Our tour bus parked on a side street. We got off the bus and headed up the hill, The Lorraine Motel sign as our beacon.
I got to the top of the slope and looked to my right. The sudden view of the hotel balcony was like a gentle gut punch. In my mind’s eye I could see the iconic image of Reverend Martin Luther King lying dead on the balcony, one man kneeling at his side and others pointing across the street.
I began to sob. I don’t like people seeing me cry and moved away a bit from our group and guide, my husband comforting me. I put my camera between me and the scene before me. I recorded the building and the bricks below my feet.
The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered April 4th, 1968.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. was murdered two months later on June 6th, 1968.
Elvis Presley was preparing to film his Comeback Special for NBC in June of 1968. Since it would air in December of that year there was some suggestion of the special being a Christmas special and that the final song would be a Christmas song. Elvis was upset enough about the murders of MLK and RFK that he asked one of his writers, Walter Earl Brown to write a song. He patterned it on MLK’s I Have A Dream speech and it was titled If I Can Dream. It was the last song in the Comeback Special. Over 40 million people watched the special.
Link to You Tube video of Elvis singing “If I Can Dream”:
(If link does not work, the video can be found by searching for Elvis If I Can Dream)
Link to article about Elvis supposed Racism:
https://jimcrowmuseum.ferris.edu/question/2006/march.htm
Other Sources: Wikipedia.org, Graceland.com, youtube.com
Photos by B. McCreary
Natural Musings 