Still MORE of What We’ve Done to Ourselves

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While in Memphis I made a quick pilgrimage to see the Lorraine Motel, site of the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King on April 4, 1968. April 4 Shots ring out in the Memphis sky Free at last, they took your life (U2, “Pride (In the Name of Love)”) The Lorraine Motel is now part of a Civil Rights Museum, which also has displays in the boarding house from which James Earl Ray shot Rev. King. I didn’t tour the museum (I had already walked five miles by the time I got there), but I did come to see the balcony where King’s life ended. The balcony, outside of room 306, is marked with a wreath. John and I have been detailing our stops at Civil War monuments in our individual travels. The aftermath of King’s assassination threatened to unleash another civil war on Americans. Dozens died in rioting. Troops guarded the White House. Things were so tense that an explosion and fire at a gun shop in Richmond, Indiana was quickly reported as NOT related to the rioting. So much has changed. And yet so little was learned.