not significantly improve,
09:22and the gruesome February 1968 deaths of two workers in a garbage compacting truck turned
09:29mounting tensions into a strike. King participated in a massive march in Memphis on March 28, 1968,
09:37which ended in violence. As the truck was going back to the workplace, the truck turned on in the back,
09:47and Mr. Cole was sitting in the truck. Dad was in the truck, but he was standing up, and once the truck
09:57began to move, Mr. Cole tried to get out the truck, but his shoes continued to flip and flip, and Dad realized
10:07that the truck was coming down, and he reached for him to get him to help him.
10:19And while helping him, it engulfed both of them.
10:23And what happened to him,
10:36I will never forget.
10:38And they came knocking on my door, and I told my mom, I said, there's two police cars out there.
10:45And I said, Mom, I said, they come and tell us that our daddy was gone. And she said,
10:52go on, girl. Get on over there. You know what you're talking about. You're just eight years old.
10:55I said, no, Mom, they come and tell your daddy is gone. And when she opened the door,
11:00they told me my dad was gone, and she fell. And we were just crying, and they said, we need all y'all
11:08to come to the hospital and identify y'all dead. I think it looked like Dad Holland get up,
11:25and him not being able to get up, I could see him
11:38just reaching for him and pulling. I ain't caring about his life.
11:59When they got him out, they told my mom that their hands was locked
12:07into each other. My dad and Mr. Cole. My father's death and Mr. Cole's death set off a fire in black
12:23people. And that fire gave them strength. There was no fear there. And they went demanding freedom.
12:37Martin Luther King. Martin Luther King, he was already in place. He knew it was going to be some hot
12:44eggs. He knew it was going to be some big losses. But to get to what we was asking for, praying for,
12:55someone had to give up something.
12:57I had to give up then.
13:05On April 3rd, King returned to Memphis to attend a successful New March later that week. His airline
13:11flight to Memphis was delayed by a bomb threat, but he arrived in time to make a planned speech to a
13:17gathering at the Mason Temple, world headquarters of the Church of God and Christ. At the Mason Temple,
13:23King delivered his famous, I've been to the mountaintop speech. In it, he recalled his 1958
13:30attempted assassination, noting that the doctor who treated him had said that because the knife
13:35used to stab him was so close to his aorta, any sudden movement, even a sneeze might have killed him.
13:41He referred to a letter written by a young girl who told him that she was happy that he had not sneezed.
13:46He used that reference to say, I too am happy that I didn't sneeze, because if I had sneezed,
13:52I wouldn't have been around here in 1960, when students all over the South started sitting in
13:58at lunch counters. If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around here in 1961, when we decided to
14:04take a ride for freedom and ended segregation and interstate travel. King repeated the phrase,
14:11if I had sneezed several more times, recalling numerous other events and acts of civil disobedience
14:18from the previous several years, the Albany Movement 1962, the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
14:25in 1963, and the Selma to Montgomery March 1965. As he neared the close, he prophetically referred to the
14:34the bomb parade of the freedom of assembly, somewhere I read, of the freedom of speech,
14:41somewhere I read, of the freedom of press, somewhere I read, that the greatness of America
14:50is the right to protest for right. And so just as I say we aren't going to let any dogs or water
15:03hoses turn us around, we aren't going to let any injunction turn us around.
15:10Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead, but it really doesn't
15:25matter with me now, because I've been to the mountain top. I don't mind.
15:31Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place, but I'm not concerned about
15:47that now. I just want to do God's will, and he's allowed me to go up to the mountain.
15:55And I've looked over, and I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to
16:08know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land.
16:14So I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man.
16:26Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.
16:33On Thursday, April 4th, 1968, King was staying in room 306 at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis.
16:41The motel was owned by businessman Walter Bailey and was named after his wife. Ralph Abernathy,
16:47a colleague and friend, later told the House Suspect Committee on Assassinations that he and King had
16:54stayed in room 306 at the Lorraine Motel so often that it was known as the King Abernathy Suite.
17:02According to biographer Taylor Branch, King's last words were to musician Ben Branch,
17:07who was scheduled to reform that night at a planned event. King said, Ben, make sure to play Take My Hand,
17:14Precious Lord, in the meeting tonight. Play it real pretty. According to Reverend Samuel Kyles,
17:21who was standing several feet away, King was leaning over the balcony railing in front of room 306 and was
17:27speaking with Reverend Jesse Jackson when the shock rang out. King was struck in the face at 6.01 pm
17:35by a single .30-06 bullet fired from a Remington Model 760 rifle. The bullet entered through King's
17:43right cheek, breaking his jaw and several vertebrae as it traveled down his spinal cord, severing his
17:50jugular vein and major arteries in the process before lodging in his shoulder. The force of the shot
17:57ripped King's necktie off. King fell backward onto the balcony unconscious. Albernathy heard the shot
18:05from inside the motel room and ran to the balcony to find King on the deck. Bleeding profusely from the
18:11wound in his cheek, Jesse Jackson stated after the shooting that he cradled King's head as King lay on
18:18the balcony, but this account was disputed by other colleagues of King. Jackson later changed his statement
18:24to say that he had reached out for King. Andrew Young, a colleague from the Southern Christian
18:30Leadership Conference, first believed King was dead but found he still had a pulse. King was rushed to
18:37St. Joseph's Hospital where doctors opened his chest and performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
18:44He never regained consciousness and died at 7.05 pm. According to Branch, King's autopsy revealed that
18:51his heart was in the condition of a 60-year-old man rather than that of a 39-year-old such as King,
18:57which Branch attributed to the stress of King's 13 years in the Civil Rights Movement. Shortly after
19:03the shot was fired, witnesses saw a man, later believed to be James Earl Ray, fleeing from a rooming
19:10house across the street from the Lorraine Motel. Ray had been renting a room in the boarding house.
19:16Dr. King left his room, 306, at the Lorraine Hotel just before dinner to get some air. He walked
19:22over to the railing at this spot, and noticing some friends below, he leaned over and began to speak
19:29with them. Police say, 205 feet away, in a window in a block house, the assassin waited. He waited,
19:37police believed, in a bathroom down the hall from the room he rented but four hours earlier. To get a clear
19:43shot of his victim, the assassin apparently had to stand in the bathtub, leaning forward to brace his
19:49arms on the window ledge to steady his rifle. And this was the view he got. He fired a single shot,
19:55hitting his target squarely, and then he ran. Out of the bathroom and along the decrepit hallway,
20:00turning, he raced down the rickety wood stairs and out. One policeman said he simply failed.
20:06Police found a package dumped close to the site that included a rifle and binoculars,
20:11both with Ray's fingerprints. Ray had purchased the rifle under an alias six days earlier. A worldwide
20:19manhunt was triggered that culminated in Ray's arrest at Heathrow Airport, London, two months later.
20:26On March 10th, 1969, he pleaded guilty to the first-degree murder of Martin Luther King Jr.,
20:33which was later recanted. King's widow, Corinna, had difficulty informing her children that their father
20:40was dead. She received a large number of telegrams, including one from Lee Harvey Oswald's mother,
20:46that she regarded as the one that had touched her the most. For some, King's assassination meant
20:52the end of the strategy of nonviolence. Others in the movement reaffirmed the need to carry on
20:58King's and the movement's work. Leaders within the SCLC confirmed that they would carry on the Poor
21:06People's Campaign that year, despite the loss of King. Some black leaders argued the need to continue
21:13King's and the movement's tradition of nonviolence. During the day of the assassination, while on the
21:18campaign trail for the Democratic presidential nomination in Indiana, Senator Robert F. Kennedy
21:25learned of the shooting before boarding a plane to Indianapolis. Kennedy was scheduled to make a speech
21:30there in a predominantly black neighborhood. Kennedy did not learn that King had died until he landed
21:36in Indianapolis. Kennedy's press secretary, Frank Mankiewicz, suggested that he ask the audience to
21:43pray for the King family and to follow King's practice of nonviolence. Mankiewicz and speechwriter Adam
21:51Walensky drafted notes for Kennedy's use, but he refused them, using some that he had likely written
21:57during the ride to the site of the speech. The Indianapolis chief of police advised Kennedy that
22:02he could not provide him protection and was worried that he would be at risk when talking about King's
22:08death before the predominantly black crowd. However, Kennedy decided to proceed. Standing on a flatbed truck,
22:16he spoke for 4 minutes and 57 seconds. Kennedy was the first to tell the audience that King had died.
22:23Some of the attendees screamed and wailed in grief. Several of Kennedy's aides were worried that the
22:28delivery of this information would result in a riot. When the audience quieted, Kennedy acknowledged that
22:34many would be filled with anger. He said, for those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with
22:40hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act against all white people, I would only say that I can also
22:46feel in my own heart at the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed
22:52by a white man. These remarks surprised his aides, who had never heard him speak publicly of his
22:58brother's death. Kennedy said that the country had to make an effort to go beyond these rather difficult
23:03times and quoted a poem by the Greek playwright, Aeschylus. Even in our sleep, pain which cannot
23:10forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom
23:17through the awful grace of God. In conclusion, he said that the country needed and wanted unity
23:22between blacks and whites and asked the audience members to pray for the King family and the country,
23:28again quoting the Greeks. Kennedy's speech was credited with assisting in the prevention of
23:34post-assassination rioting in Indianapolis on a night when such events broke out in major cities
23:41across the country. It is likely considered one of the greatest speeches in American history. I agree.
23:46Do they know about Martin Luther King?
23:57Could you lower those signs, please?
24:01I have some very sad news for all of you, and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed
24:09tonight in Memphis. Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow
24:27human beings. He died in the cause of that effort.
24:33In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it's perhaps well to ask what
24:44kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in. For those of you who are black,
24:53considering the evidence evidently is that there were white people who were responsible,
24:59you can be filled with bitterness and with hatred and a desire for revenge.
25:10We can move in that direction as a country in greater polarization. Black people amongst blacks and white
25:19amongst whites, filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort as Martin Luther King did,
25:29to understand and to comprehend and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that is spread across
25:38our land with an effort to understand, compassion and love. For those of you who are black
25:52black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act against all white
26:04people, I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member
26:14of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man. But we have to make an effort in the United States. We have to
26:24make an effort to understand, to get beyond or go beyond these rather difficult times. My favorite poem, my
26:32my favorite poet was Aeschylus, and he once wrote,
26:41Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own day,
26:52despair against our will comes wisdom through the awful grace of god what we need in the united
27:01states is not division what we need in the united states is not hatred what we need in the united
27:08states is not violence and lawlessness but is love and wisdom and compassion toward one another
27:17feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country whether they be white or whether
27:26they be black we can do well in this country we will have difficult times we've had difficult times
27:44in the past but we will and we will have difficult times in the future it is not the end of violence
27:50it is not the end of lawlessness and it's not the end of disorder but the vast majority of white
27:57people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together want to improve
28:06the quality of our life and want justice for all human beings that abide in our land with
28:21and what dedicate ourselves to what the greeks wrote so many years ago
28:27to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world
28:32let us dedicate ourselves to that and say a prayer for our country and for our people thank you very much
28:45kennedy cancelled all of his scheduled campaign appearances and withdrew to his hotel room several
28:52phone conversations with black community leaders convinced him to speak out against the violent backlash
28:58beginning to emerge across the country the next day kennedy gave a prepared response on the mindless
29:04menace of violence in cleveland ohio although still considered significant it is given much less
29:10historical attention than is the indianapolis speech president lindon b johnson was in the oval office that
29:17evening planning a meeting in hawaii with vietnam war military commanders after press secretary george christian
29:25informed him at 8 20 pm of the assassination he canceled the trip to focus on the nation
29:31he assigned attorney general ramsey clark to investigate the assassination in memphis he made a
29:38personal call to king's wife coretta scott king and declared april 7th a national day of mourning on
29:44which the u.s flag would be flown at half staff colleagues of king and the civil rights movement
29:50called for a non-violent response to the assassination to honor his most deeply held beliefs james farmer
29:57jr said dr king would be greatly distressed to find that his blood had triggered off bloodshed
30:04and disorder i think instead the nation should be quiet black and white and we should be in a prayerful
30:10mood which would be in keeping with his life we should make that kind of dedication and commitment to
30:15the goals which his life served to solving the domestic problems that's the memorial that's the
30:22kind of memorial we should build for him it's just not appropriate for there to be violent retaliations
30:29and that kind of demonstration in the wake of the murder of this pacifist and man of peace however
30:35the more militant stokely carmichael called for forceful action saying white america killed dr king last
30:43night she made it a whole lot easier for a whole lot of black people today there no longer needs to
30:48be intellectual discussions black people know that they have to get guns white america will live to
30:55cry that she killed dr king last night it would have been better if she had killed rat brown and or
31:01stokely carmichael because when she killed dr king she lost
31:06despite the urging for calm by many leaders wave of riots erupted in more than 100 cities
31:15after the assassination the city of memphis quickly settled the strike on favorable terms
31:21to the sanitation workers since it is impractical for the negro to even think of mounting a violent
31:29revolution in the united states so i will continue to condemn riots and continue to say to my brothers
31:38and sisters that this is not the way continue to affirm that there is another way but at the same time
31:51it is as necessary for me to be as vigorous in condemning the conditions
31:59which cause persons to feel that they must engage in riotous activities as it is for me to condemn riots
32:09i think america must see riots do not develop out of thin air certain conditions continue to exist in our
32:20society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots then the final analysis a riot is the
32:31language of the unheard what is it that america has failed to hear it has failed to hear that the
32:38plight of the negro poor has worsened over the last few years it has failed to hear that the promises of
32:46freedom and justice have not been met and it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are
32:54more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice equality and humanity
33:02so in a real sense our nation's summers of riots are caused by our nation's winters of delay
33:11and as long as america postpones justice we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and
33:22riots over and over again social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention
33:36who's what's going on
33:59on april 8th king's widow coretta scott king and her four young children led a crowd estimated at 40
34:06000 in a silent march through the streets of memphis to honor king and support the cause of the city's
34:13black sanitation workers the next day funeral rites were held in king's hometown of atlanta georgia
34:20the service at ebenezer baptist church was nationally televised as were other events a funeral procession
34:28transported king's body for three and a half miles through the streets of atlanta followed by more
34:33than 100 000 mourners from the church to his alma mater morehouse college a second service was held
34:40there before the burial in the wake of king's assassination journalists reported some callous
34:46or hostile reactions from parts of white america particularly in the south oh geez who would have
34:52thought david halberstrom who reported on king's funeral recounted a comment heard at an affluent white
34:59dinner party one of the wives station wagon three children 45 000 house leaned over and said i wish
35:07you had spit in his face for me it was a stunning moment i wondered for a long time afterwards what
35:13king could possibly have done to her in what conceivable way he could have threatened her why this
35:19passionate hate reporters recounted that many whites were also grief-stricken at the leader's death
35:25in some cases the shock of events altered opinions a survey later sent to a group of college trustees
35:32revealed that their opinions of king had risen after his assassination the new york times praised
35:37king in an editorial calling his murder a national disaster and his cause just public figures generally
35:46praised king in the days following his death others expressed political ideology governor george wallace
35:52of alabama known as a segregationist described the assassination as a senseless regrettable act
36:07governor lester maddox of georgia called king an enemy of our country and threatened to personally
36:13raise the state capital flag back from half staff california governor ronald reagan described the
36:20assassination as a great tragedy that began when we began compromising with law and order or we will cease
36:29to have a country i am the law and order candidate
36:41and people started choosing which laws they break strump thurman wrote to his constituents
36:48we are now witnessing the whirlwind sewed years ago when some preachers and teachers began telling
36:54people that each man could be his own judge in his own case the fbi bureau of investigation was assigned
37:01the lead to investigate king's death j edgar hoover who had previously made efforts to undermine king's
37:10reputation told president johnson that his agency would attempt to find the culprit or culprits
37:17many documents related to the investigation remain classified and are stated to remain secret until
37:232027 in 2010 as in earlier years some argued for passage of a proposed records collection act similar to a
37:331992 law concerning the kennedy assassination to require the immediate release of the records measure did not
37:41pass a crowd of 300 000 attended king's funeral on april 9th vice president hubert humphrey attended on behalf
37:52of johnson who was at a meeting on the vietnam war at camp david never fears that johnson might be hit with
37:58protests and abuse over the war if he attended the funeral at his widow's request king's last sermon at
38:04ebenezer baptist church was played at the funeral it was a recording of his drum major sermon given on
38:11february 4th 1968 in that sermon he asked that at his funeral no mention of his awards and honors be made
38:19but that it be said he tried to feed the hungry clothe the naked be right on the vietnam war question
38:25and love and serve humanity the fbi investigation found fingerprints on various objects left in the
38:31bathroom from which the gunfire had come evidence included a remington game master rifle from which
38:38at least one shot had been fired fingerprints were traced to an escaped convict named james earl ray
38:45two months after assassinating king ray was captured at london's heathrow airport while he was trying
38:51to depart the united kingdom for white supremacist slash colonial regimes in southern africa including
38:59portuguese angola rhodesia zimbabwe or partied south africa on a false canadian passport in the name of
39:08raymond george sneed ray was quickly extradited to tennessee and charged with king's murder
39:15even at that one moment that you know what life is
39:26if you have to die it's all right
39:30because you know what life is
39:34you know you know what freedom is for one moment of your life
39:43what's gonna happen
39:48now that the king of love
39:54is there
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