FEATURE
By Brother Vic Carter
KING REMEMBERED:
ENDURING LESSONS FROM KING Dateline: April 4, 1968 - Radford, VA.
I
was 10-years old and my sister, Karan, and I were playing outside in the front yard of our small home at 1325 Staples Street. It was a warm Spring day and we wanted to take advantage of every possible moment. My mother, Sybil Carter, swung open the front door of our white clapboard house and called to us, ordering us to come inside. As we approached we heard crying from inside and knew immediately that something terrible had happened. My mother “did hair” and one of her customers, Mrs. Esterline Coles, sat with shoulders wrapped in a towel and her hair barely pressed. They were in the living room along with my three other sisters and they were glued to the small black and white television MLK JR. SPECIAL EDITION 2018
as news anchor Walter Cronkite delivered the stunning news: “Dr. Martin Luther King, the Apostle of Non-Violence, has been shot to death in Memphis, Tennessee. Police have issued an All Points Bulletin for a well-dressed, young white man seen running from the scene. Police also reportedly chased and fired on a radio equipped car containing two white men. Dr. King was standing on the balcony of his second floor hotel room tonight, when according to a companion, a shot was fired from across the street. In the friend’s words, ‘the bullet exploded in his face.’”
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