Translation
courtesy of
Martin Luther King's dream into a nightmare
NATHALIE DUBOIS DAILY: Friday, April 4, 2008 ANegro ANegro killed in Memphis "(1), as the New York Times, March 29, 1968. The day before, a demonstration of support for collectors in the capital of Tennessee, led by Martin Luther King, had degenerated into riots. A 16-year-old Black was shot dead by police and the pastor Nobel Peace Prize left walking, disgusted. In order to prove that his ideal of non-violence is not dead, he promised to return for another event. That brings him back to Memphis a few days later. On April 4, 1968, at 18 h 01, Martin Luther King just shave and dress to go to dinner when fate on the balcony of his room in the Lorraine Motel. A rifle bullet pierces his throat, ending thirteen years of stubborn battle against racial segregation in the United States.
"Death spiritual"
Nonviolent action, including the pastor, great-grandson of a slave, was the standard-bearer "has shocked the conscience of America and forced the legislature to radical reforms on the Status of Blacks" ( 2).
Some legal conquests completed in 1964 and 1965 by Lyndon Johnson with the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act.
But the recognition of these rights are already enrolled for a long time in the Constitution, does not alter the daily heartache of "people of colour", which remain at the bottom of the ladder in terms of employment, wages, housing, " education.
Pastor King is depressed.
He sees rising rage among the excluded, that racism does not declining among affluent.
Another concern, the black movement will crack.
The creation of the Black Panthers Party, in October 1966, enshrines the rise of the hardliners, who considers Luther King as too nice "Uncle Tom" refuses to compromise with the white power.
The student leader Stokely Carmichael no longer afraid to shout the slogan, "black power".
Faced with the young revolutionaries, Luther King was convinced that concrete action in the field - that he has undertaken to Chicago to the upgrading of slums and housing desegregation - is the correct answer.
But the inertia of the authorities as racism hate to be unleashed in white neighborhoods have douché the dream of the pastor.
America, are they aware, is far more patient than it thought.
(1) Until the early 70's, the word "negro" is a frequently used, even by blacks, and is not yet pejorative.
It is Jesse Jackson who, in 1988, advocated the use of the term African-Americans, which was imposed today.
(2) Martin Luther King, "Against all the exclusions, Vincent Roussel, ed.
Desclée de Brouwer, 1994.