It was on April 4, 1968 that Dr. Martin Luther King, the Black civil rights leader, was killed in Memphis, Tennessee. It was a generation ago, when overt racism raged, a time and a system largely unknown and unfamiliar to most of younger generation under 40 years, who are today showing that race is not really a major factor in selecting a national leader.

But in 1968, for the then generation, especially those that lived in the Southern United States, racism was blatant. In fact, the events leading to the assassination of King were the direct result of racist practices.

Prior to King’s assassination in 1968, sanitation workers in Memphis were restive over the conditions under which they worked. They were underpaid at about $1.27 per hour, with no overtime. Some carried garbage on their heads in metal tubs which leaked stink refuse, including maggots, on their heads. Some of these workers stunk so badly at the end of the day that they could not take the bus home for fear of offending passengers.

Then, early in 1968 two sanitation workers were crushed to death after sheltering from rain in a garbage truck. The truck’s hydraulic compactor, that compact garbage, malfunctioned crushing the men. This incident followed several complaints about the conditions of the trucks – complaints that were ignored by the city. At that time garbage men, most of whom were Black, were not given much regard or respect. The men’s death led to a strike by over 1,100 sanitation, sewer and drainage workers requesting raises and better working conditions, but the mayor, Henry Loeb, ignored the pleas. The strike escalated, attracting national union leaders, preachers, college students, and members of the Black Power movement who didn’t share King’s non-violent strategy.

On February 23, the strike erupted in violence as the strikers marched through Memphis. The Black strikers were beaten with sticks by the police and sprayed with Mace. Following this violent outbreak, King was invited to Memphis to rally the waning spirits of the striking workers. Ironically, reports of that speech were not too dissimilar to the much publicized speech made by the Reverend Jeremiah Wright at his Chicago church. King told the strikers that it was a crime for the citizens of wealthy America to live on starvation wages, and that America would go to hell for failing its humblest citizens. He encouraged the strikers to step up the protest and to plan a work stoppage that would shut down Memphis, involving teachers, students, mechanics, maids, clerks, and sanitation workers. A major march was planned to be led by King on March 28 that year. But, unlike other marches led by King, it turned out to be disorderly with marchers shoving and jostling to be near to their leader. Some of the young people, who were involved in the Black Power movement, smashed storefront windows with bricks and pipes as they marched along Memphis streets. The march turned into a mob, with police tear-gassing and beating looters. As the violence escalated, King’s aides, fearing for his safety, led him away.

The March was alien to King’s philosophy of non-violence, and he felt that it had damaged his credibility, so he decided to return and lead the type of peaceful march that had proved successful throughout his civil rights movement. In planning this march to be held in April, King commented “Either the movement lives or dies in Memphis,” On the evening of April 4, King and the movement were killed in Memphis. On the preceding evening King made a speech in which he prophesized his death, telling his large audience, “I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know that tonight we as a people will get to the Promised Land.”

Forty years later, are we about to get to that Promised Land? If we were to depend on the attitude of the generation of Americans born within the last forty years, this may be a reality. Unlike the Black adults of the 1960’s who were either too burnt by the ravages of racism, or the White adults who shut out their Black neighbors, believing that they were not equals, to see that Promised Land, the new generation has shown that it is much more accepting of racial equality. The new generation has grown to play together, love together, and work together in situations that hardly existed or were acceptable in the 1960’s. The younger generation has indicated that more than any other group, except Blacks, it supports the candidacy of a Black candidate running for president of the USA.

Now, when the racial controversy raises its ugly head, as it often does, and recently did, it is usually the people of that older generation who are the main perpetuators. It does appear that as the generation of the 60s phases out to be replaced by that of the post 60s, the American society draws closer to the Promised Land that King saw that April 3 night in 1968. It has taken America 40 years to reach to the periphery of that Land, and one can almost hear the collective prayer that it will be only a matter of months before we reach that Land. If we do; if we really reach the Promised Land it will be largely due to the new generation that has the courage to cast off the yolk that for well over 40 years held Americans as racist hostages. It may be the new generation that learned from the trials and even the stupidity of that older generation, that would make us, in King’s famous words, “Free at last,” really “Free at last.”