Volume 10, Number 9 · May 9, 1968
The Apotheosis of Martin Luther King
By Elizabeth Hardwick
The decaying, downtown shopping section of memphis—still another Main Street—lay, the weekend before Martin Luther King's funeral, under a siege. The deranging curfew and that state of civic existence called 'tension' made the town seem to be sinister, like some long considered and carefully constructed film set of alienation, breakdown, catastrophe. The scene was empty, yet alive with possibilities for appalling drama. In the silence, the sudden horn of a tug gliding up the dark Mississippi made one jump. The hotel was a tomb, shabby, poorly staffed by aged persons, not grown old in their duties, but newly hired, untrained, depressed, wornout old people. The march was called for the next day, a march originally planned by King as a renewal of his efforts in the Memphis garbage strike, efforts interrupted by a riot the week before. Perhaps there was fear, and yet a humidity of smugness seemed to hang over the white people. Curfew, National Guard, dire warnings, kids home from school, bank and ten-cent store closed: if one was not in clear danger there seemed a complacent pleasure in thinking WE have been brought to this by THEM. 'You! You there in the yard. You git back in here!'
Feature, 2966 words
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