University of Virginia Library

A Murder Committed

During the last few days we
have all heard comments like
the following spoken by various
people, "Isn't it ironic that Dr.
King was killed instead of Stokley
Carmichael or Rap Brown" or "I
wish they had killed Carmichael
instead of King."

It seems these people are missing
the important meaning of
the assassination of Doctor King
or if they understand the importance
of the murder their attitude
is indicative of a very grave situation,
a situation which is likely
to be the ruin of the United
states. The point is precisely that
such a murder was committed,
whether it was Doctor King, Carmichael,
or Brown is irrelevant.
The United State was founded with
the ideas of justice and liberty
for all, which I realize sounds
rather corny to the modern intellectual,
are nonetheless ideals
we all desire to obtain. The political
assassination of Mr. King obviously
is not consistent with these
ideals.

The assassination is a symptom,
a symptom of a disease which
is decaying America and threats
to destroy it. This disease is the
moral deterioration of America
and it is as serious a threat to
the nation as cancer is to the
body. Americans have seen the
symptoms many times in recent
years. The slaying of Medgar
Evers, the assassination of a president,
women raped while people
calmly pass by murder and robbery
on our streets by the thousands
each day. It seems that we
would have heeded the warnings
and set about to cure the disease
but we haven't. Last week that
warning was felt again but instead
of a movement to correct
this decaying of our backbone,
we heard "I wish they had killed
Carmichael." So the disease continues
and there is going to be
more killings and rioting and
destruction for we haven't heeded
the warning yet and we may never.
Look about you and compare what
you envision this summer to be
with last summer and the summer
before that. Things are getting
worse and are going to get more
so and it's a waste and so contrary
to what we all want and
need.