Compelling People by John Neffinger & Matthew Kohut

Author:John Neffinger & Matthew Kohut [Neffinger, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781101623619
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2013-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

Verbal Warmth: The Circle

“My uncle said there are two kinds of people in Barrington, Rhode Island: those who belong, and those who don’t.”

—Spalding Gray

It was just supposed to be a short speech that night in Indianapolis, like many he had given before. Then he got the shattering news. He knew what had to happen next: This white man would have to tell the largely black crowd that Martin Luther King was dead. Stepping up to the microphone bearing that news felt like walking up to a powder keg with a lit match. The city police had said flat out that they would not be able to protect him if a riot broke out.

He got right to it. “I have some very sad news for all of you, and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee.” A chorus of screams erupted, and then the shocked crowd fell silent. “Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings. He died in the cause of that effort. In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it is perhaps well to ask what kind of nation we are, and what direction we want to move in.”

Then he looked at the crowd, at the many black faces looking back at him, and he spoke directly to them. “For those of you who are black, considering the evidence there evidently is that there were white people who were responsible, you can be filled with bitterness, and with hatred, and a desire for revenge. We can move in that direction as a country, and greater polarization, black people amongst blacks, and white amongst whites, filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand, and to comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion and love. For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man.”

Robert Kennedy spoke for another minute or two, and then everyone went home. Over the following days, riots erupted in more than a hundred American cities, killing thirty-five people and wounding several thousand more. But not in Indianapolis. Indianapolis remained at peace.

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