Martin Luther King Remembered

McKENZIE (January 20) — Defying the cold weather, a small group of area citizens rallied and marched in memory of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in celebration of his birthday.

Starting at Webb High School in McKenzie, the group walked in 15 degree temperatures along Walnut, Main Street, Cedar Street, South Main, and back onto Walnut to end at Webb School.

Webb was an African-American school that closed in the 1960s following the signing of the Civil Rights Act by President Lyndon Johnson. The students of that school integrated into the public schools throughout the area, mainly in Carroll County.

Dr. King led marches to bring attention to the disparities in civil rights. His most famous was the “I Have A Dream” speech in Washington, D.C. He was assassinated in Memphis while visiting their to support the sanitation workers. The Tennessee National Guard, including soldiers from Carroll County, were sent to Memphis as peacekeepers following his assassination.

In 1968, King was planning a national occupation of Washington, D.C., to be called the Poor People’s Campaign, when he was assassinated on April 4 in Memphis, Tennessee. James Earl Ray, a fugitive from the Missouri State Penitentiary, was convicted of the assassination, though the King family believes he was a scapegoat. After a 1999 wrongful death lawsuit ruling named unspecified “government agencies” among the co-conspirators,[4] a Department of Justice investigation found no evidence of a conspiracy. The assassination remains the subject of conspiracy theories. King’s death was followed by national mourning, as well as anger leading to riots in many U.S. cities. King was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2003. Martin Luther King Jr. Day was established as a holiday in cities and states throughout the United States beginning in 1971; the federal holiday was first observed in 1986. The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., was dedicated in 2011.