Atlanta
04 April 2008
The assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was remembered on Friday in the southeastern United States -- where he was born and preached and where he was shot dead 40 years ago. Mike Cooper reports from the slain civil rights leader's hometown of Atlanta, Georgia.
Also in Atlanta, the King National Historic Site opened a new exhibition in remembrance of King's assassination 40 years ago. It includes the wooden wagon, pulled by mules, that led King's 1968 funeral procession and a march by 200,000 people through Atlanta streets. In the state of Indiana, Barack Obama, who could become the first African-American to win a presidential nomination, remembered King's message during a town hall meeting.
"This is the struggle that brought back Dr. King to Memphis. It was a struggle for economic justice for the opportunity that should be available to people of all races and from all walks of life. Because Dr. King understood that the struggle for economic justice and the struggle for racial justice were really one that each was a part of a larger struggle for freedom for dignity and for humanity," he said.
In Memphis, Tennessee, where King was shot by James Earl Ray, presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Senator John McCain delivered speeches.
Also in Memphis, about 1,000 people marched in the rain to remember King -- and the strike by sanitation workers that brought King to Memphis, where he was shot and killed on a downtown hotel balcony.