Newspaper Page Text
Page 7
Maroon Tiger
May, 1968
Try These
Anderson, S.E. “Toward Racial Relevancy:
Militancy and the Black Student,” Negro
Digest, September, 1967, pp. 12—17.
Cmse, Harold The Crisis of the Negro Intel
lectual: From Its Origins to the Present.
New York: William Morrow & Co.Jnc.,1967.
Dunbar, Ernest. “The Black Revolt Hits the
White Campus, ” Look, October 31,
1967, pp. 27, 31. ,
Farber, Jerry. “The Student as NIGGER, ”
First Issue, Cornell University, January 29,
1968. pp. 2-5.
Hamilton, Charles V. “The Place of the Black
College in the Human Rights Straggle,”
Negro Digest, September, 1967, pp. 4—10.
Jencks, Christopher and Reissman, David.
“The American Negro College,” Harvard
Educational Review, 37:1, 1967.
Miller, S. M. Breaking the Credentials Barrier.
New York: Office of Reports, Ford Founda
tion (330 E. 43 St.), 1968.
Rosenthal, Robert and Jacobson, Lenore F.
“Teacher Expectations for the Disadvan
taged,” Scientific American, April, 1968,
pp. 19-23.
Wilcox, Preston R. Proposal for I. S. 201
Complex Community Education Center. New
York: MUST (235 E. 49 St.), Feb. 28, 1968,
27 pps.
Wilcox, Preston R. The School and the Com
munity with Special Concern for Higher Edu
cation: The Black Position. New York:
MUST,Feb. 26,1968.16 pp. (mimeographed)
A Compendium of Federal Education Laws.
Washington, D. C.: Committee on Education
and Labor, House of Representatives, 1967.
533 pp.
Distribution of Educational Resources A-
mong the Brotvc Public Schools. Bronx,
N. Y.: United Bronx Parents, April, 1968.
14 pp. + Resources.
Operation Bootstrap: Inter-relationship of
Education and Employment. Los Angeles:
Operation Bootstrap (4171 So. Central Ave.),
1966. (A one-page chart)
“Professors: The Dissenters,” TIME,
April 5, 1968, p. 69.
Proposed Central Brooklyn College Oppor
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for Community Improvement, 1967. 18 pp.
(mimeographed)
(Continued from Page 1)
200,000 PAY FINAL TRIBUTE TO REV. DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
More than 50,000 persons were standing outside the Ebenezer Church where King and his father shared the
pulpit for eight years, as the service there began at 10:45 a.m. - 15 minutes later than scheduled.
The 1,300 persons crammed inside the aging unpretentious Baptist church seemed to have their emotions
strained near breaking as Dr. King’s booming and emotionally pitched voice came to them by tape from Feb. 4.
“If any of you are around when I have to meet my day, I don’t want a long funeral. And if you get someone
to deliver the eulogy, tell him not to talk too long .... Tell him not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace Prize.
That isn’t important. Tell them not to mention that I have three or four hundred other awards. That’s not
important. Tell them not to mention where I went to school. I’d like someone to mention that day that
‘Martin Luther, King, Jr., tried to give his life serving others.’ I’d like for someone to say that day, that ‘Martin
Luther King, Jr., tried to love somebody’.... Say that I am a drum major for justice.”
But the eyes of those that heard the text were already wet. When the Ebenezer choir sang “Softly and
Tenderly,” perhaps King’s favorite hymn, the mourners began to sob and dab their eyes.
EVERY VOICE
The chorus brought forth every voice at its loudest and best - “Come home, come home. Earnestly,
tenderly, Jesus is calling - calling, ‘Oh sinner, come home.’
Mrs. King, her children, the Rev. and Mrs. Martin Luther King, Sr., and the Rev. A. D. King, brother of the
civil rights leader, were among those on the front row - in front of the African mahogany closed coffin - topped
with a cross of white carnations.
The Rev. Ralph David Abernathy, King’s successor as head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference,
presided at Ebenezer in addition to leading the march with A. D. King and presiding at Morehouse and the cemetery.
In his prayer, Ebenezer Assistant Pastor Ronald English said of King, “Here was one man truly prepared to
die . . . he has shown us how to live ... he has shown us how to love ... History once more turned on its own.
It couldn’t bear the truth he spoke.”
The Rev. William Holmes Borders of Wheat Street Baptist Church read a portion of the 90th Psalm and all
of the 23rd Psalm.
The Rev. E. H. Dorsey of Tabernacle Baptist Church read the Beatitudes from the fifth chapter of Matthew.
Dr. L. Harold De Wolfe, who taught King at Boston University and is now at Wesley Theological Seminary
in Washington, said that King “spoke with the tongue of men and of angels” and his life exemplified “faith,
hope, and love.”
“What a legacy of love he has left.”
Mrs. Mary Gurley’s rendition of “My Heavenly Father Watches Over Me” also caused the congregation to
say softly, “Yes, yes, yes.”
Abernathy spoke of experiences with King and pledged to fast until “I’m satisfied that I’m ready for the task
at hand.” He said he had not eaten since last Thursday.
STREETS LINED
The family began what Abernathy called “the pilgrimage” to the college at 12:30 p.m. A mass of persons
were waiting outside the church, in the streets, on dirt banks, and in yards and on porches. The streets were
lined.
The 4.3 mile march had a somberness and a dignity rarely seen when even a fraction of that number of per
sons gather in one place. Many of the dignitaries marched some or all of the way. Singer Harry Belafonte was
near the front with the King family.
When the marchers reached Morehouse, as many as 100,000 persons were already there for the open-air
service in front of Harkness Hall.
Six tributes were eliminated because of earlier delays. These were to have been from Atlanta Mayor Ivan
Allen; Robert Collier, chairman of the Ebenezer Church Board of Deacons; the Most Rev. John J. Wright,
bishop of Pittsburgh; Mrs. Rosa Parks, “mother” of the Montgomery Movement; the Rev. J. E. Lowery, chair
man of the SCLC Board, and the Rev. Andrew Young, SCLC vice president.
The Rev. Thomas Kilgore of Los Angeles delivered a prayer. Rabbi Herschel of the Jewish Theological
Seminary read from Isiah 53:3—9, which contains these words:
“He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief .... Surely he hath borne
our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet,we did not esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted ....”
The Rev. Franklin Fry, chairman of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches, read a por
tion of the Beatitudes.
The Ebenezer Choir, the Morehouse Glee Club, and Mahalia Jackson provided the music. Miss Jackson
sang, “Precious Lord, Take My Hand.”
In his eulogy, Dr. Benjamin Mays, president emeritus of Morehouse College, closed by saying that “if physi
cal death was the price he had to pay to rid America of prejudice and injustice, nothing could be more redemp
tive. To paraphrase the words of the immortal John Fitzgerald Kennedy, permit me to say that Martin Luther
King, Jr.’s unfinished work on earth must truly be our own.”
Mays spoke of King’s philosophy of nonviolent action,which did not stem from “fear or cowardice.
Moral courage was one of his noblest virtues.”
“. . . I make bold to assert that it took more courage for King to practice nonviolence than it took his
assassin to fire the fatal shot. The assassin is a coward; he committed his foul act and fled. When Martin Luther
disobeyed an unjust law, he accepted the consequences of his action. He never ran away and never begged for
mercy,” said Mays.
“Perhaps he was more courageous than soldiers who fight and die on the battlefield. There is an element of
compulsion in their dying,” Mays said. “But when Martin Luther faced death again and again, and finally em
braced it, there was no external pressure.”
“The man was loved by some and hated by others. If any man knew the meaning of suffering, King knew.
House bombed; living day by day for 13 years under constant threat of death; maliciously accused of being
Communist; falsely accused of being insincere and seeking the limelight for his own glory; stabbed by a member
of his own: race; slugged in a hotel lobby; jailed 30 times; occasionally deeply hurt because friends betrayed him
— and yet this man had no bitterness in his heart, no rancor in his soul, no revenge in his mind; and he went up
and down the length and breadth of this world preaching nonviolence and the redemptive power of love.”
Mays continued: “If we all love Martin Luther King, Jr., and respect him, as this crowd testifies, let us see to
it that he did not die in vain; let us see to it that we do not dishonor his name by trying to solve our problems
through rioting in the streets.”
After the eulogy, everyone joined hands and sang, “We Shall Overcome.”
From there, the casket was taken to South View, a temporary resting place for King. The family is undecided
where the body will rest permanently.
Mrs. King was composed throughout the graveside services, but did weep silently. Tears streamed down
Abernathy’s face as he said the final words over his former leader.
A much smaller crowd was on hand for the services at the cemetery, located about five miles from Morehouse
College on Jonesboro Road, near Lakewood Park and the Federal Penitentiary.