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Show In Memorium: King's Dream Turned Nightmare By MARYBETH MEFFERT Dr. Martin Luther King was a man who had a dream and watched that dream turn into a nightmare. But he never lost faith in either the idtimate end of the nightmare or the ultimate fulfillment of the dream. He lived to see neither. He did not live to see either the end of a icar which he abhorred, ab-horred, or the birth of justice and tolerance in a country which was not worthy of the faith he placed in it. Martin Luther King was a sane man in a sick society. He teas a good ma?i fighting an evil system. More than any other one man, Dr. King had it within power to save black America from white America, and white America from itself. During his leadership of the civil rights movement, Dr. King had to contend not only with the bigotry and savagery of the white community, but also with the hostility of black nationalists who, after taking a good long look at white America, Amer-ica, rejected his nonviolent revolution as impossible. A holo-cause holo-cause of racist hatred surrounded the man, and yet he himself seemed incapable of hatred. During years that were filled with threatening phone calls, threatening letters, and numerous attempts on his life, he emerged time and again undaunted and unembittered. Now he is dead. We must realize that the blame for the death of Dr. Martin Luther King rests not only on a single trigger-happy madman, but on a society which consciously encouraged racism, the desire for wanton violence, and a total disrespect for human life. Dallas, Texas, 1963 and Memphis, Tennessee, 1968, have demonstrated quite vividly the fact that America does not tolerate tol-erate her leaders for very long. The sick society must reject its sane physicians. The immoral system must stifle all critics who would demand that it be moral. Remembering the man himself, all eulogies are trite and inadequate. The horror of Thursday evening, April It, 1968 will extend far beyond the present and into the future. We have lost a man we could not afford to lose. |
